Source: https://leb.fbi.gov/articles/legal-digest/legal-digest-confessions-and-the-constitution
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 10:14:31+00:00

Document:
By Carl A. Benoit, J.D.
It is when the police officer “seek[s] out possibly guilty witnesses and ask[s] them questions”3 that the law surrounding confessions must be considered. Because confessions and interrogations are such a recognized and long-standing tool in law enforcement, articles about all aspects of the topic abound. Less frequently addressed, however, is a discussion of the legal effect of obtaining a confession in violation of constitutional safeguards. Because obtaining a confession can implicate different constitutional rights, answering this question involves identifying the particular constitutional safeguard involved— typically a right found within the Fourth, Fifth, or Sixth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution—and then understanding the remedy that each provision imposes for a violation. In recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court decided three cases that involved confessions obtained in violation of constitutional safeguards. And, in each of these cases, the Supreme Court has made one thing clear: the Constitution imposes different remedies for different violations. Law enforcement officers must be aware of these issues and can find guidance in these Supreme Court cases involving confessions. Armed with this information, law enforcement officers can properly understand the implications of obtaining confessions in violation of constitutional safeguards.
Special Agent Benoit is a legal instructor at the FBI Academy.
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated….”4 Expressly contained within its first sentence, the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures are familiar terms to law enforcement officers. What is less clear from the text, however, is the remedy the Fourth Amendment imposes for a violation of its protections. While the Fourth Amendment stands silent on this point, the U.S. Supreme Court has not stood mute. Beginning in 1914, the Supreme Court created a remedy for violations of Fourth Amendment rights—the remedy of suppression.5 This remedy, however, was limited to the federal government and its agents until 1961 when, in Mapp v. Ohio,6 the Supreme Court held that the states were required to suppress evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
The judicially created remedy of suppression (also called the exclusionary rule), as defined by the Supreme Court, can be easily stated: evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment is excluded from use at trial. While there are many exceptions and limits to this general rule7 (beyond what will be covered within this article), the application of this rule to evidence is well understood in law enforcement circles. And, while the suppression remedy applies more commonly to physical or tangible items, the rule’s application clearly encompasses confessions. This became clear in 1963 when the Supreme Court ruled that verbal evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment is subject to the remedy of suppression. This rule, established in Wong Sun v. United States, has come to be known, and very nearly defined, by the phrase “fruit of the poison tree.”8 If a proper understanding of the Fourth Amendment rule of suppression requires a more formal definition, then Wong Sun provided that as well.
Thus, for purposes of the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule, suppression is not necessarily automatic: to order the suppression of evidence, including a confession, a court is required to determine if the evidence in question was obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment and then determine whether anything occurred that may have cleansed the evidence from this violation. The 2003 case of Kaupp v. Texas10 best illustrates the application of the remedy of suppression to a confession.
Prior to his trial, Kaupp moved to suppress the oral and written statements he made to investigators on the morning of January 27, claiming that the confession was the result of his unlawful arrest. The trial court denied the motion and ruled that Kaupp was not placed under arrest prior to making the admissions. Kaupp was convicted of murder and sentenced to 55 years. The Texas Court of Appeals upheld the conviction, and the Court of Criminal Appeals denied review of the case.15 Kaupp appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
If a statement obtained in violation of Miranda procedures cannot be used by the prosecution in its direct case, what is the effect on physical evidence located as a result of such a statement? The Supreme Court answered this question in 2004.
The district court suppressed the gun,30 determining that the officers lacked probable cause for the arrest and the pistol was a fruit of the unlawful arrest. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, while reversing the district court on the issue of probable cause, suppressed the gun on the grounds that it was the fruit of Patane’s unwarned statement.31 The case was then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The issue before the Supreme Court was “whether a failure to give a suspect the warnings prescribed by Miranda v. Arizona requires suppression of the physical fruits of the suspect’s unwarned but voluntary statements.”32 To resolve the question of the admissibility of the gun and whether its suppression was required by the exclusionary rule, the court first determined what constitutional right was implicated. Because the circuit court of appeals held that Patane was lawfully arrested based on probable cause, there was no Fourth Amendment violation. What was clear to the Supreme Court, however, based on the uncontested facts, was that the detective obtained Patane’s statements without properly advising Patane of his rights pursuant to Miranda v. Arizona. Thus, the legal issue for the Supreme Court focused on the application of the Fifth Amendment to the statements Patane made while in custody.
The Patane case provides a straightforward application of the Miranda rule to statements and also highlights the distinction between the Fifth Amendment and Miranda. In the case, there was no argument that Patane’s statement was involuntary or coerced—which would have been a violation of the Fifth Amendment. Neither the officer nor the detective compelled Patane to make a statement about the pistol. Their only omission was in questioning Patane without finishing the required warnings and obtaining a waiver. Patane’s statement—unwarned but otherwise voluntary—was not obtained in violation of the Fifth Amendment. According to the court in Patane, the full and complete remedy for the unwarned statement is the exclusion of the statement from the prosecution’s direct case. The exclusion of the statement fully protected Patane’s Fifth Amendment rights. The nontestimonial evidence—the pistol—obtained as result of Patane’s unwarned statement was not the product of a constitutional violation and, therefore, was admissible.
