The reading of Miranda rights is a procedure generally reserved for suspected criminals, not their victims.
But according to documents released Friday, the Nodaway County prosecutor did just that with then-15-year-old Daisy Coleman, whose allegations of sexual assault and child endangerment two years ago in Maryville, Mo. — and the lack of legal action that followed —created a national furor.
Multiple lawyers contacted by The Star called the tactic highly unusual, if not unheard of. Many suggested it could have been an effort to intimidate Daisy and her mother during depositions in July 2012. A remaining endangerment charge was still pending against Matthew Barnett, although the related sexual assault charge against the high school senior had been dropped.
Nodaway County Prosecutor Robert Rice, through his office — the door of which proclaims “Victims’ Rights Come First” — declined to comment.
“As a general practice, it is not appropriate to Mirandize someone who is a victim of an alleged crime,” said Cynthia Cordes, who during her career with the U.S. attorney’s office worked with more than 150 victims. “I would say that the last thing we would do is Mirandize a victim if we’re talking to them about the alleged crime.”
Transcripts of the depositions indicate the questioning of Daisy was a tag-team affair, with Rice taking turns with Robert Sundell, the defense attorney who was representing the accused.
The Coleman case sparked outrage in October when The Star detailed the handling of the case, in which Rice first dropped felony sex charges and then the child endangerment misdemeanor. The latter charge stemmed from allegations that Barnett had left Daisy, then 14, incapacitated in front of her home overnight in subfreezing weather.
The attention surrounding the case prompted a call for a review by a special prosecutor, and Jackson County Prosecuting Attorney Jean Peters Baker was appointed to that role. Her investigation resulted in a guilty plea by Barnett to the endangerment charge in January.
It was the records collected by Baker’s office in that review, which were unavailable in Nodaway County to The Star during its initial examination, that were released Friday.
The Miranda warning, heard on countless crime shows, stems from a 1966 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that gives a person being questioned the chance to avoid self-incrimination. The right to remain silent, the warning that anything said can be used in a court of law and the ability to have an attorney are now a deeply rooted part of the American justice system.
Some attorneys said the Miranda reading could theoretically be used by a prosecutor to prompt a witness to tell the truth, but it actually would be a redundant measure, as a deposition is by nature binding. Depositions are taken under oath and with the threat of perjury charges for false testimony.
“I’ve never been in a deposition where anybody has been Mirandized,” said Pat Peters, a former assistant Jackson County prosecutor who now has a private criminal practice. “I haven’t ever heard of that happening before.”
Shortly after the deposition sessions, the prosecutor dropped the last endangerment charge against Barnett, the grandson of a once-prominent Northeast Missouri politician and then a senior at Maryville High School.
The high-profile case dates to January 2012, when Barnett and another football player were charged for their alleged actions during and after an alcohol-infused party at Barnett’s home. A younger teen also was accused of having nonconsensual sex with Daisy’s 13-year-old friend.
The just-opened records — about which Baker’s office declined to comment — include the transcripts from the July 26, 2012, meeting when Barnett’s attorney, Sundell, deposed Daisy and her mother separately with Rice and a court reporter present. Daisy’s mother, however, observed the deposition of the girl.
“There may be questions that may be of an incriminating nature,” Rice began by telling Daisy. “...You understand that you have a right to remain silent; is that correct?”
Asked why an earlier attempt at deposition was aborted, Daisy said she was scared. “It’s just a nerve-racking thing.”
“Intimidation of victims creates an environment in which victims feel they are being held responsible for the crime,” said Angie Blumel, director of advocacy services with the Metropolitan Organization to Counter Sexual Assault, in an email regarding reading alleged victims their Miranda rights.
“When this occurs, it is not uncommon for victims to decide they no longer feel safe to continue participating in the criminal justice process,” she said. “This is a huge disservice not only to the victim, but also the community.”
