1. Interrogations and Confessions
Chapter 8
Interrogations and Confessions

2. Due Process Fourteenth Amendment due process voluntariness test
state courts
Brown v. Mississippi
Ashcraft v. Tennessee
fundamental fairness
police methods
involuntary confessions

3. Due Process (cont.) four purposes of voluntariness test voluntariness
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

4. Legal Equations

5. 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

6. 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 Act of 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

7. Escobedo v. Illinois Justice William Douglas, Spano v. New York
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

8. 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 legal proceeding
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

9. Legal Equation

10. 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

11. Legal Equation

12. 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

13. Legal Equations

14. 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

15. Legal Equation

16. 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

17. Legal Equation

18. 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

19. Legal Equation

20. Waiving Miranda Moran v. Burbine
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
express and implied waver

21. Legal Equation

22. 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

23. Legal Equation

24. 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

25. Legal Equations

26. Interrogation Rhode Island v. Innis
interrogation involves either express questioning or the functional equivalent of direct questioning

27. 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”

28. 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”

29. Legal Equation