Case Title: Pappaconstantinou v. State

Citation: 352 Md. 167

Docket Number: 29/98

State: maryland

Court: Maryland Supreme Court

Date: 1998-12-11T00:00:00Z

Document:
Criminal Law---Evidence---Confessions
Maryland’s common law voluntariness requirement does not apply to confessions elicited
by purely private conduct and is applicable only when a confession is elicited by a person
in authority, or in his or her presence and with his or her sanction.  “Person in authority” is
limited to a state actor, and does not include an employer, security guard, or an alleged
victim.   
Circuit Court for Charles County
Case # CR 96-584
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF
MARYLAND
No. 29
September Term, 1998
                                                                           
   
MICHAEL J. PAPPACONSTANTINOU
v.
STATE OF MARYLAND
                                                                           
 
Bell, C.J.
Eldridge
Rodowsky
Chasanow
Raker
Wilner
Cathell,
JJ.
                                                                           
 
Opinion by Raker, J.
                                                                           
 
Filed:  December 11, 1998
The question we must consider in this case is whether a confession elicited by a
private individual is subject to Maryland’s common law requirement of voluntariness.   We
shall hold that Maryland’s common law voluntariness requirement does not apply to
confessions elicited purely by private individuals.
  
I.
Michael Pappaconstantinou (also known as Pappas) was employed with Auto Row
Auto Parts (Auto Row) in Waldorf, Maryland for approximately three years until the
company terminated him because it suspected that he had been stealing from the company.
Following his termination, Pappas met with several Auto Row employees and signed the
following statement:
I, Michael John Pappas wrongfully took merchandise and
money from Auto Row Auto Parts.  I realize that I was correctly
terminated from this establishment.  Property was destroyed and
incorrectly marked as return item [sic].  I realize that what I did
was wrong and I unjustly cause [sic] a lot of difficulties to the
members of Auto Row Auto Parts.
Auto Row initiated criminal charges, and Pappas was found guilty by a jury of twelve counts
of theft under $300 and one count of theft over $300 in violation of Maryland Code (1957,
1996 Repl. Vol., 1997 Supp.), Article 27, § 342.
Pappas filed a pre-trial motion to suppress his confession, claiming that it was
extracted both by threats and by promises not to prosecute, and was therefore involuntary
2
and inadmissible.  The trial court declined to address the issue pre-trial, but at the trial, when
Pappas renewed his motion to suppress his handwritten confession, the court held a hearing
outside the presence of the jury.  The trial court concluded that Pappas’ statement, in the
nature of an admission, was not “inherently unreliable.”  The trial court concluded that under
the circumstances of the case, the statement was freely given, constituted competent
evidence, and hence, was admissible in evidence.  Pappas was convicted by the jury.  
 Pappas noted a timely appeal to the Court of Special Appeals, arguing that his
confession was involuntary under Maryland’s common law voluntariness requirement.  The
intermediate appellate court affirmed, holding that the common law voluntariness test, as
enunciated by appellant, was “inapplicable in cases in which a private party has elicited a
confession, which is later offered and received in evidence in a criminal prosecution of the
confessor.”  Pappaconstantinou v. State, 118 Md.  App.  668, 677, 703 A.2d 1295, 1299
(1998).  The court reasoned that “privately-extracted confessions should be viewed like any
other hearsay statement, such as a declaration against penal interest, and that the test,
therefore, should be whether the statement is inherently trustworthy.”  Id., 703 A.2d at 1299.
We agree with the Court of Special Appeals, and shall affirm.
II.
