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Chapter 8. Interrogations and Confessions. Due Process. Fourteenth Amendment due process voluntariness test state courts Brown v. Mississippi Ashcraft v. Tennessee fundamental fairness police methods involuntary confessions. Due Process (cont.). four purposes of voluntariness test
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Chapter 8 Interrogations and Confessions
Due Process • Fourteenth Amendment due process voluntariness test • state courts • Brown v. Mississippi • Ashcraft v. Tennessee • fundamental fairness • police methods • involuntary confessions
Due Process (cont.) • four purposes of voluntariness test • trustworthy • fundamental fairness • offensive police methods • free will and rational choice • voluntariness • police cannot subject the suspect to physical or psychological coercion • which overcomes the suspect’s will to resist • totality of the circumstances
McNabb-Mallory Rule • police concern that the Court failed to establish solid guidelines • McNabb v. United States • existing congressional statutes explicitly required federal officers to immediately bring arrestees before a magistrate or judge and demonstrate a legal justification for the arrest • the “bright-line” rule that confessions obtained in violation of this rule were inadmissible in federal court failed to make a significant impact on police practices
McNabb-Mallory (cont.) • Mallory v. United States: the police may not arrest and interrogate a defendant and then decide whether there is probable cause to charge him/her with a crime • rule focuses on the length of delay between an arrest and a suspect’s initial appearance before a magistrate • Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Actof 1968 (§ 3501) • courts generally consider unreasonable delay to be one of several factors to be considered in evaluating the voluntariness of a defendant’s confession • the U.S. Supreme Court has now clarified that § 3501 is not required to be followed by the U.S. Constitution and is not applicable to the states
Escobedo v. Illinois • Justice William Douglas, Spano v. New York • Escobedo v. Illinois • extended the Sixth Amendment right to a lawyer established in Massiah to the period prior to indictment • this was the point in which most confessions were elicited, and a failure to provide access to an attorney at this stage would render legal representation at trial meaningless • any competent lawyer would undoubtedly instruct his/her client not to talk to the police
Right Against Self-Incrimination • Malloy v. Hogan: the Fifth Amendment’s prohibition on compulsory self-incrimination was incorporated into the Fourteenth Amendment and is applicable against the states • the privilege against self-incrimination is violated only when the incriminating information is used against an individual in a legalproceeding • the requirement that one may not be compelled to be a witness against one’s self is satisfied when required to answer questions asked by the government • Doe v. United States
Miranda v. Arizona • absent a three-part Miranda warning that the “inherently coercive” pressures of police interrogation overwhelm individuals’ capacity to exercise their right against self-incrimination and that no confession given under these conditions “can truly be the product of a suspect’s free choice” • individuals held in detention were isolated from friends, family, and lawyers in unfamiliar surroundings • police manuals instructed officers to engage in tactics such as displaying confidence in a suspect’s guilt, minimizing the seriousness of the offense, wearing down individuals through continuous interrogation, and using a good cop/bad cop interrogation technique
Custodial Interrogation • “questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way” • Beckwith v. United States: a focus by law enforcement on an individual is not sufficient to require the reading of the Miranda rights • Miranda warnings need not be given to an individual who voluntarily enters a police station and wishes to confess to a crime or to a person who voluntarily calls the police to offer a confession or other statement • “objective test” for custodial interrogation, totality of the circumstances • custody is based on whether, in the totality of the circumstances, a reasonable person would believe that he or she is subjected to formal arrest or to police custody to a degree associated with a formal arrest
Public Safety Exception • a “narrow exception” that requires questions to be directed to public safety rather than to guilt or innocence • New York v. Quarles: four steps • reasonableness • threat • questions • coercion
Miranda Warnings • the police must inform individuals of the right to remain silence, that anything they say may be used against them, and of their right to an attorney, retained or appointed • the warnings convey the the essential information to the suspect, not necessarily with the exact words outlined in Miranda
Invoking Miranda • Davis v. United States: an individual intending to assert his/her right to have counsel present must articulate this “sufficiently clearly that a reasonable police officer in the circumstances would understand the statement to be a request for an attorney” • suspects invoking their right to silence must do so in a clear and unambiguous fashion
Waiving Miranda • the government is required to meet a “heavy burden” in demonstrating that a suspect voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently waived his or her rights • Moran v. Burbine • voluntary • knowing and intelligent • totality of the circumstances • predominance of the evidence • totality of the circumstances • express and implied waver
Question First and Warn Later • Elstad v. Oregon • the unlawful character of a suspect’s first voluntary confession does not automatically taint a second voluntary confession • a “suspect who has once responded to unwarned yet uncoercive questioning is not thereby disabled from waiving his rights and confessing after he has been given the requisite Miranda warnings” • the Miranda warnings cured the taint of the initial confession • warning a suspect that the suspect’s first confession was inadmissible is neither “practicable nor constitutionally necessary” • Missouri v. Seibert: when using the question first and warn later technique, it must be clear to the suspect that any pre-warning statements would be inadmissible in court
Waiver of Miranda Following Invocation • Michigan v. Mosley • the legal test for whether a statement obtained after a person in custody decides to remain silent depends on whether his or her right to silence was scrupulously honored • the critical consideration is whether the police respected the suspect’s “right to cut off questioning” • Edwards v. Arizona: initiation test • Arizona v. Roberson: police cannot from reinterrogate a suspect about a different crime
Interrogation • Rhode Island v. Innis • interrogation involves either express questioning or the functional equivalent of direct questioning
Right to Counsel: Interrogations • supplements the due process voluntariness and Fifth Amendment Miranda protections • insures that the criminal justice process functions in a fair fashion • Rothergy v. Gillepsie County: the Sixth Amendment right attaches at a criminal defendant’s “initial appearance before a judicial officer” • Brewer v. Williams: “custodial interrogations” need not be conducted with questions but can be conducted with any statements “deliberately and designedly set out to elicit information”
Right to Counsel: Interrogations (cont.) • United States v. Henry: the Sixth Amendment provided protections to prison inmates facing trial against unknowing interrogations by undercover government agents • Kuhlmann v. Wilson • the Sixth Amendment is not violated when the government through “luck or happenstance” obtains incriminating statements from the accused after the right to counsel has attached • the defendant must demonstrate that the police and the informant did not merely listen but took some action that was “designed deliberately to elicit incriminating remarks”
