Case Name: COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Appellant/Cross-Appellee, v. Robert Edward COOPER, Appellee/Cross-Appellant
Court: Supreme Court of Kentucky
Jurisdiction: Kentucky
Decision Date: 1995-02-16
Citations: 899 S.W.2d 75
Docket Number: Nos. 93-SC-618-DG, 93-SC-1021-DG
Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Appellant/Cross-Appellee, v. Robert Edward COOPER, Appellee/Cross-Appellant.
Judges: REYNOLDS, SPAIN and WINTERSHEIMER, JJ., concur.
Reporter: South Western Reporter Second Series
Volume: 899
Pages: 75–85

Head Matter:
COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Appellant/Cross-Appellee, v. Robert Edward COOPER, Appellee/Cross-Appellant.
Nos. 93-SC-618-DG, 93-SC-1021-DG.
Supreme Court of Kentucky.
Feb. 16, 1995.
Rehearing Denied June 8, 1995.
Chris Gorman, Atty. Gen., Frankfort, C. Lloyd Vest, II, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Louisville, for Commonwealth.
Harry B. O’Donnell, IV, Thomas E. Schwietz, Louisville, for Cooper.

Opinion:
LAMBERT, Justice.
The question before the Court is whether Section Eleven of the Constitution of Kentucky or a viable doctrine of the common law requires suppression of a confession coerced or improperly obtained by private parties. Prevailing decisional law answers firmly in the negative (Peek v. Commonwealth, Ky., 415 S.W.2d 854 (1967)), and is in accord with controlling precedent interpreting the Constitution of the United States. Colorado v. Connelly, 479 U.S. 157, 107 S.Ct. 515, 93 L.Ed.2d 473 (1986). Despite the foregoing, the trial court held that Section Eleven of the Constitution of Kentucky was without any requirement of state action, thereby subjecting incriminating statements made to purely private persons to a "compelled . evidence" analysis. The Court of Appeals disclaimed reliance on either federal or state constitutional law, but relied on "an ancient doctrine conceived in the common law...." that confessions obtained by coercive techniques, whether by state or private actors, were involuntary and inadmissible in criminal prosecutions. We granted discretionary review and now reverse the courts below.
The facts, as found by the trial court and relied upon by the Court of Appeals, are substantially as follows. While employed by United Parcel Service in Louisville, appellee Robert Edward Cooper was observed standing over two parcels, one of which was open. On questioning by his supervisor, appellee soon confessed to having opened the parcel. On further questioning, he admitted having committed other UPS thefts and provided tangible evidence which confirmed his oral and written confessions. However, in the course of the interrogation, UPS personnel assumed the role of authority figures and asserted control over appellee. He felt significantly intimidated by virtue of being questioned for something over one hour in a windowless room which had a motion detector and closed, possibly locked, doors. Moreover, UPS personnel expressly or impliedly promised appellee that in exchange for his cooperation, he would not be prosecuted.
On the other hand, there was no evidence of violence or threat of violence against ap-pellee. He was not physically prevented from leaving the scene and was urged only to tell the truth. The only police officer present was appellee, a military policeman with the Kentucky National Guard, and he testified to being familiar with police procedures.
Upon the foregoing evidence, the trial court ordered suppression of appellee's statements and on the Commonwealth's interlocutory appeal, pursuant to KRS 22A.010, the Court of Appeals affirmed. Both courts below acknowledged the absence of grounds for suppression pursuant to the Constitution of the United States, but interpreted Kentucky law more broadly than corresponding federal constitutional rights. Holding that state action is not required to trigger a right to seek suppression under state law, the Court of Appeals stated:
It matters not whether undesired results, like involuntary confessions, emanate from the badge of authority or from an ordinary citizen cloaked with actual or perceived superiority. In the eyes of the law of this Commonwealth, the consequence is no less odious. (Slip op., p. 5).