Pappas argues before this Court that his confession was the result of an improper
inducement because his former employers, representatives of Auto Row, promised not to
prosecute him.  Pappas concedes that there were no state actors involved in eliciting his
3
confession, and as such, no federal constitutional principles are implicated.  See Colorado
v. Connelly, 479 U.S. 157, 166, 107 S. Ct. 515, 521, 93 L. Ed.2d 473 (1986) (holding that
governmental or state action is a necessary requirement to exclude evidence under the Due
Process Clause); Reynolds v. State, 327 Md. 494, 504, 610 A.2d 782, 786 (1992)
(recognizing that “coercion by government agents is a necessary ingredient to a
determination that a defendant’s confession should be suppressed because the defendant’s
constitutional due process rights have been violated”).  Instead,  Pappas argues that his
statement was involuntary under Maryland’s common law voluntariness doctrine.  He urges
this Court to draw no distinction between those statements made to private individuals, on
the one hand, and those statements made to government agents.  He advocates a rule that
would exclude from evidence all involuntary statements on the grounds that Maryland’s non-
constitutional doctrine of voluntariness does not require state action to trigger the rule of
exclusion.  In the alternative, he suggests that if the application of Maryland’s voluntariness
doctrine is limited to those confessions elicited by “persons in authority,” then “persons in
authority” should include those persons having the actual power to carry out an inducement.
In Pappas’ view, this class would include employers, security guards and alleged victims.
The State’s position is not complicated.  The State argues that the Court of Special
Appeals properly rejected Pappas’ contention that Maryland’s common law voluntariness
test and hence, the Maryland common law rule of exclusion, applies when the defendant
confesses to a private person rather than a government agent.  The State maintains that the
4
proper standard for determining the admissibility of statements made to private individuals
is an evidentiary test, i.e., whether the statement manifests sufficient indicia of reliability.
III.
A confession is admissible in evidence against an accused if it is “(1)  voluntary under
Maryland non-constitutional law, (2) voluntary under the Due Process Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and Article 22 of the Maryland
Declaration of Rights, and (3) elicited in conformance with the mandates of Miranda.”  Ball
v. State, 347 Md.  156, 173-74, 699 A. 2d 1170, 1178 (1997), cert. denied,    U.S.   , 118 S.
Ct. 866, 139 L. Ed.2d 763 (1998) (quoting Hoey v. State, 311 Md. 473, 480, 536 A.2d 622,
625 (1988)).  Thus, the “voluntariness” of a confession can be determined by the application
of state evidentiary rules as well as a constitutional due process analysis.  See Reynolds, 327
Md. at 503, 610 A. 2d at 786 (1992) (citing 1 MCCORMICK ON EVIDENCE §§ 146-47, at 564-
74 (4  ed.  1992)). 
th
It is only the first requirement for admissibility that is in issue in this case---the
admissibility of a statement under Maryland non-constitutional law.  Considerations of
federal Due Process and Miranda warnings are not implicated when, as here, the defendant
is not in police custody, and the confession is elicited through purely private action.  See
Connelly, 479 U.S. at 166, 107 S. Ct. at 521.   The Supreme Court held in Colorado v.
Connelly that “coercive police activity is a necessary predicate to the finding that a
confession is not ‘voluntary’ within the meaning of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth
5
Amendment.”  Id. at 167, 107 S. Ct. at 522.  The Court reasoned that “[t]he aim of the
requirement of due process is not to exclude presumptively false evidence, but to prevent
fundamental unfairness in the use of evidence, whether true or false.”  Id., 107 S. Ct. at 522
(quoting Lisenba v. California, 314 U.S. 219, 236, 62 S. Ct. 280, 290, 86 L. Ed. 166 (1941)).
Even “[t]he most outrageous behavior by a private party seeking to secure evidence against
a defendant does not make that evidence inadmissible under the Due Process Clause.”  Id.
at 166, 107 S. Ct. at 521.  The Court then left to the states to determine, under evidentiary
6
  After the Supreme Court’s decision of Colorado v. Connelly, 479 U.S. 157, 107
1
S.Ct. 515, 93 L.Ed.2d 473 (1986), courts in other jurisdictions have split on the issue of
whether confessions elicited by private persons must be analyzed under a voluntariness
standard.  See Commonwealth v. Cooper, 899 S.W.2d 75, 75 (Ky. 1995) (rejecting the
argument that Kentucky’s constitution or common law required suppression of a confession
“coerced or improperly obtained by private parties”); State v. Carroll, 645 A.2d 82, 85 (N.H.
