IN THE

ARIZONA COURT OF APPEALS

DIVISION ONE

STATE OF ARIZONA, Appellee,

v.

JASON LUKE SNEE, Appellant.

No. 1 CA-CR 16-0731

Appeal from the Superior Court in Maricopa County

No. CR 2012-124514-001

The Honorable Erin Otis, Judge

AFFIRMED

COUNSEL

Arizona Attorney General’s Office, Phoenix

By Joseph T. Maziarz

Counsel for Appellee

Maricopa County Public Defender’s Office, Phoenix

By Carlos Daniel Carrion

Counsel for Appellant

FILED 4-5-2018
STATE v. SNEE

Opinion of the Court

2

OPINION

Judge Patricia A. Orozco1 delivered the opinion of the Court, in which 

Presiding Judge Michael J. Brown and Judge Maria Elena Cruz joined.

O R O Z C O, Judge:

¶1 Jason Luke Snee appeals his convictions and resulting 

sentences. He argues he should be granted a new trial because the court 

admitted into evidence his confession to law enforcement officials without 

first determining whether the confession was voluntary. For the following 

reasons, we affirm. 

FACTS

¶2 The State charged Snee with nine felonies and two 

misdemeanors. A jury returned not-guilty verdicts on two counts and

guilty verdicts on four counts, but could not reach a decision on the five 

remaining counts. Snee was subsequently sentenced to prison. We have 

jurisdiction over this timely appeal pursuant to Arizona Revised Statutes

(A.R.S.) section 12-120.21(A).

DISCUSSION

¶3 Before trial, Snee filed a motion to suppress his confession, 

but later withdrew it. Nevertheless, on appeal he argues that “A.R.S. § 13-

3988(A) required the court to sua sponte conduct a voluntariness hearing” 

because the evidence indicated that the confession was induced by an 

impermissible promise.2

¶4 We review de novo issues of statutory interpretation and 

constitutional law. State v. Wein, 242 Ariz. 372, 374, ¶ 7 (App. 2017). “When 

 

1 The Honorable Patricia A. Orozco, retired Judge of the Arizona 

Court of Appeals, Division One, has been authorized to sit in this matter 

pursuant to Article VI, Section 3 of the Arizona Constitution.

2 Snee did not “invite” the error by withdrawing his motion, as the 

State argues, and we therefore decline to apply the invited-error doctrine, 

which “prevents a party from injecting the error into the record and then 

profiting from it on appeal.” State v. Rushing, 243 Ariz. 212, 217, ¶ 14 (2017) 

(emphasis added). 
STATE v. SNEE

Opinion of the Court

3

interpreting a statute, we look to the plain language of the statute as the 

best indicator of the drafter’s intent.” State v. Pledger, 236 Ariz. 469, 471, ¶ 

8 (App. 2015).

¶5 Snee asserts that A.R.S. § 13-3988(A) requires trial courts to 

conduct voluntariness hearings “whenever the State offers a defendant’s 

confession as evidence, even if one is not requested by the defense.” (Emphasis 

added.) We disagree.

¶6 Section 13-3988(A) states that “[b]efore [a] confession is 

received in evidence, the trial judge shall, out of the presence of the jury, 

determine any issue as to voluntariness.” An “issue,” however, is defined 

as “a point, matter, or question to be disputed or decided.” Webster’s New 

Universal Unabridged Dictionary 975 (2d ed. 1983); see also American 

Heritage Dictionary 931 (5th ed. 2011) (defining an “issue” as “[a] point or 

matter of discussion, debate, or dispute”). Therefore, the statute only 

requires courts to determine whether a confession was involuntary when 

voluntariness is disputed by the defense, and not, as Snee contends, in 

every case in which the State seeks to introduce a confession.

¶7 Our interpretation is consistent with Arizona Rule of 

Criminal Procedure 16.1, which governs pretrial motions and requires 

parties “to make all motions no later than 20 days before trial . . . .” See also

State v. Ferguson, 119 Ariz. 200, 201 (1978) (“Inasmuch as appellant had not 

made a motion to suppress prior to the trial, and did not object to the 

questions at trial, she waived her right to a voluntariness hearing.” (citing 

Rule 16.1(c))). We do not suggest that courts are prohibited from, sua 

sponte, conducting voluntariness hearings. Cf. Fitzgerald v. Myers, 243 Ariz. 

