Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Dad Accused of Executing 3 Sons Demands Judge Toss His Alleged Confession

Episode Date: February 23, 2024

Chad Doerman, the Ohio father accused of executing his three young sons, has asked a judge to suppress the statement he made to law enforcement, claiming his rights were violated. This week, deputies and detectives with the Clermont County Sheriff's Office testified during a hearing about what they said to Doerman and what he said about wanting a lawyer when he was interviewed. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy has the top moments from the hearing with former Deputy Ohio Attorney General Mark Weaver in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show that delves into the biggest stories in crime.Host: Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest: Mark Weaver   https://twitter.com/MarkRWeaver CRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoAudio Editing - Brad MaybeGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@LawandCrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this law and crimes series ad free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. I told him to shut up. And also during that, I told him he had the right to remain silent and use it. Deputies on the stand as the Ohio dad accused of executing his three young sons claims detectives violated his rights. We have the top moments from the hearing and Chad Dorman's case. I'm Antoinette Levy and this is Crime Fix. Chad Dorman could be put to death if he's convicted of murdering his three young sons, Clayton, Hunter, and Chase, at his home in Claremont County last June. What Dorman's accused of doing is absolutely unthinkable. Prosecutors said Dorman laid down in his bedroom with his wife and sons to take a nap

and then pulled a rifle from a gun safe and started shooting the boys. Prosecutors say Dorman's wife and daughter tried to save the boys, running away with them and even suffering gunshot wounds as they tried to stop the carnage. Sheriff's body cameras recorded deputies finding Dorman sitting on his front porch with a.22 caliber rifle sitting next to him. Prosecutors say Dorman made multiple statements, including, I did it, take me to jail, and I shouldn't have done that. But Dorman's lawyers say the detectives violated their client's rights when they questioned him in several ways.

They claim Dorman asked for a lawyer and detectives ignored that request. At a hearing this week, deputies and detectives were questioned about how they handled Dorman beginning with him being taken into custody. I told him he had the right to remain silent and use it. Okay. I'm sorry, what was that last comment? You said you... I told him he had the right to remain silent and use it.

Okay. And did he respond to you, sir? He did. And what did he say? Yes, sir. Okay. And what did you take that yes, sir, to mean? That he understood I didn't want him to talk. So after Dorman arrived at the sheriff's office, he was placed in an interview room. Detective Michael Ross testified about reading Dorman his Miranda rights from a card, but he didn't read the entire card. Take a listen. One's talking about advice before you question, and the other's talking about how a lawyer present during questioning, isn't it? Yes. I'm not a robot. I probably should have read

the entire card, but I'm not a robot. And then you read, if you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed that you left out for you before any questioning if you wish, right? Again, yes, I must have left that out. So that's a little concerning. In a triple homicide, you should probably read the entire card word for word to ensure you're dotting all of your I's and crossing all of your T's, to ensure you've read the suspect, his rights, and that he understands them. The questioning by Dorman's attorney continued. I believed that he wanted to talk to me based on our short interaction earlier in the interview where I said that I wanted to talk to him, and he said, that's fine.

Actually, I said, I want to talk to you if that's okay, and he said, that's fine. Were you afraid he was going to say no? No. He didn't want to talk to you? No, I wasn't afraid. I'm just not a robot. I didn't read the card word for word. I read to him his Miranda rights and Miranda warnings. How many interviews do you think you've done? Probably hundreds as a detective and probably thousands as a road patrol. Assistant Prosecutor Laura Barone-Allen asked Detective Ross about other statements Dorman made during the interview. He had made a comment that the Bible says that you kill your firstborn, you kill your secondborn, you kill your thirdborn, but first you're supposed

to kill your wife. I didn't kill my wife, but first you're supposed to kill your wife. I didn't kill my wife. So I really thought that was a very important comment that he had just made, and I wanted him to repeat to me some of the things that he had said, and I was asking him about that, and he cut me off. He stopped me from talking and said, in only one sentence he says, I'll just wait for a lawyer. I really don't know. Like, give me a couple of days. I'll talk to a lawyer and get nice,

good answers. He says that all in basically one breath. So Detective Ross, he revealed a lot there, but at the end, you heard him say that Chad Dorman said that he would talk with a lawyer and get, quote, good answers. Ross went on explaining what he said happened with Dorman when it came to this discussion about a lawyer. I felt obligated to explore it a little bit, yes. So I did. I asked him if he had a lawyer. And what did he indicate to you? He said we have family lawyers.