1994) (noting that New Hampshire’s state constitution, although providing greater protection
than the federal constitution with respect to the voluntariness of confessions, does not apply
in the absence of state action); State v. McCullough, 784 P.2d 566, 568 (Wash. Ct. App.
1990) (rejecting defendant’s argument that the state constitution applied where defendant had
confessed to the victim); Darghty v. State, 530 So.2d 27, 31 (Miss. 1988) (holding that
“[c]onduct by third parties not connected with law enforcement officers in the investigation
will not vitiate a confession which might be rendered incompetent and inadmissible if such
conduct had been committed by a law enforcement officer”); Compare Mirabal v. State, 698
So.2d 360, 362 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1997) (holding defendant’s confession to his private
employer involuntary on state constitutional grounds); State v. Bowe, 881 P.2d 538, 547
(Haw. 1994)(holding on state constitutional grounds that “the coercive conduct of a private
person may be sufficient to render a defendant’s confession involuntary”); People v.
Seymour, 470 N.W.2d 428, 430 (Mich. Ct. App. 1991) (stating that “a confession coerced
by a private citizen can also render the statement involuntary and inadmissible into
evidence”); see generally, Annot., Coercive Conduct by Private Person as Affecting
Admissibility of Confession under State Statutes or Constitutional Provisions--Post-Connelly
Cases, 48 A.L.R.5th 555 (1997). 
laws of the forum,  the reliability of confessions not involving coercive police activity.   Id.
1
at 167, 107 S. Ct. at 521.    
It has long been the law in this State that before confessions may be admitted in
evidence, “that they be not induced by threats or by promise of advantage to be derived from
making them; and the burden of showing affirmatively that they were not so induced to be
made in any given case is upon the prosecutor.”  Green v. State, 96 Md.  384, 386, 54 A.
104, 104 (1903); Nicholson v. State, 38 Md. 140 (1873).  The seminal case in Maryland on
the common law voluntariness of confessions is Nicholson v. State.  In that case, our
7
predecessors considered the admissibility in evidence of a confession made to a police
detective by the accused while in police custody.  Id. at 143.  The defendant contended that
the police detective Crone used language to induce his confession that would not otherwise
have been made.  Id.  Before the detective was permitted to testify to the details of the
confession, the trial court examined the circumstances under which the confession was given
to determine whether any promise, threat or inducement had been made to the prisoner that
would render the confession involuntary, and hence inadmissible.  Id.  Concluding that the
statement was competent evidence and admissible evidence to be presented to the jury,
writing for the Court, Chief Judge Bartol stated:
[I]t is very clear upon all the authorities, that if the confession
of the appellant had been induced by any threat of harm, or
promise of worldly advantage held out to him by Crone, or by
his authority, or in his presence and with his sanction, it ought
to be excluded.
Id.  at 153 (emphasis added).
In the case of Biscoe v. State, 67 Md. 6, 8 A. 571 (1887), the Court reversed the
murder conviction because the confession made by the prisoner to the committing magistrate
was not voluntary.  The magistrate, believing it was his duty to elicit a confession from the
prisoner, visited the prisoner five times.  Id. at 7, 8 A. at 571.  On the last visit, the magistrate
told the prisoner “that it would be better for him to tell the truth, and have no more trouble
about it”; the prisoner confessed.  Id., 8 A. at 571.  The Court noted that at the time of the
confession, the defendant was in the custody of the law and was pressed by one in authority.