Daisy was questioned about embarrassing cellphone traffic, her drinking history, her hazy memory of the night when Barnett had sex with her and the hours in the cold. Much of it seemed far off the point of whether a girl’s safety had been jeopardized when left outside her house.
Rice asked about an incident after the January night at Barnett’s home in which Daisy had burned the name of a boy into her skin.
In her own session, Melinda Coleman stated her daughter had been suicidal since the incident and that one of the names Daisy had burned on her arm was Barnett’s. But earlier, Daisy had said in her own deposition that she had burned in the name of another boy who had stopped seeing her. Coleman explained that her daughter was embarrassed.
Rice then asked Coleman whether she understood that misstatements in a deposition put the state in a difficult position, and she responded, “I do understand. … I don’t think that you probably can try this case now. I think there’s been too many lies.”
Earlier, when asked if she wanted to see Barnett prosecuted, Coleman said, “Not necessarily.” Presented the same question in her deposition, Daisy had responded: “I could care less.”
While the role of a defense attorney is to try to poke holes in an accuser’s story for a possible courtroom defense later, the prosecutor can use such a deposition to get a sense of the strength of a case. Daisy was peppered with 690 questions, nearly 500 of them by Rice, the prosecutor.
Early in the process, Sundell reminded Rice that Rice could interrupt his line of questioning. “If you want to say, ‘Bob, shut up’ or (tell the witness to) not answer, that’s fine.” But Rice never did.
The July depositions followed an aborted effort in May of that year to take the statements of the Colemans and the mother of the younger girl who had been assaulted at the party. Rice had dropped the felony charges without explaining his actions, Coleman said, leaving the two women to distrust the prosecutor.
Later, however, the Colemans decided to forge ahead on the remaining misdemeanor case, and Coleman met with Rice to schedule the July depositions.
Last October, Rice said he was aware of the Colemans’ willingness only after they appeared in a television interview the previous day.
“Until that time,” he said then, “the witnesses never told me they were willing to cooperate and testify after they invoked their Fifth Amendment right in a deposition under oath.”
That statement, however, completely ignored the July depositions.
The endangerment charge was later refiled by Baker during her review of the case. Like Rice earlier, Baker said evidence was insufficient to bring a felony sexual assault charge against Barnett.
In January, Barnett admitted to providing Daisy alcohol and leaving her dangerously incapacitated in the cold. As part of a plea bargain arranged by Baker, he received probation in lieu of a 120-day jail sentence. He also was required to apologize to his victim, refrain from having any contact with the Colemans and pay the victim’s family $1,800 in restitution.
Among the new materials released Friday was Barnett’s videotaped interview with sheriff’s department investigators the morning of the alleged assault. The interview lasted 20 minutes. Barnett initially claimed Daisy had had only a small amount to drink. He later conceded she “chugged” an alcoholic drink, but only after they’d had sex. He said the intercourse was consensual and that Daisy had been “buzzed,” but not drunk, at that point.
Daisy’s July 2012 deposition offered her most detailed recounting of that night. She said she sat down on a couch in the basement’s common area immediately after arriving at the Barnett residence and, over the next five minutes, took the equivalent of seven to eight shots of Smirnoff vodka — three straight from a bottle provided by Barnett, and four or five from a modified shot glass.
It’s the last thing she remembers, she testified in the deposition, before blacking out and waking up in her yard the next morning. Daisy was crying and unable to walk when carried from the Barnett house, said others at the party, including Daisy’s 13-year-old friend.
The 15-year-old boy who assaulted Daisy’s friend spent two weeks in the state’s juvenile justice system before being returned home for treatment. Until Barnett’s plea, that represented the only legal punishment in the Coleman case, which resulted in the bullying of Daisy and eventually prompted the family to move from Maryville to Albany, Mo.
Rice, who is completing his first term as Nodaway County’s prosecutor, has filed for re-election.
The Nodaway County clerk’s office confirmed last week that he is the only candidate to have filed to run