Contrary to the view of the courts below, the decisions of this Court are virtually unanimous that "state action" is required before any claim of suppression on grounds of compelled testimony will be entertained. Such was the direct holding in Peek v. Commonwealth, supra, in which a bail bondsman refused to file a bond until a defendant in custody made what amounted to a confession. Despite the existence of circumstances whieh might have suggested state action, the Court said:
The State is not, and should not be, charged with any undue influence, pressure, sweating, or inducement exercised by a private citizen, acting on his own, not in concert with the officers of the State.
Id. at 856. Similarly, in Hood v. Commonwealth, Ky., 448 S.W.2d 388 (1969), in which the appellant contended that he should have been given all the warnings and admonitions set forth in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), the Court held that Miranda rights do not apply to a citizen arrest.
The thrust of Miranda relates to actions of law enforcement agencies, and not to the actions of private citizens. We have no hesitancy in holding that Miranda does not apply in the instant case.
Hood, at 391. Likewise Joggers v. Commonwealth, Ky., 439 S.W.2d 580 (1969), held that statements made to a person other than a "law enforcement official" were not subject to Miranda protection.
These statements were not made to any law enforcement officer, nor were they made when appellant was under arrest.
Id. at 584.
It should be observed that Hood and daggers and a great many other Kentucky decisions addressing the right against self-incrimination were rendered in the era shortly after Miranda v. Arizona. In Kentucky and throughout this nation, Miranda represented a change in the law of seismic proportions and the rights it acknowledged went far beyond those which were recognized under the Constitution of Kentucky. Thus the phrase "Miranda rights" became virtually synonymous with the most conceivably far-reaching rights against self-incrimination. Disdainfully, the Court knuckled under in Meyer v. Commonwealth, Ky., 472 S.W.2d 479 (1971) (overruled on other grounds by Short v. Commonwealth, Ky., 519 S.W.2d 828 (1975)), as follows:
The word "compelled" contemplates the use of "sweating" or other means of coercing a citizen to incriminate himself. Nowhere in any constitution, either Federal or state, is a requirement that officers charged with the investigation of a crime must enlighten the suspect of his rights against self-incrimination. But Miranda does just that, and until it is overruled we must try to live with it.
While the foregoing decisions did not directly address Kentucky constitutional law, it appears to have been implicit that there were no greater protections than federal constitutional protections or that state constitutional rights were no more than coextensive with federal rights. In fact, the Court said just that in Newman v. Stinson, Ky., 489 S.W.2d 826 (1972):
The Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and the right given by Section Eleven of the Kentucky Constitution both arise from a common historical desire to prohibit the employment of legal process to extract from a person's own lips an admission of guilt which would thus take the place of other evidence. 8 Wigmore, Evidence (McNaughton Revision 1961), Section 2268. That the guarantees against self-incrimination of both the Federal and State Constitutions should have the same interpretation as far as possible despite some variance of wording is supported by Wigmore, 8 Wigmore, Evidence, Sections 2252 and 2268, and is affirmed by Schmer-ber v. California, supra. We conclude therefore that the protection against self-incrimination given by the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution is identical with that afforded by Section Eleven of the Kentucky Constitution.
Id. at 829.
We recognize that Newman v. Stinson did not deal with testimonial confessions, but such was clearly within the Court's contemplation as shown by its discussion of the historical parallel between the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and Section Eleven of the Constitution of Kentucky. Moreover, an interpretation that Section Eleven requires "state action" is strengthened by analogy to other rights of persons accused of criminal conduct. In Stone v. Commonwealth, Ky., 418 S.W.2d 646 (1967), the Court held that evidence obtained by private persons was not subject to exclusion under Section 10. Quoting from Chapman v. Commonwealth, 206 Ky. 439, 267 S.W. 181 (1924), the Court said:
It [Section 10] has never been held, however, to embrace or be applicable to a private individual who, through a process of spying or other form of trespass, discloses evidence against another.
Stone v. Commonwealth at 650. Similarly, in Wilson v. Commonwealth, Ky., 695 S.W.2d 854, 857 (1985), the Court held, though it failed to specify whether it was interpreting federal or state constitutional law, that
in order to establish that a pre-trial confrontation was unduly suggestive, the defendant must first show that the government's agents arranged the confrontation or took some action during the confrontation which singled out the defendant.