8
Id. at 8, 8 A. at 571-72.  The Court reviewed several English cases, and quoted with approval
from Reg. v. Garnier, 2 Carr. & K. 920:
[T]he witness told the prisoner ‘that it would be better for him
to tell the truth.’ . . .  After full argument of the case, Pollock,
C.B., said: ‘When a prisoner has been told that he had better tell
the truth, and these expressions are used by, or in the presence
of a person in authority, I always reject the evidence.’
Id.  at 8, 8 A. at 572 (emphasis added).
In the case of McCleary v. State, 122 Md. 394, 89 A. 1100 (1914), the Court affirmed
the judgment of conviction for murder, rejecting the defendant’s claim that his confession
was involuntary.  In considering various circumstances that would render a statement
inadmissible because of threats or promises, the Court quoted from Commonwealth v. Myers,
36 N.E. 481 (Mass. 1894):
[C]onfessions were not to be excluded because they were the
admission of the person charged with the commission of a
crime, but only where the circumstances were such under which
they were made, that a reasonable presumption arises that they
might have been induced by a promise or threat from one in
authority and consequently were open to the objection that they
might not be true.
Id.  at 406, 89 A. at 1105 (emphasis added).
In Hillard v. State, 286 Md. 145, 406 A.2d 415 (1979), the defendant claimed that his
inculpatory statement to a police officer was involuntary because it was prompted by
improper police inducement.  We agreed, primarily because the officer had promised the
defendant help if he would make a statement.  Id. at 153, 406 A.2d at 420.  In our discussion
of voluntariness, we noted:
9
While any decision concerning the voluntariness of a statement
necessarily must rest on the facts of the case involved, we
nonetheless find that, with regard to promises and other similar
forms of inducement designed to elicit a defendant’s confession,
this Court, in a series of cases that stretch back into the last
century, has established certain boundaries within which police
conduct must be contained.
Id. at 151-52, 406 A.2d at 419 (emphasis added).  “The rule in Hillard announces that a
statement is rendered involuntary if it is induced by any official promise which redounds to
the benefit or desire of the defendant.”  Reynolds v. State, 327 Md. at 508-09, 610 A.2d at
789 (1992) (emphasis added) (quoting Stokes v. State, 289 Md. 155, 160, 423 A.2d. 552, 554
(1980)).
A year after Hillard, we decided Stokes v. State,  where we considered, inter alia, the
question of whether a promise not to arrest a near relative of the defendant, or a threat to do
so, constitutes a form of inducement which will render a resulting statement involuntary.
289 Md. at 161, 423 A.2d at 555.  Judge Digges, writing for the Court, stated: 
A finding that an inducement is impermissible, as we determine
the one in this case to be, may only result where the challenged
statement was produced by police words or deeds which
communicated a threat or promise to the defendant.
Id., 423 A.2d at 555 (emphasis added).
This Court also considered the common law voluntariness requirement in Hoey v.
State, 311 Md. 473, 536 A.2d 622 (1988).  The defendant had confessed to certain criminal
acts to a police officer.  Id. at 478, 536 A.2d at 624-625.  At a suppression hearing before
trial, the defendant’s expert witness testified that the defendant was suffering from
10
schizophrenia, “render[ing] him incapable of making a knowing, voluntary, and intelligent
waiver of his rights.”  Id., 536 A.2d at 624.  In analyzing whether Hoey’s confessions were
given freely and voluntarily under Maryland non-constitutional law, this Court stated:
Under Maryland nonconstitutional law, a confession is
inadmissible unless it is ‘shown to be free of any coercive
barnacles that may have attached by improper means to prevent
the expression from being voluntary.’ Thus, a confession is
involuntary if it is induced by force, undue influence, improper
promises, or threats.  Whether particular police conduct is
deemed improper depends on the totality of the circumstances
surrounding the defendant’s confession, and a number of factors
should be considered:  the defendant’s age and education, the
defendant’s physical condition and mental capacity, the length
of the interrogation, the manner of questioning, and whether
there was any physical mistreatment of the  defendant.
