Opinion ID: 2614597
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: objective factors

Text: ¶20 We have recognized that `[a] defendant's will is not overborne simply because he is led to believe that the government's knowledge of his guilt is greater than it actually is.' State v. Galli, 967 P.2d 930, 936 (Utah 1998) (quoting Ledbetter v. Edwards, 35 F.3d 1062, 1070 (6th Cir.1994)). However, in certain cases, police misrepresentations may be sufficiently egregious to overcome a defendant's will so as to render a confession involuntary. See id. (stating [w]hile the detectives' half-truths ... should not be condoned, we are not convinced that this was sufficient to overcome his free will and spirit). We believe the number and nature of the misrepresentations in this case come close to or exceeds that threshold. ¶21 The district court cataloged some 36 false statements made to Rettenberger by the police during his interrogation. The overwhelming majority of these misrepresentations were not merely half-truths but were complete fabrications about testimonial and physical evidence of Rettenberger's guilt. The officers repeatedly misrepresented to Rettenberger that they had testimony of numerous eye-witnesses and co-defendants implicating him. They falsely informed Rettenberger that he had been the subject of an extenstive three-week undercover investigation. Finally, although they had no physical evidence linking Rettenberger to the crime, they told or suggested to him that they found fingerprints at the crime scene that the crime lab had confirmed were a positive match to his; they had ballistic test results implicating him; they had blood samples implicating him; they had a bloody shoe-print from the crime scene that matched his; they had found blood on his shoe; they had unspecified physical evidence that linked him to the crime; they had evidence that his car was at the crime scene; they had blood splatter evidence connecting him to the crime; they had found fingerprints of everyone involved at the crime scene; they had records of phone conversations incriminating him; they had knowledge of the gun used, implicating him; they had incriminating hand prints, palm prints, fingerprints, and shoe prints at the scene of the crime; they had found blood in his car; and they had more evidence implicating Rettenberger than the police had in the O.J. Simpson case. In sum, although the State, in fact, had no physical evidence implicating Rettenberger, the officers sought to convince Rettenberger that the State had an air-tight case against him. As Detective Corbin told Rettenberger, We know the answer to every question we're asking. We want to hear your version. ¶22 Chief among the many problems with such duplicity is that it may lead wrongly accused suspects to see themselves as either being set up or railroaded. Richard J. Ofshe & Richard A. Leo, The Decision to Confess Falsely: Rational Choice and Irrational Action, 74 Denv. U.L.Rev. 979, 1044 (1997). Such a suspect may well determine that continued resistance is futile (because the police have evidence that will convict him despite his innocence). Welsh S. White, What is an Involuntary Confession Now?, 50 Rutgers L. Rev. 2001, 2053 (1998). Such a suspect may also conclude that, given the futility of resistance, it is most prudent to cooperate and even confess falsely in order to get leniency. ¶23 A suspect may also be more likely to confess when faced with assertions, as here, that the State has evidence of fingerprints, palm prints, ballistic evidence and the like, implicating him because [b]oth the guilty and the innocent have a harder time explaining away evidence that is allegedly derived from scientific technologies. Ofshe & Leo, The Decision to Confess Falsely, at 1023. In this case, it is clear that Rettenberger became convinced that the police had sufficient scientific evidence to prove his guilt, as is evidenced by the following exchange that took place late in the interrogations: DETECTIVE CORBIN: We're going to tell you what we think happened, and it's up to us to prove it. MR. RETTENBERGER: You guys are going to prove it. DETECTIVE CORBIN: Do you think we are? MR. RETTENBERGER: Fingerprints  OFFICER TIMOTHY: Of course we are. MR. RETTENBERGER:  all this stuff, of course you are. Extreme duplicity as was used here may render a confession involuntary and, as here, raise serious doubt about its reliability.