From time to time in recent years this Court has interpreted the Constitution of Kentucky in a manner which differs from the interpretation of parallel federal constitutional rights by the Supreme Court of the United States. However, when we have differed from the Supreme Court, it has been because of Kentucky constitutional text, the Debates of the Constitutional Convention, history, tradition, and relevant precedent. We have admonished against "novel theories to revise well-established legal practice and principle" and stated the prevailing rule as follows:
While we have decided several recent cases protecting individual rights on state constitutional law grounds, our stated purpose is to do so only where the dictates of our Kentucky Constitution, tradition, and other relevant precedents call for such action. (Citations omitted.)
Holbrook v. Knopf, Ky., 847 S.W.2d 52, 55 (1992).
Newman v. Stinson, supra, and our prior decisions are clear and we reiterate that Section Eleven of the Constitution of Kentucky and the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States are coextensive and provide identical protections against self-incrimination. State action is indispensable.
For the conclusion that appellee's statements should be suppressed, the courts below relied to a great extent upon four cases rendered between 1872 and 1924. The trial court extravagantly described these cases as exemplifying the "expansionist interpretation of the right against self-incrimination" thus eliminating the requirement of state action under Section Eleven. The Court of Appeals interpretation differed somewhat as it saw in these decisions an
ancient doctrine conceived in the common law of this Commonwealth that a confession induced by coercive techniques, including the use of promises or of undue influence, while under the authority of civil as well as police personnel during an interrogation is, indeed, involuntary and inadmissible in a criminal prosecution. (Slip op., p. 4)
The first of these cases is Young v. Commonwealth, 71 Ky. (8 Bush) 366 (1872), in which the defendant sought suppression of a statement made by him to the sheriff after having been arrested. The defendant contended, however, that the statement was made at the urging of one working in cooperation with the state and that but for assurances given by the other that he would be better off to make the statement, he would not have done so. In response to the contention that the statements were not voluntary but were made under the influence of hopes and fears held out to him, the Court said:
The general doctrine is indisputable, that confessions which are "forced from the mind by the flattery of hope or the torture of fear" are considered as made under mental duress, and therefore incompetent as evidence; but whether they are so extorted must depend on the character of the authority, power, or influence by which they are induced; and it will not be presumed that a person having no control over a prisoner, or the charge against him, or authority to make good a promise or execute a threat, could without physical force, or duress at least, so far inspire either hope or fear in his mind as to induce a false confession of his guilt. While therefore it is clear that confessions induced by promises, threats, or advice of the prosecutor or officer having the prisoner in charge, or of anyone having authority over him, or the prosecution itself, or of "a private person in the presence of one in authority," whose acquiescence may be presumed, will not be deemed voluntary, and will be rejected, the rule is generally the reverse in relation to confessions superinduced by indifferent persons, acting officiously, without any kind of authority; and confessions made under such circumstances will be admitted in evidence. (Citations omitted.)
Discerning no error in the trial court's admission of the statement in evidence, the Court concluded:
Whatever may have been the peril of the appellant, and the effect on his mind of the circumstances which surround him, we can see no sufficient reason for treating the advice of Denson otherwise than as the counsel of a private friend of the defendant, which did not render his subsequent admissions incompetent as evidence, although it may have induced him to make the admissions.
The second of the cases so heavily relied upon is Rector v. Commonwealth, 80 Ky. 468 (1883), in which a theft was committed by two persons. After the thieves were arrested and were being returned to the county where the crime had been committed, the victim stated to them that if they would tell him where the stolen property was located, things would go better for them and the victim would not prosecute them "hard." In response to this state of affairs, the Court held:
It is a general rule that confessions which are induced by hopes or fears raised by the promise or threats of the prosecutor, or of any person having authority over the prisoner at the time, are not considered voluntary, having been made under mental duress, and therefore not competent.
Due to the paucity of facts, it is difficult to say with certainty whether the evidence in Rector was excluded on the basis of representations of the victim, a private person, or whether the fact of appellants' custody and a presumed cooperation between the victim and the authorities was decisive.