 
Id. at 483, 536 A.2d at 627 (citations omitted) (emphasis added).   See also Smith v. State,
189 Md. 596, 603-04, 56 A.2d 818, 821-22 (1948) (stating that “[b]efore a confession can
be admitted in evidence, the State must show . . . that no force or coercion was exercised by
the officers obtaining the confession, to cause the accused to confess”) (emphasis added). 
Finally, in Reynolds, 327 Md. at 507, 610 A.2d at 788, Judge Chasanow, writing for
the Court, stated as follows:
Maryland has followed the old common law rule, which has
seemed to adopt a per se exclusion rule that official promises of
leniency to a defendant in custody that induce a confession
render the confession inadmissible. . . .  If a confession ‘had
been induced by any threat of harm, or promise of worldly
advantage held out to him by [the interrogating detective], or by
his authority, or in his presence and with his sanction, it ought
to be excluded.’  Nicholson v. State, 38 Md.  140, 153 (1873).
11
(Alteration in original) (emphasis added).    See also State v. Kidd, 281 Md. 32, 35-36, 375
A.2d 1105, 1108 (1977) (“For a statement to be the free and voluntary act of an accused, it
must be obtained without force applied, coercion used, hope held out or promise made on
the part of the authorities.”) (emphasis added); Carder v. State, 5 Md. App. 531, 539, 248
A.2d 495, 500 (1968) (holding that the voluntariness test does not apply to a civilian witness
who was not associated with the police and whose only purpose was to assist the injured
defendant).  In summary, it appears that in every Maryland case applying the rule of
exclusion to a defendant’s incriminating statement, the incriminating statement in question
had been made directly to an officer or sheriff, or in the presence and with at least the
implicit sanction of legal authority.  See, e.g., Ball v. State, 347 Md. at 170, 699 A.2d at
1176; Burch v. State, 346 Md. 253, 696 A.2d 443 (1997), cert. denied,    U.S.   , 118 S. Ct.
571, 139 L. Ed.2d 410 (1997); Hof v. State, 337 Md. 581, 665 A.2d 370 (1995); Brittingham
v. State, 306 Md. 654, 511 A.2d 45 (1986); Hillard v. State, 286 Md. 145, 406 A.2d 415
(1979); State v. Kidd, 281 Md. 32, 375 A.2d 1105 (1977); Biscoe v. State, 67 Md. 6, 8 A.
571 (1887); In re Joshua David C., 116 Md. App. 580, 698 A.2d 1155 (1997); Boyer v.
State, 102 Md. App. 648, 651 A.2d 403 (1995); Ringe v. State, 94 Md. App. 614, 618 A.2d
266 (1993); Finke v. State, 56 Md. App. 450, 468 A.2d 353 (1983); Law v. State, 21 Md.
App. 13, 318 A.2d 859 (1974), appeal after remand, 29 Md. App. 457, 319 A.2d 295 (1975);
Keller v. State, 2 Md. App. 623, 236 A.2d 313 (1967). 
Our survey of Maryland case law turned up only two cases which arguably support
Petitioner’s proposition.  The first of these cases is Watts v. State, 99 Md. 30, 57 A. 542
12
  The record does not reflect the professional capacity of Mr. Linzey.
2
(1904).  In Watts, we held that the defendant’s confession “made to Mr. Marley, a reporter
of the ‘Evening News,’ by the defendant while in jail, in the presence of the Deputy Sheriff
and the Jail Warden, and . . . taken down in short hand by Mr. Linzey,”  id.  at 35, 57 A. at
2
544, was inadmissible.  Watts was in jail awaiting trial for the murder of his wife.  Id., 57
A. at 544.  The reporter told the defendant that “it would be possibly better for him if he
would make a clean statement, so it would not appear erroneously in the papers; that the
papers would get it anyway, and as my paper was an evening paper, the correct statement
would come out first.”  Id., 57 A. at 544.  Watts confessed and was subsequently convicted.