And did you follow up on that? Yeah. Again, I felt like pulling teeth. I'm trying to get him to talk about it. Tell me who's your lawyer. So I asked him if there was somebody we could call. And he said, Keith Norman and Ruby Franklin. And did he give you any information about those two individuals? Yes, I followed up with them. Keith Dorman is his father and neither one of those people are

attorneys. So he was able to tell you Keith Dorman is his dad. What did he say about Ruby Franklin? He said that she was in the CIA. And I said, well, is she a lawyer in the CIA? And he said, she's in the CIA. So neither name that he gave me were even close to lawyers. When questioned by Dorman's lawyers, Detective Ross said Dorman's request for a lawyer wasn't exactly clear to him. So what do you understand you're supposed to do when a suspect who's in custody clearly asks for a lawyer? If they clearly ask for a lawyer, which I've done on other cases, on other homicide cases, they clearly ask for a lawyer, I stop questioning them, which I've done before. In this case, he did not clearly say he wanted a lawyer. But you said that you tried to clarify with him. That's what you're saying,

these questions you asked him about, whether he had a lawyer or not, were designed to do. I did try. I did try to explore that and clarify his comments. But he continued playing games with me. While prosecutors say Dorman admitted to shooting his three sons, they also say he denied it. And at any point during the interview, did the defendant deny shooting his sons that day? Yes, multiple times throughout the entire interview till the very end. It also came out that Dorman was captured on camera saying a number of other things. He said, almost like under his breath, like a whisper,

what the did I do? Another point, he says, what the did she let me do? Another time, it lookedoth he was checking the back blood. Um, there was anoth looking around and he say Where's the cameras? Um, for cameras and doorman's dropped a little bit of a

they might claim at trial ill people before for 26 mentally ill people before? For 26 years, I've dealt with mentally ill people, yes. You understand sometimes they're not dealing in reality? I believe that's probably true, yeah. You understand what psychosis is? Well, now you're getting outside of my knowledge of mentally ill people. Okay. So do you accept that sometimes mentally ill people behave in ways

that may seem like one thing when it's not? In my experiences, and again, as a police officer, my experience is dealing with mentally ill people typically don't know that they're mentally ill. Judge Richard Farrink did not rule on the defense request to throw out Chad Dorman's statement. He could do that in the next month or so. The prosecutor in this case, Mark Tukalvi, has made it clear he will not settle for anything less than having Chad Dorman executed. So what does all of this testimony mean for this murder case? Mark Weaver has prosecuted death penalty cases in the state of Ohio, and he's a former deputy Ohio attorney case. Mark Weaver has prosecuted death penalty cases in the state of Ohio, and he's a former deputy Ohio attorney general. Mark, first off, let's talk about this issue about

the Miranda waiver card and what the detective in this case said he read to Chad Dorman. He said he didn't read the whole card. Is he required to read the entire card? Because the suggestion is, is that Chad Dorman may not have understood all of his rights under the circumstances and that the cops messed up when they're sitting there trying to read his rights and they don't read every little word on the card. Yeah, defense counsel here doesn't have much to work with. I prosecuted a couple of death penalty cases against the lead death penalty lawyer in this case, Greg Myers. I saw him in the hearing. And they often have very little angles they can pursue. So at the suppression hearing, they're trying to stop the confession from coming in. We all know there's lots of evidence he did this. This is not a some other dude did it defense. Everybody knows who did it, but it's the job of the defense to try to impede or slow down or otherwise delay the state's case. And this latest hack is the notion that the Miranda card

was not read from. Miranda comes from the U.S. Supreme Court, Miranda v. Arizona. That decision and its other case law that came from it don't require a police officer to read the rights from a card, but it is a best practice. A police officer who always reads from the card word for word will have an easier time in future suppression hearings than one who looks at it and summarizes the main point. The standard is, did the officer warn the defendant of the key messages from the Miranda warning, which we're all familiar with from TV? Sounds as though that they did. The judge will make the final decision. Another concern here watching this hearing was the fact that the detective on the stand testifying said, you know, he he said stuff about a lawyer.

