Sisk team wants confession tossed out

Jan. 15—ATHENS — The attorneys for a teenager accused of fatally shooting five family members in 2019 asked a judge Friday to toss out a confession their client made during interrogation by the Limestone County Sheriff's Office hours after the event.

They said the defendant, Mason Wayne Sisk, then 14, was coerced to falsely confess to the killings in his Elkmont home the night of Sept. 2, 2019, and that he was not advised of his Miranda rights until after extensive questioning.

Sisk, now 18, is charged with capital murder in the deaths of his father John Sisk, 38, his stepmother Mary Sisk, 35, and siblings Kane, 6, Aurora, 5, and Colson, 6 months, in their home on Ridge Road in Elkmont. A previous jury trial on the capital murder charges ended with Circuit Judge Chad Wise calling a mistrial after five days of testimony.

Former Limestone Sheriff Mike Blakely was contentious and raised his voice several times while fielding questions from defense attorney Shay Golden late Friday afternoon about what Golden called lies told to Mason Sisk during an hour-long interrogation.

The eight law enforcement officers who testified Friday during the suppression hearing in Wise's courtroom said Sisk was initially considered a witness, not a suspect, to the crime despite being handcuffed in the back seat of a patrol vehicle for more than 90 minutes at the scene.

Golden and fellow defense attorney Michael Sizemore said the sheriff deputies took his cellphone away and refused him the opportunity to make a phone call to his grandmother, who lived in Limestone County. Sisk was never told that as a witness he was free to leave.

Golden also questioned Blakely as to why Elkmont High's school resource officer was called to the scene and not the Department of Human Resources while authorities searched for a guardian of Sisk.

"We didn't know what we had when we arrived," Blakely testified. "It would have been totally irresponsible and stupid if we let him leave."

Blakely said when he arrived about an hour after the slayings were reported that he had the handcuffs removed from Sisk and that he later drove the teen to the Sheriff's Office for questioning. According to testimony in the September trial, Sisk and Blakely were in Blakely's SUV at the crime scene for 54 minutes before they went to the Sheriff's Office. The conversation in the vehicle was not recorded, witnesses said.

Miranda rights

Golden said the video of the interrogation showed Blakely and Lt. Johnny Morrell "imply leniency" to Sisk and that they "coerced" him with lies and misleading statements to have him falsely confess to the killings.

It was 33 minutes after questioning began that Morrell read Sisk his Miranda rights.

Before Sisk's rights were read, Morrell, who testified Friday, said Blakely ordered a gunshot residue test on Sisk's hands. If the test came back positive, the results would show different colors. Morrell said Friday the results were inconclusive if Sisk had fired a weapon. However, the interrogation video played during a jury trial in September showed Blakely telling Sisk "he lit up like a Christmas tree" from the test.

After Friday's 8 1/2 hour suppression hearing, Golden said Blakely "clarified his statement."

"He said today that he did not in fact light up like a Christmas tree but that he did say that to Mason to make him believe there was more evidence against him than there actually was," Golden said.

Blakely, who served 38 years as sheriff, was automatically removed from the position when a jury on Aug. 3, 2021, found him guilty of first-degree theft and using his public office for personal gain. He was sentenced to three years in the Franklin County Jail, but has been out of jail on an appeal bond. His appeal to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals was rejected, but he has since appealed to the state Supreme Court.

Just before Blakely testified as the last witness of the day, the defense had Jeffrey Neuschatz, a psychology professor at the University of Alabama Huntsville, on the stand explaining some of the interrogation tactics used by law enforcement to coerce defendants to confess. He said younger people 25 and under are more likely to give false confessions through coercion including misleading information, promises of leniency and minimizing the problems a suspect might face if a confession is given.

"Implied leniency is a coercive tactic interrogators will use," he said. "Interrogators can't make those promises."

Neuschatz said investigators often will use techniques such as "evidence bluff," saying they don't have the evidence gathered but will get it, and "false evidence," which he said is evidence that doesn't actually exist, to get a confession from a suspect.

Limestone County District Attorney Brian Jones said after the hearing that he would file a brief within 21 days to have Neuschatz's testimony tossed out since he was not an expert in the field.

Neuschatz has a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology and the UAH website lists him as an author of several published papers and books involving police techniques and the reliability of jailhouse informants. After Friday's hearing, the judge issued an order requiring the defense to provide him with some of the scholarly articles that Neuschatz referenced during his testimony. Neuschatz testified the defense was paying him $220 an hour for his research and testimony.

Motive

Blakely testified that Sisk "supplied the motive" for the killings, a point the defense contested.

Golden said Morrell supplied the motive during the interrogation by saying that Sisk's father was abusive to Sisk and his stepmother. Golden also said Blakely gave misleading information to Sisk when the sheriff gave a chronological order on how the shootings occurred with the father and stepmother being the first two killed.

"He supplied the motive," Blakely said of the defendant. "The only motive I know is the motive he gave us."

Afterward, Golden said he remains baffled that the state witnesses can't recall who found the weapon and who removed it from the scene and who transported it to the Sheriff's Office. Several witnesses during the hearing all said they didn't recall how it was transported or who took photos of it when it was found on Sandlin Road, about 2 miles from the Sisk residence.

"We have yet to see a photograph of the weapon where it was found," Golden said.

Just before lunch break on Friday, Morrell testified that inconsistencies in Sisk's answers at the scene and in the interrogation room led to the charges being filed. He admitted that Sisk asked to make a phone call but his request was denied.

He testified that Sisk told him that after the shootings he drove a car along Sandlin Road, "rolled down the window and tossed (the gun) out." The next day investigators found the handgun in the area where Sisk said it was.

In the videotape of the questioning of Sisk, Blakely could be seen smoking a cigar in the interrogation room. When Golden asked the former sheriff why he thought it was OK to smoke in a state building where smoking was prohibited in front of a juvenile who would likely inhale the second-hand smoke, Blakely said he usually smoked three or four cigars a day and he didn't want to "waste a good cigar."

"(Sisk) would get no more damage (from the smoke) than where he was growing up in," Blakely said.

Wearing a gray and white county jail jumpsuit in the courtroom Friday, Sisk at times struggled to take notes with his feet, waist and hands shackled.

After the hearing, Wise issued an order scheduling the trial for April 17. It had previously been scheduled for Feb. 23. The order said the judge was allotting two weeks for the trial. Wise also ordered the parties to file briefs addressing any issues raised at the suppression hearing.

— mike.wetzel@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2442. Twitter @DD_Wetzel.