Id., 57 A. at 544.  The Court, citing Nicholson and Bram v. United States, 168 U.S. 561, 18
S. Ct. 183, 42 L. Ed. 568 (1897), reversed, concluding that the State had failed to show that
the statement was not obtained by improper means.  Id at 35-36, 57 A. at 545.  Although it
is difficult to say with certainty whether the evidence was excluded on the basis of the
reporter’s statements alone, or whether the defendant’s custody and a presumed acquiescence
or sanction of the state officials constituted sufficient state involvement to implicate the
voluntariness doctrine, the Court’s citation to Nicholson suggests the latter interpretation. 
The second case is Scott v. State, 61 Md. App. 599, 487 A.2d 1204 (1985).  Scott, a
15-year-old boy, had been identified by the victim of a rape as the perpetrator.  Id. at 602,
487 A.2d at 1205.  He was taken into custody and interrogated by the police.  Id., 487 A.2d
at 1205.  At the suppression hearing, he testified that two police officers threatened him with
13
a blackjack, and that his father threatened to hit him with a chair if he did not stop smiling.
 Id. at 602, 487 A.2d at 1205.  Scott claimed that his confession was involuntary because he
was threatened by the police and his father.  Id., 487 A.2d at 1205.  The intermediate
appellate court affirmed the trial court’s finding that the police officers did not threaten the
defendant.  Id. at 603-04, 487 A.2d at 1206.  As to the father’s remark, the court held that
it was not a demand to confess, but rather a mere request to change a facial expression.  Id.
at 604, 487 A.2d at 1206.  The court, in dicta, addressed the fact that the father was not a
state agent.  Judge Adkins, writing for the court, noted as follows:
Preliminarily, we note that the father was not a State agent.  The
mere fact that no agency relationship existed, however, would
not necessarily preclude a finding that the confession was
involuntary.  In Watts v. State, 99 Md. 30, 57 A. 542 (1904) for
example, a reporter’s exhortation to a defendant to confess
rendered the defendant’s confession involuntary.  In a recent
analysis of the case, the Court of Appeals noted that the plea to
confess was made ‘with the sheriff present.’  Hillard, 286 Md.
at 152, 406 A. 2d 415.
Scott, 61 Md. App. at 604, 487 A.2d at 1206.  The Scott court seemingly placed significance
on the fact that the statement was made in the presence of one with authority over the
prisoner.
Both Watts and Scott involved confessions elicited in the presence of police while the
defendant was in police custody.  Neither case stands for the proposition that a confession
elicited by purely private conduct is subject to Maryland’s common law voluntariness
requirement.  Although the language in Scott at first blush might suggest that private conduct
may trigger the exclusionary rule, the context requires the conclusion that when a confession
14
is made in the presence of one having legal authority over the accused, and in the language
of Nicholson, “with his sanction,” the conduct is not considered private conduct and is
sufficient to trigger the common law voluntariness rule.
We hold that Maryland’s common law voluntariness requirement does not apply to
confessions elicited by purely private conduct.  Consistent with our prior case law, the
voluntariness requirement is applicable when a confession is elicited by one in authority, or
in his or her presence and with his or her sanction. 
IV.
Because we believe that the primary purpose of Maryland’s per se exclusionary rule
for involuntary confessions is to protect against government overreaching, we reject
Petitioner’s argument that “persons in authority,” or apparent official authority, should not
be limited to state actors.  We also reject Petitioner’s argument that the rule should include
those persons, such as employers, who have “real authority” over the accused and the power
to carry out a threat or promise.  Exclusion of confessions elicited by purely private persons
does not further the goal of protecting citizens from overreaching conduct of police or
government.  
The fear that a confession elicited by private individuals may be untrue or inherently
untrustworthy is properly addressed under the laws governing the admissibility of evidence
in this state.  As the Court of Special Appeals observed with respect to evidence derived by
private persons, “[W]e ask the questions that are the concern of the common law of evidence
15
  Md. Rule 5-403 provides:
3
Although relevant, evidence may be excluded if its probative
value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair
prejudice, confusion of the issues, or misleading the jury, or by
considerations of undue delay, waste of time, or needless
presentation of cumulative evidence.
