Suspect interrogation under review after claims of coercion

Confession made in murder case in 2019

LITTLE ROCK — A Pulaski County Circuit judge is reviewing accusations by a Little Rock murder suspect that police illegally coerced him into talking after he explicitly invoked his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.

At stake is Derrick Dewayne Green’s taped confession in gunning down 20-year-old Cameron Pearson in August 2019 and whether prosecutors can play that recorded statement at Green’s trial next month.

Prosecutor Barbara Mariani and Rafael Gallaher told the judge that police did nothing wrong. Authorities are seeking a life sentence for the 29-year- old defendant but, with the legality of police questioning being challenged by the defense, prosecutors first must prove to Circuit Judge Cathi Compton that Little Rock detectives respected Green’s constitutional rights, also known as his Miranda rights, when they arrested Green the day after Pearson was killed outside a Pulaski Street house.

If Compton finds that police violated Green’s rights, the judge could bar prosecutors from using Green’s words against him at trial. Compton said she will make her decision in the coming days.

After reading Green his rights, detectives questioned him twice on tape following his arrest, and both recordings were played for the judge in a 2½ hour hearing Tuesday. Green briefly took the stand to testify that detectives had pressed him into answering their questions about the slaying even after he told them to stop.

The first interrogation was a four-minute session conducted almost immediately after Green’s arrest that ended with him quickly telling investigators Rick Harmon and Terry McDaniel that he was invoking his Fifth Amendment “right to not answer questions.”

In the second round of questioning about 90 minutes later, Green describes how Pearson sucker-punched him the day of the slaying during a dispute over a cellphone, telling investigators how he then went and got his AR-15 rifle from the pawnshop where he had hocked it, picked up bullets for the gun and went back and shot Pearson, although Green said he did not mean to kill him. Green even described where he parked his car and the path he walked to find Pearson and shoot him.

Defense attorney Bill James said the second round of questioning showed that detectives had illegally pressed Green into talking, arguing that prosecutors should be barred from using the statement at trial.

The recording clearly shows McDaniel and Green making references to a third conversation — both unrecorded and undocumented — between them, James said.

Neither Harmon nor McDaniel could account for those remarks, with Harmon telling the judge he did not remember any other conversation that would have gone on between McDaniel and Green outside the two that were recorded.

McDaniel also testified he did not remember the context for the remarks — about the incriminating evidence police have collected and the importance of telling the truth — but they are common phrases he regularly tells suspects, describing the remarks as interrogation tactics.

McDaniel said he could have made those remarks in pre-interview questioning just after Green’s arrest before the first four-minute recorded statement. To avoid wasting time, detectives have a common practice of briefly talking to suspects before recording a formal interview to make sure they are really going to submit to questioning, McDaniel testified.

McDaniel told the judge that police didn’t really need a statement from Green to make their case against him. He said they had plenty of evidence, having found eyewitnesses to the slaying who had conclusively identified Green as the killer. Police further have video and cellphone evidence that places Green in the area when Pearson was killed, he said.

Harmon and McDaniel repeatedly denied wrongdoing, telling the judge that they knew the law prohibited them from talking to Green about the slaying once he had invoked his rights but that the second interrogation was conducted at Green’s request, which is allowed by law.

The police testimony about how Green came to be questioned for a second time contradicted Green’s version of events. The officers told the judge that they had just told Green they were charging him with capital murder and taking him to jail when Green asked to smoke a cigarette before leaving.

They took him to a secure area and McDaniel gave him a cigarette, engaging in unspecified small talk, but after finishing it Green told them he wanted to tell them what had happened to “get it off his chest” so they took him back to interrogation, where he confessed, the officers testified. They said they never mentioned the murder case to Green since they knew they were prohibited from doing so.

In his testimony, Green said the officers continued to press him even after he told them to stop questioning him. He told the judge they took him for a smoke, with McDaniel urging him to answer questions.

He denied agreeing to the second interview, saying that as soon as he finished the cigarette, the detectives took him back to interrogation and started questioning him about the slaying, which led to him laying out his version of what happened.