And this is under questioning by the defense. You know, he said stuff about a lawyer and then it sounded like he said Laura. And so I was confused. But there was mention of a lawyer and possibly wanting a lawyer by Chad Dorman. So I always thought, and correct me if I'm wrong, Mark, that once a defendant mentions a lawyer, the question, you know, the questioning should stop. And, you know, it's kind of incumbent upon the detective in the room to say, wait, are you asking for a lawyer?

But the defense is saying, you didn't do that. You didn't ask that clarifying question. Your response to that? Two things can be true at the same time. First, it is black letter law. That means it's well settled law. That when a defendant who's in a custodial interrogation, which the defendant was in this case, makes a clear request to speak to a lawyer before answering any other questions. But the questioning must stop. That's no doubt that that's the law. The question for this judge is whether that's what happened

in this particular interrogation. The facts, as I understand them, show that the defendant was kind of vague, wasn't very clear, made a reference to a lawyer, and then immediately followed up with, I don't know, and then talked about some people who could be lawyers. Turns out they weren't lawyers. One was his father. Someone works for the CIA. Frankly, I didn't quite follow it. Some of this could be construed as confused mutterings by this defendant, and so this judge will have to decide whether that was enough

to stop the interrogation. The prosecution early in the hearing pointed out several different phrases involving lawyers that were so vague that Ohio courts have said that's not enough to trigger the requirement to stop the questioning. So the judge is going to have to read those cases and decide whether or not that was enough to stop the question. So you're saying the defendant has to basically say, I want a lawyer. Like it has to be a clear request. You can't just start talking about a lawyer. All of us have rights under the constitution, but we also have obligations to make known whether or not we're waiving those rights or whether we're standing on those rights. Officers do not have to be mind readers.

The judge, I think, is going to find that the combination of words that this defendant said was not enough to stop the questioning. There was also some testimony by some of the deputies who arrived on the scene. And, you know, you and I have talked about this before, that the defense took issue with the fact that I think one of the deputies said, you know, close the door, you know, when they put Dorman in the cruiser, close the door so I don't kill the mother effer and stuff like that. They were cursing and, you know, that was like an intimidation tactic. Do the courts really care about that? Is there any case law on deputies cursing at and, you know, making their disdain known for a suspect, especially when they arrive on the scene and see three young children dead?

Deputies are human and they're going to react as humans do, particularly in this horrific case. Of course, the founders of our country, who wrote the Constitution, wanted to make sure that interrogations didn't look like the torture chambers of Europe. And that's why they wrote some of the defendant that perhaps forced him into confessing. Calling him a name, slamming the door, not adjusting the cuffs to his liking, not adjusting the air conditioning to his liking. This is nowhere near the sort of abusive environment that might trigger some judge ruling to hold back the interrogation from evidence. And finally, Mark, there was some discussion about HIPAA and the fact that Chad Dorman received some care from medical professionals and that there were body cameras rolling during all of this and that that should not be used according to the defense. That

shouldn't be allowed at trial because he was in a medical setting, even though he was in custody, so that anything he said there shouldn't be used against him. Your response to that? These defense lawyers have very little to work with, so let's give them an A for creativity. I've not seen HIPAA raised in a suppression hearing before. I'm not sure what they're trying to achieve here. Early on in the hearing, one of them acknowledged it would not be a basis for suppression. Suppression hearings are supposed to be when constitutional issues are raised, typically Fourth Amendment and Fifth Amendment constitutional issues. HIPAA is a federal statute that provides privacy in health communications that are stored digitally. And as the state mentioned, there's an exception in HIPAA for people who are in jail or prison.

So I don't think the judge will do much with that. It struck me as an odd thing to bring up. But remember, I've not been a defense lawyer. I've always been on the prosecution side. These defense lawyers don't have much to work with, and they're trying to do what they can for their client. Mark Weaver, thank you as always for coming on. We appreciate it. We'll wait to see how the judge rules probably in the next month or so. Always good to be back with you, Anjanette. Thank you. And that's it for Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy.

Thanks so much for being with us. We'll see you back here next time. You can download Crime Fix on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your favorite podcasts and new episodes post each weeknight at 6 Eastern time on Law & Crime's YouTube channel. Daniel Camacho does our video editing. Our head of social media is Bobby Zoki. Our senior director of social media is Vanessa Vine. Savannah Williamson is one of our producers. Diane Kay and Alyssa Fisher book our guests. And Brad Mabey is our audio editor.