The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees that “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall…have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.”41 To protect this right, the Supreme Court has held that a defendant is entitled to have counsel present at certain critical stages, including postindictment interactions between the defendant and the government.42 The Sixth Amendment protections only apply at certain critical stages—after the filing of a formal charge (in federal procedure, an indictment of information) or after a court appearance on the charge. And, because the right applies to the crimes that are the subject of the formal charges or court appearance, it is said to be crime specific.43 Once the Sixth Amendment right to counsel attaches to the defendant on a particular charge, statements deliberately elicited from a defendant by the government may not be used at trial unless counsel was present when the statement was made or unless the defendant properly waived his Sixth Amendment right. But, does a Sixth Amendment violation prohibit the prosecution from using a defendant’s statements for impeachment purposes? The Supreme Court answered this question in 2009.
In January 2004, Rhonda Theel and Donnie Ray Ventris went to the home of Ernest Hicks likely because they learned that Hicks carried large amounts of cash. One or both killed Hicks, took $300 and his cell phone, and fled in his pickup truck.44 Theel and Ventris were arrested and charged with various crimes for these acts. Theel pleaded guilty to robbery and agreed to testify against Ventris. Prior to his trial, a police informant was placed in the holding cell with Ventris. After the informant engaged Ventris in conversation by telling Ventris that he looked like he had “something more serious weighing on his mind,” Ventris confessed to the informant that he had “shot this man in his head and chest” and stolen some property from him as well.45 At his trial, Ventris took the stand and blamed Theel for both the robbery and murder.46 The prosecution, over the defendant’s objection, was permitted to call the cell-mate informant to testify to the prior statement Ventris made about the murder. The jury acquitted Ventris of murder, but convicted him of burglary and robbery charges. Ventris appealed his conviction. The Kansas Supreme Court held that the statement made by Ventris to the cell-mate informant was not admissible at trial for any reason, including impeachment, and reversed the conviction.47 The state appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Ventris case also provides a clear application of the Sixth Amendment to a confession obtained in violation of its protections. It is important to note here that the court accepted the premise that the comments by the jailhouse informant amounted to an interrogation of Ventris. Because Ventris’s Sixth Amendment rights had attached by virtue of his indictment, no statement about the pending charge could be deliberately elicited from Ventris unless he had counsel present or if he was advised of his Sixth Amendment rights and voluntarily waived them. Because the questioning by the cell-mate informant was assumed to amount to deliberate elicitation and because Ventris’s counsel was not present at that time and Ventris had not waived his Sixth Amendment rights, the statement was taken in violation of the Sixth Amendment, and the informant was prohibited from testifying during the prosecution’s direct case. However, once Ventris took the witness stand and testified in contradiction to the statements he made to the informant, the prosecution was entitled to use the statements to impeach Ventris’s testimony. If Ventris did not take the witness stand, the prosecution would not have been able to introduce the testimony of the informant.
The cases discussed in this article describe the different costs imposed for obtaining a confession in violation of the safeguards found within the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. In light of the continued importance of confessions to the successful prosecution of criminals, investigators should ensure that confessions obtained comply with the Constitution’s demands. In doing so, investigators can ensure that confessions obtained can be fully and affirmatively used to their fullest potential by the prosecution.
Law enforcement officers of other than federal jurisdiction who are interested in this article should consult their legal advisors. Some police procedures ruled permissible under federal constitutional law are of questionable legality under state law or are not permitted at all.
1 Jim Markey, “After the Match: Dealing with the New Era of DNA,” FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, October 2007, 1-4.
2 Culombe v. Connecticut, 367 U.S. 568 (1961).
4 U.S. CONST. Amend IV.
5 Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383 (1913).
6 Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961).
7 Exceptions and limitations to the application of the suppression remedy include standing (Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128 1978); good faith reliance on a search warrant (United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (1984); attenuation (Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471 (1963); and independent source and inevitable discovery (Murray v. U.S., 487 U.S. 533 (1988). See also Hudson v. Michigan, 547 U.S. 546 (2006) (Suppression not required for when search warrant executed in violation of knock and announce rule); and Virginia v. Moore, 553 U.S. 164 (2008) (Suppression not required for an arrest made in violation of state statute but constitutionally permissible).
8 371 U.S. 471 (1963).
9 Id. at 487, 488.
10 538 U.S. 626 (2003).
11 Kaupp v. State of Texas, 2001 WL 619119 (Tex. App.- Hous. (14 Dist.)) (Unpublished opinion).
12 Kaupp v. Texas, 538 U.S. 626, 628 (2003).
14 Id. at 628, 629.
22 Kaupp v. State of Texas, 2004 WL 114979 (Tex.App.Hous. (14 Dist.)) (Unpublished opinion).
23 Events that a court should consider in this regard are set forth in Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590 (1975).
24 U.S. CONST. Amend V.
25 384 U.S. 436 (1966).
27 United States v. Patane, 542 U.S. 630, 634-635 (2004).
30 If the arrest of Patane was in violation of the Fourth Amendment, then both his statement and the gun would have been subject to suppression.
32 Id. at 634, 635.
34 Id. at 639 (Citations omitted).
39 Id. at 644. See Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298 (1985) and Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U.S. 433 (1974).
41 U.S. CONST. Amend. VI.
42 Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201 (1964).
43 Texas v. Cobb, 532 U.S. 162 (2001).
44 Kansas v. Ventris, 129 S. Ct. 1841, 1843 (2009).
47 State of Kansas v. Ventris, 285 Kan. 595 (2008).
49 Id. at 1844-1845 (quoting Michigan v. Harvey, 494 U.S. 344, 348 (1990)).
50 Id. at 1845. The court noted that the state conceded that a Sixth Amendment violation occurred and the court did not rule that this “concession was necessary.” It accepted the concession as the law of the case.
52 Id. (quoting Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465, 488 (1976)).

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