Opinion ID: 1225502
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Inducing waiver by improper promises of lenity.

Text: The second part of defendant's challenge to the validity of his Miranda waiver is the claim that it was improperly induced by the detectives' promises of lenient treatment in exchange for defendant's cooperation in the Painter murder investigation. The entire evidence of improper inducement on which defendant relies consists of a statement by Detective Bell, made immediately after the questioning of defendant had begun: BELL: I want it. For the record too, that you guys came down voluntarily to, to help us out in the investigation that we made contact at your house. MUSSELWHITE: Sure thing. BELL: We offered to let you drive down here on your own but you, you know (inaudible) didn't have a car so [you] came down with us, right? MUSSELWHITE: Yeah. BELL: Okay. I just want to, I just want to show your degree of cooperation.  (Italics added.) It is on the basis of this abbreviated exchange  and particularly Detective Bell's italicized comment above  that defendant claims his Miranda waiver was improperly induced by promises of lenity. The evidence relied on, however, is too slender to sustain that claim. As the extract from the interrogation set out above shows, Bell did no more than note for the record that defendant and his wife had voluntarily accompanied the detectives to the station house, as a means of show[ing defendant's] degree of cooperation. The whole of Bell's one-sentence statement is nowhere close to the half-hour of softening-up of the suspect we disapproved in People v. Honeycutt (1977) 20 Cal.3d 150, 160 [141 Cal. Rptr. 698, 570 P.2d 1050], on which defendant relies. Nor does it present the concerns that led the Court of Appeal to find an invalid Miranda waiver by a juvenile suspect in In re Shawn D. (1993) 20 Cal. App.4th 200 [24 Cal. Rptr.2d 395] ( Shawn D. ), another case defendant argues supports his involuntariness claim. There, the Court of Appeal found the juvenile's confession to burglary involuntary because the police repeatedly suggested that [the juvenile] would be treated more leniently if he confessed. ( Id. at p. 214.) The defendant was told that his honesty would be noted in the police report and that he would receive more lenient treatment if he explained his role in the robbery. The police officers also implied, unlike this case, that if the juvenile confessed to and helped recover the proceeds of the burglary, they would intervene on his behalf with the prosecutor: ... I will personally talk to the D.A. or persons who do the juvenile. ( Id. at p. 215, italics omitted.) Indeed, the opinion in Shawn D. itself distinguishes this case: [T]his is not a case where there was merely one isolated instance in which the police implied that [defendant] would benefit from confessing. Rather, the officer continually raised this theme  from the very beginning of the interrogation  to the comments about helping the police get the property back  to the statements about [defendant] being able to see his girlfriend and baby  to the hypothetical about the bank robber  to [the officer's] statement that, `Seriously, you help us get the stuff back and I will personally talk to the D.A. or persons who do the juvenile.' The promise of leniency in exchange for a confession permeated the entire interrogation.  (20 Cal. App.4th at p. 216, italics added.) Not only was Detective Bell's statement  that he wanted the record to show defendant's degree of cooperation  too brief and insubstantial to qualify as an inducement, it conveys no suggestion of any benefit in exchange for defendant's cooperation. If defendant's waiver of his Miranda rights was otherwise knowing, intelligent, and voluntary, it was not invalidated by the single comment seized on by defendant under this heading.