At a third pretrial hearing for Brian T. Shaw, the former Syracuse University student charged with the murder of his 4-year-old daughter’s mother, police involved in his initial interrogation were questioned and cross-examined to determine the legality of his oral confession the night of the killing.

Shaw’s defense attorney, Tom Ryan, and Chief Assistant District Attorney Pat Quinn, who is prosecuting the case, questioned four of the six officers involved in Shaw’s interrogation the night of March 23.

Quinn’s questions focused on proving the detectives who interrogated Shaw made it clear what Shaw’s Miranda rights were before they began their interrogation.

‘My job is to make sure they acted properly with the law,’ Quinn said after the hearing.

Detective Eric Carr, a member of the Criminal Investigation Division, was the first officer to testify in the hearing. He described Shaw as calm and cooperative since the time he arrived at Shaw’s Columbus Avenue home and asked him to come to the Department of Criminal Investigation Division to answer questions about Seals’ disappearance.

Ryan’s cross-examination of Carr focused mostly on the accuracy of Carr’s testimony that Shaw was read and understood his Miranda rights.

Carr testified that after about 30 minutes of questioning, he and Detective Kevin Hamberger, who was interrogating Shaw along with Carr, determined Shaw was the ‘Brian’ they were looking for. Carr then told Quinn it was at that time they read Shaw his Miranda rights, which include the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney. Carr said Shaw expressed his understanding of the rights and continued to answer the detectives’ questions.

Ryan continued to ask Carr and the other detectives questioned Wednesday detailed questions about how Shaw’s Miranda rights were read to him. Carr said he read the rights directly from a yellow card he carried with him, but he did not offer him a form in which Shaw could initial his understanding of each of the five rights.

Ryan also asked if there were any other records of the interrogation such as audio or video recordings. Carr said in the past there have been video recaps of confessions by suspects, however, there was no audio or video records taken the night Shaw was questioned.

‘I don’t know if we can do audio and video interviews. We’ve never done them before,’ Carr said.

In addition to audio and video records of the interrogation, Ryan questioned the legitimacy of the police reports written by Carr and Detective Patrick Boynton as both officers testified they were written from memory several hours after Shaw’s questioning.

In an interview after the hearing, Ryan said the reason for bringing up these issues about the Miranda rights were to make sure Shaw’s Fifth Amendment rights were not compromised during his interrogation by the detectives. He plans to present the evidence to Judge Joseph E. Fahey, who is presiding over the case.

‘These are issues the judge has to ultimately decide,’ Ryan said.

The pre-trial hearing will continue today at 2 p.m. with one final witness, Sgt. Joel Cordone.

Published on September 13, 2005 at 12:00 pm