The next case is Renaker v. Commonwealth 172 Ky. 714, 189 S.W. 928 (1916), where state action was clearly present. In response to appellant's motion to suppress, the Court said:
To render evidence of such confession incompetent, it must have been influenced by promises, threats, or advice of the prosecutor or officer having the prisoner in charge, or of any one having him in duress or having authority over him.
Id. at 932.
Finally is Baughman v. Commonwealth, 206 Ky. 441, 267 S.W. 231 (1924), wherein the sixteen-year-old defendant was brutalized by "one of the deputy sheriffs during the course of interrogating him about the crime." Id. at 232. The trial judge excluded the defendant's confession as constitutionally infirm but admitted evidence of collateral facts obtained as a result of the confession. On appeal from the conviction, the appellant challenged the admission of this evidence and the court was led to write at length on the admissibility of confessions. It noted that in English history, torture had been administered to extract confessions by duly constituted officers and by ecclesiastical and other voluntary inquisitors. As a result, the Court wrote, a modem rule emerged excluding confessions obtained by duress, coercion, threat, promise of reward or other unlawful means. The theory was that because of the unlawful means, the confession might be false. Such confessions were also to be excluded as a means of judicial condemnation of inhumane methods.
While there was state action in Baugh-man, dictum in the opinion is broad enough to permit the conclusion that state action was not always required; that a confession obtained by private actors engaged in barbarous practices should also be excluded. Of the cases discussed hereinabove, the oldest and most lucid is Young v. Commonwealth and it quite clearly requires state action in ordinary circumstances. However, there is language in Young ("or of anyone having authority over him") which is capable of broad construction, but the context generally requires the conclusion that the authority be under color of law. In fact, the Court said that confessions made to "indifferent persons, acting officiously, without any kind of authority" would be admitted in evidence. Nevertheless, all of the cases acknowledge that the use of physical force or some other means which would shock the conscience is intolerable and that statements obtained thereby should be excluded. Moreover, it is doubtful that statements obtained in such a manner would meet the test of relevancy set forth in KRE 401 or survive a motion to exclude pursuant to KRE 403.
Exclusion of statements or confessions by virtue of our common law tradition which condemns confessions obtained by severe duress or physical force is limited and statements or confessions should be excluded on such grounds only in compelling circumstances. In most cases, one aggrieved by the admission of a statement or confession believed by him to have been unfairly obtained by a private person will be limited to the rights assured in Crane v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 683, 106 S.Ct. 2142, 90 L.Ed.2d 636 (1986).
[Evidence of] the physical and psychological environment that yielded the confession can also be of substantial relevance to the ultimate factual issue of the defendant's guilt or innocence. Confessions, even those that have been found to be voluntary, are not conclusive of guilt. Accordingly, regardless of whether the defendant marshaled the same evidence earlier in support of an unsuccessful motion to suppress, and entirely independent of any question of voluntariness, a defendant's case may stand or fall on his ability to convince the jury that the manner in which the confession was obtained easts doubt on its credibility.
Id., 476 U.S. at 689, 106 S.Ct. at 2146.
The central findings of the trial court, the findings on which it and the Court of Appeals determined that appellant's confession should be suppressed, were that during the questioning, appellee felt intimidated and coerced and that he was led to believe that in exchange for his cooperation, he would not be prosecuted. These findings are woefully insufficient to justify application of the common law rule discussed hereinabove. In the circumstances which prevailed here, our decision in Peek v. Commonwealth, supra, is dispositive.
Appellee's complaint on cross-appeal with respect to the Court of Appeals' designation of its opinion as Not to Be Published is rendered moot by our order granting discretionary review and our determination that this opinion should be published.
The opinion of the Court of Appeals is reversed and this cause remanded to the Jefferson Circuit Court for further proceedings consistent herewith.
REYNOLDS, SPAIN and WINTERSHEIMER, JJ., concur.
LEIBSON, J., dissents by separate opinion in which STEPHENS, C.J., and STUMBO, J" join.
. Our "involuntary confession" jurisprudence is entirely consistent with the settled law requiring some sort of "state action" to support a claim of violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The 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.
We hold 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 Amendment.
Colorado v. Connelly, 479 U.S. at 165-167, 107 S.Ct. at 520-522.