Opinion ID: 1173567
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Psychological Coercion

Text: The majority's alternative holding is that the officers' interrogation techniques produced a psychological coercion which rendered defendant's statements involuntary. ( Ante, p. 841.) The majority purportedly relies upon vivid evidence of the deterioration of appellant's will to resist under the pressure of manufactured evidence of his guilt and suggestions that he committed the crimes while mentally ill. ( Id., at p. 842.) Having reviewed the record, I am persuaded that the majority seriously misinterprets it and is totally wrong. No coercion of any kind occurred here. Defendant's statements were a product of his free and voluntary choice. First there was no manufactured evidence. At most (and the record is in conflict on the point), one of the officers may have told defendant that the Holland daughters saw him commit one of the homicides. Such deception is commonplace during police interrogations and does not render involuntary or inadmissible any admissions thereby produced, as long as the deception was not of a type reasonably likely to procure an untrue statement. ( In re Walker (1974) 10 Cal.3d 764, 777-778 [112 Cal. Rptr. 177, 518 P.2d 1129]; People v. Felix (1977) 72 Cal. App.3d 879, 885-886 [139 Cal. Rptr. 366] and cases cited.) The Felix case summarizes several of our own cases involving police deceptions substantially identical to that present here, including (1) falsely telling the suspect his fingerprints were on a cash register ( People v. Connelly (1925) 195 Cal. 584, 597 [234 P. 374]); (2) falsely telling the suspect there were eyewitnesses to his crime ( People v. Castello (1924) 194 Cal. 595, 602 [229 P. 855]); and (3) telling the wounded suspect that he might not live and therefore should talk to police ( In re Walker, supra, 10 Cal.3d 879). In all these cases, we held that the suspects' statements were admissible because the deception was not likely to induce an innocent person to implicate himself in the crime. Similarly, as in the Castello case, telling defendant herein that there were witnesses to his offense was not likely to induce a false confession. Likewise, I find no evidence, vivid or otherwise, which suggests a deterioration of appellant's will to resist confessing. ( Ante, p. 841.) Certainly, the trial court made no such finding. All that the record shows in this regard is that defendant, upon admitting the offenses, lost control of his emotions and cried during the remainder of the interview. Given the nature of his crimes, which included two bludgeon murders and a brutal attack on a helpless baby, committed by means of a sledge hammer or knife, or both, and the realization that he had been apprehended, such a reaction seems entirely understandable. Being then in custody, tears could be expected, but they most certainly do not inevitably compel the majority's conclusion that defendant was brainwashed by police coercion. ( Ante, p. 843.) Indeed, at the conclusion of the interview in question, defendant expressly confirmed that the officers had done nothing to harm or threaten him. He agreed that he had begun to cry only because he was recalling what he had done. Moreover, although defendant cried frequently during the last segment of the interview, he nevertheless managed to answer most of the officers' questions coherently and politely (No sir. Yes sir. I don't know sir, I'm sorry.) throughout the remainder of the interview. In In re Walker, supra, 10 Cal.3d 764, 777, we upheld, as voluntary, certain admissions exacted from a suspect who had been struck twice on the head with an officer's gun butt and shot in the shoulder, and who was bleeding badly when questioned. We observed that neither an officer's use of reasonable force in arresting a resisting suspect nor the accompanying injuries or pain necessarily rendered his subsequent statements involuntary. Similarly, my review of the record herein convinces me that defendant Hogan, despite his tears, was neither brainwashed nor coerced but instead voluntarily and competently admitted his complete responsibility for the two murders.