Judge rules double-murder defendant’s rights weren’t violated during police interview

An Orange County judge ruled Friday that Costa Mesa police did not violate a double-murder defendant’s Miranda rights during a series of interviews after his arrest in 2010, meaning prosecutors will be able to use his alleged confession during an upcoming trial.

Defense lawyers for Daniel Patrick Wozniak wanted the confession thrown out based on their contention that police ignored Wozniak’s repeated requests for a lawyer while they interrogated him.

Wozniak is facing two counts of murder in the slayings of 26-year-old Army veteran Sam Herr and his tutor, 23-year-old Juri “Julie” Kibuishi. Wozniak has pleaded not guilty.

Authorities believe that after Wozniak shot Herr to death, he dismembered the body and hid parts of it in a Long Beach park. Prosecutors say he then tried to throw police off his trail by killing Kibuishi and staging her body in Herr’s Costa Mesa apartment to look as if Herr had sexually assaulted her and then fled.

During their interrogations of Wozniak in May 2010, detectives were still looking for Herr as a possible suspect in Kibuishi’s killing.

As they asked him about Herr’s whereabouts, Wozniak at times mentioned talking to a lawyer. But in most instances the statements were not a clear invocation of his right to legal counsel, which would have forced police to stop the questioning, Superior Court Judge John Conley ruled.

At other points in the interview, Wozniak clearly did ask for a lawyer, but he always quickly changed his mind and began talking to detectives again, Conley said.

In one case, the judge said, detectives got up and prepared to leave the interrogation room with Wozniak, but he returned to his chair and whispered, “I can tell you where Sam is right now.”

Most of the time, Wozniak continued speaking because he was trying to cut a deal with detectives to get out of jail so he could attend his upcoming wedding, Conley said.

Prosecutors allege that Wozniak was broke and killed Herr so he could fund his honeymoon by stealing $50,000 Herr had saved during his service in Afghanistan.

In a later interview, Wozniak asked a jailer to fetch the detectives.

In the interrogation room, detectives asked if he would like to speak to them. “With a lawyer present, yes,” Wozniak replied, according to transcripts of the interview.

Detectives said they couldn’t speak to him if he wanted a lawyer there.

Public defender Tracy LeSage argued that this was inaccurate legal advice from the officers, who knew Wozniak had a right to legal counsel during any questioning.

But Conley ruled that the officers were telling the truth from a practical standpoint. If Wozniak wanted a lawyer present, detectives would have to wait for one to be appointed and at least temporarily stop talking with him.

Faced with that, Wozniak agreed to have the conversation without a lawyer, according to the judge.

“Defendant had made up his mind to talk to officers, and that’s what he did,” Conley said.

Moments later, police say, Wozniak confessed to killing both Herr and Kibuishi.

“I’m crazy and I did it,” he said, according to grand jury transcripts.