Criminal Procedure Outline

CRIMINAL PROCEDURE

CONFESSIONS AND POLICE INTERROGATION
I. Introduction:
A. Two requirements for confessions: In both state and federal courts, a confession may be introduced against the person who made it only if the confession satisfies each of the following two requirements:
1. Voluntary: The confession must have been voluntary, i.e. not the product of coercion by the police; and
2. Miranda warnings: The confession must have been obtained in conformity w/the Miranda decision. See below.
B. Suspicion surrounding confessions:
1. Methods in the past involved 3rd degree, torture, beatings.
2. Not just techniques to gain confession, but also to gain other information.
3. Keep suspects isolated, cannot call anyone, psychological pressures
4. Police do false sympathy, minimize the moral harm to make them think on their side, also use physical intimidation, threatened assaults.
5. Truth-seeking process is jeopardized by police coercion.
6. Courts have created an equality in the police station that thwarts rather than serves the goal of truth. (against Miranda)
C. Confessions are positive obtained this way:
1. For every crime, the prosecution still must show the body of the crime, there must be evidence of the crime OTHER THAN the confession.
2. Confessions are redemptive, good for the soul.
3. Admission of responsibility may also be the first step in the criminal’s rehabilitation.
4. Good from a law enforcement perspective b/c stmt of guilt is often the best evidence of a person’s guilt.
D. Constitutional approaches to confessions: (5th Amd)
1. Due Process: no one should be deprived of life, liberty, or property w/out DP of law, applies to forced confessions b/c deprived of liberty w/out DP.
2. Right against Self Incrimination: no person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a W against himself — provision against compelled self incrimination — must be voluntary — look to totality of circumstances, look to:
a. Trustworthiness of confession
b. Coerced
c. Integrity to judicial process, method of obtaining.
3. Requirements for 5th Amd violation: (5th applies to states through the 14th)
a. Confession has incriminating effect
b. Must be testimonial or communicative Þ give info in the privacy of his head.
c. Compelled, involuntary confession.
II. Voluntariness:
A. Voluntariness generally: Regardless of whether Miranda warnings are given to the suspect, his confession will only be admissible against him if it was given voluntarily. Assessed the totality of the circumstances — considering both the characteristics of the accused and the details of the interrogation.
1. Two problems: (1) police receive less guidance than if they were required to obey a bright-line rule and making it a highly fact sensitive inquiry; (2) the court waivers on to what extent does the test focus on the specific confession — and whether this D’s will was overborne and his capacity for self-determination impaired by the police methods.
a. Hard to look w/in the accused person’s psyche or soul and determine whether she freely chooses to confess or had her will overborne.
b. Totality tests: makes everything relevant and nothing determinative.
2.Must be police coercion: test for determining the “voluntariness” of a confession is one that is fairly easy to satisfy. Apparently the only thing that can now prevent a confession from being found to be voluntary is police coercion.
a. So, coercion by non-governmental personnel, nor serious mental illness on the suspect’s part is relevant to this question.
3. Rationale for the Voluntariness Requirement:
a. heightened risk of false confessions, thus of convicting innocent persons if the police can obtain stmts from suspects through coercive means.
b. Police should obey the law while enforcing the law
c. Their use is so offensive to a civilized system of justice that they must be condemned.
d. Accusatorial and not an inquisitorial system. One principle of our system — the mind, as the center of the self, may not be pressed by the gov into an instrument of its own destruction.
e. Values of human dignity, personal autonomy and mental freedom support tehh premise that a person should not be convicted on the basis of a confession unless it is the untrammeled exercise of personal determination.
f. Deter police overreaching, thus preventing the wrongs described above.
B. Coerced Confessions:
1. NO Litmus test for determining the voluntariness of a confession. Each case must be decided on its own facts a judicially inefficient way to filter out coerced confessions.
2. Mallory/McNabb: by federal statute an arrestee must be brought before a magistrate w/out unnecessary delay following her arrest. Cannot delay appearance in order to interrogate the suspect. Rule is not of constitutional origin, so doesn’t apply to states. Of little significance after Miranda.
3. Due Process for coerced confessions: In order to exclude a confession on DP grounds Þ there must be a link b/w coercive activity of the state, on the one hand, and a resulting confession by a D on the other.
a. Suspect is in a psychotic schizophrenic state. He confesses to a crime b/c the “Voice of God” tells him he should do so. Held, this confession is admissible against suspect, b/c there was no police or other gov wrongdoing. Colorado v. Connelly
4. Fifth Amd: Due Process violations(generally) — look for this in every situation including identification, entrapment, etc.
a. Need factual evidence of coerciveness or police overreaching.
b. Before Miranda, that was totality of the circumstances. DP examples: hospital getting confession w/Arizona v. Fulimante.
c. Entrapment: facts need to be outrageous.
d. Identification: is too suggestive violates DP.
5. Exclusionary Rule: exclusion of a coerced confession — unlike exclusion of evidence obtained as a result of an unreasonable search or seizure — is not simply a remedy for violation of a constitutional right; it is an element of the right itself. Exclusion of a coerced confession is constitutionally required