84, 92-93, ¶ 27 (2017) (“[N]either the statute nor the rule . . . establishes a 

requirement for, or right to, a convicted defendant’s competency in capital 

PCR proceedings. In the sound exercise of its inherent authority and 

discretion, however, a trial court may order a competency evaluation when 

helpful or necessary . . . .”); State v. Alvarado, 121 Ariz. 485, 488 (1979) 

(recognizing that although parties must move for a voluntariness hearing 

twenty days before trial, “the trial judge, in his discretion, may also 

entertain a motion for a voluntariness hearing at trial”). We simply 

conclude that courts are not statutorily required to do so.

¶8 Snee also argues the evidence here presented a question of 

voluntariness that, under State v. Finn, required the court to sua sponte 

conduct a voluntariness hearing. 111 Ariz. 271 (1974). In Finn, the Arizona 

Supreme Court held that trial courts are not required to sua sponte

“determine possible involuntariness where the question of voluntariness is 
STATE v. SNEE

Opinion of the Court

4

not raised either by the evidence or the defense counsel.” Id. at 275; see also 

State v. Armstrong, 103 Ariz. 280, 281 (1968) (same); State v. Goodyear, 100 

Ariz. 244, 248 (1966) (“It is the duty of a trial court to hold a hearing as to 

voluntariness of a statement or confession, if a question as to its 

voluntariness is raised—either by the attorneys, or one is presented by the 

evidence.”) (emphasis added); State v. Simoneau, 98 Ariz. 2, 6-7 (1965) 

(explaining that although a defendant has a “constitutional right to refrain 

from incriminating himself under the Fifth Amendment to the 

Constitution,” “where no question is presented to the court either by 

counsel or by the evidence at the trial suggesting that a confession is 

involuntary, there is no issue of fact to be determined by the court in the 

absence of the jury and no need for a specific ruling”) (emphasis added). 

¶9 Finn and its predecessors, however, which were decided on 

constitutional grounds, do not control our decision here because they did 

not address A.R.S. § 13-3988(A). See Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72, 86 

(1977) (“[T]he Constitution does not require a voluntariness hearing absent

some contemporaneous challenge to the use of the confession.”) 

Wainwright was, in fact, explicitly acknowledged years later by our state 

supreme court in Alvarado. 121 Ariz. at 487 (“The [Wainwright] Court 

concluded . . . that absent some objection by the defendant to the admission of 

his confession, the Constitution does not require a voluntariness hearing to 

be held.”) (emphasis added).

¶10 Therefore, we conclude that neither A.R.S. § 13-3988(A) nor 

the Constitution required the trial court to conduct a voluntariness hearing

absent some objection by defendant. Even if such a requirement existed,

and the court conducted a hearing, Snee cannot show that the court would 

have suppressed the evidence because the officers did not make any 

impermissible promises to Snee, as he suggests. 

¶11 “To be admissible a statement must be made voluntarily and 

not obtained by coercion or improper inducement.” State v. Rushing, 243 

Ariz. 212, 226, ¶ 60 (2017). “Promises of benefits or leniency, whether direct 

or implied, even if only slight in value, are impermissibly coercive.” State 

v. Lopez, 174 Ariz. 131, 138 (1992). “Before a statement will be considered 

involuntary because of a ‘promise,’ evidence must be established that (1) a 

promise was in fact made, and (2) the suspect relied on that promise in 

making the statement.” Id.

¶12 Snee was read his Miranda rights, but argues the following 

exchange amounted to an impermissible promise that rendered his 

confession involuntary:
STATE v. SNEE

Opinion of the Court

5

Detective: The easier we get through this, the 

faster we get done, the faster we are out of here. 

Okay?

. . . . 

Detective: Try your hardest to stay with me 

here for a second, okay? All right, I just need to 

find my facts and that’s it, and then we can get 

out of here. All right?

¶13 The detective’s observation that the quicker the interview

progressed, the sooner it would end, did not, without a promise of leniency 

or more, constitute an impermissible promise. Therefore, the trial court did 

not err by failing to conduct a voluntariness hearing or by failing to 

suppress the confession.

CONCLUSION

¶14 For the reasons previously stated, we affirm Snee’s 

convictions and sentences.