--- Is it competent?,  Is it trustworthy?,  Will it enhance the accuracy of the verdict?”  Jacobs
v. State, 45 Md. App. 634, 646, 415 A.2d 590, 597 (1980).
We begin with the proposition that all relevant evidence is admissible.  See Md. Rule
5-402 (Relevant evidence generally admissible; irrelevant evidence inadmissible).
Relevant evidence “means evidence having any tendency to make the existence of any fact
that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than
it would be without the evidence.”  Md.  Rule 5-401.  (Definition of “relevant evidence”).
 Obviously, evidence that the trial judge deems unreliable or untrustworthy is not probative
to any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the case, and hence, is not  relevant
evidence.   In addition, Md.  Rule 5-403, Exclusion of relevant evidence on grounds of
prejudice, confusion or waste of time, permits a trial judge to exclude evidence if the
probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice.   See also Md.
3
Rule 5-601 (General Rule of competency); 10 MOORE’S FEDERAL PRACTICE § 403.02[3] (2d
ed. 1984) (“If the relevance of the proffered evidence is suspect or slight but would be
prejudicial then any justification of its admission is slight or non-existent.”). 
16
In McCleary v. State, 122 Md.  394, 89 A. 1100 (1914), the defendant excepted to the
admission of his confession on the grounds that his alleged confession was involuntary.
Noting that it is the fundamental duty of the trial court to pass upon the admissibility of
evidence, our predecessors applied the precedent set out in Nicholson v. State, and concluded
that the evidence as to the involuntary nature of the confession was insufficient to warrant
exclusion of it, but rather is to be considered as to the weight to be accorded it.  Id.  at 408,
89 A. at 1106.  The Court quoted with approval from the Supreme Court of Connecticut in
State v. Willis, 41 A. 820 (1898), as follows:
The English decisions which have developed the existing
practice in excluding admissions are not concerned with their
admissibility as relevant, but mainly, if not wholly, with their
weight.  The question is, shall this evidence, admissible as
relevant, be excluded because in the opinion of the judge the
conditions for the declaration come within those conditions that
make such an admission too unreliable to go to the jury?  and
the decisions illustrate the diverse exercise of this judicial
discretion.
Id. at 408-09, 89 A. at 1106.
So, too, today under the laws governing the admission of evidence in this State.  The
trial judge has the duty and the discretion to decide in the first instance whether under all the
circumstances the evidence is admissible.  Once the court decides the question of the
admissibility vel non of a confession, the defendant is entitled to have the jury hear and
consider whether a private person made any threats or promises and whether it had any effect
upon him or her in deciding to confess.  The jury is entitled to consider this testimony, and
give it whatever weight it chooses.
17
V.
We now turn to the issue of whether the trial court erred in determining that Pappas’
written statement to his employers was sufficiently reliable to be admissible against him at
his trial.  In our review of the trial court’s denial of Petitioner’s motion to suppress, we
consider only those facts presented during the suppression hearing.  Trusty v. State, 308 Md.
658, 670, 521 A.2d 749, 755 (1987).  Petitioner’s account at the hearing varied greatly from
Auto Row’s account.  Although acknowledging these differences, the trial court found that
the meeting at issue and the discussion of prosecution was as much the product of Petitioner
“bringing up the topic of prosecution” as it was of the Auto Row employees.  The court
concluded that Petitioner’s statement was “not the product of such promise or threat as to
render it inherently unreliable.”  The trial court was not clearly erroneous in determining that
Petitioner’s confession was sufficiently reliable to be admissible at Petitioner’s trial.  
JUDGMENT OF THE COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS
AFFIRMED.  COSTS TO BE PAID BY PETITIONER.