¶24 Rettenberger's interrogation took place in yet a larger context of deception. The interrogating officers made extensive use of the so-called false friend technique, whereby they represented to Rettenberger that they were his friends and that they were acting in his best interest. See Wayne R. LaFave & Jerold H. Israel, Criminal Procedure § 6.2 (2d ed.1992). This technique is commonly used in police interrogations because resistence to the disclosure of information is considerably increased ... if something is not done to establish a friendly and trusting attitude on the part of the subject. Welsh S. White, Police Trickery in Inducing Confessions, 127 U. Pa. L.Rev. 581, 614 (1979) (quoting Robert F. Royal & Stephen R. Schutt, The Gentle Art of Interviewing and Interrogation: A Professional Manual and Guide (1976)). In this atmosphere ... the suspect is fooled into trusting that the interrogator's behavior will conform to the norms of friendship: the interrogator will loyally help the suspect out of the jam, advise the suspect to confess only if confession will be beneficial [to the suspect], and so on. Margaret L. Paris, Faults, Fallacies, and the Future of Our Criminal Justice System: Trust, Lies, and Interrogation, 3 Va. J. Soc. Pol'y & L. 3, 21-22 (1995). ¶25 The State suggests that the false friend approach cannot be coercive because it does not utilize actual or threatened physical or emotional abuse such as that found in some of the earlier landmark coerced-confessions cases. However, we have never held that physical or overt emotional abuse is a pre-requisite for a finding of coercion. Evidence sufficient to support a finding that a confession is involuntary must reveal some physical or psychological force or manipulation that is designed to induce the accused to talk when he otherwise would not have done so. State v. Hegelman, 717 P.2d 1348, 1350 (Utah 1986) (emphasis added). ¶26 Obviously, the false friend strategy bears no resemblance to abusive coercion of the third-degree variety. This does not mean that the false friend technique cannot, in some circumstances, be coercive. Indeed, the false friend technique may be ideally suited to extract an involuntary confession from certain types of suspects who, like Rettenberger, have below-average cognitive abilities, A.D.D., and Dependent Personality Disorder, making them overly compliant, submissive, and anxious to receive reassurance and approval from other people. ¶27 The extent to which the interrogating officers were able to convince Rettenberger that they were not his adversaries but were looking out for his best interests is illustrated by a colloquy that occurred towards the end of the second day's interrogation: DETECTIVE CORBIN: I'm going to try and come up tomorrow, okay. Now, you may talk to your attorney tomorrow and he may tell you not to talk to me, but if I come and I, you know, I just  OFFICER TIMOTHY: If you're just kicking it, there's no big deal. DETECTIVE CORBIN: Yeah, okay? MR. RETTENBERGER: I'm going to go over it inside and out right when I get there. I am going to tell my attorney, It's like this. These guys have already helped me and they're trying to help me, and I know they're trying to help me, so I'm going to talk to these guys. ¶28 We do not hold that the use of the false friend technique in police interrogations is, standing alone, sufficiently coercive to produce an involuntary confession. The significance of the stratagem comes in relation to other tactics and factors. The false friend stratagem provides an environment in which other interrogation tactics may become coercive. To the extent that Rettenberger suffers from mental disabilities and deficiencies, and to the extent that he believed the officers were protecting his best interests, he was less likely to question the false claims about the evidence against him; was less likely to clearly invoke his right to counsel or to remain silent; was more likely to parrot back the details the officers suggested, whether or not they were true; was more likely to place stock in any promises or threats that the officers made, however ambiguous they might be; and was more likely to confess, whether guilty or innocent.
¶29 The district court found that the officers made significant references to defendant being charged with capital murder, the lethal consequences of being charged with capital murder, and the possibility of lesser charges being brought, depending on defendant's cooperation. We have recognized that an interrogation can be impermissibly coercive because [it] carried a threat of greater punishment or a promise for lesser punishment depending on whether [a defendant] confessed. Strain, 779 P.2d at 226. The district court, relying on Strain, found that the officers did not promise or guarantee a lesser charge if [the defendant] confessed. In reaching this conclusion, the district court focused on the fact that on several occasions the officers stated that they could not guarantee the sentence Rettenberger would receive if he confessed. In so finding, however, the district court glossed over the several occasions in which the officers strongly suggested that Rettenberger would not face the death penalty as long as he confessed to the crime. DETECTIVE CORBIN: Stay with me, okay. Stay with me. He  It shouldn't have happened, it was a mistake. A lot of things have taken place in the last three weeks since then. The man wants to turn things around, the man does not want to die. He does not want to face life in prison. He's got his entire life ahead of him. And we're going to make that life happen. . . . . DETECTIVE CORBIN: Now, I'm not going to blow smoke up your ass. I'm not going to tell you that nothing's going to happen here. Stay with me. I'm not going to tell you that, oh hey, we're going to get you back home tomorrow. But you know what? We might get you back home at the end of the week, we might get you back home at the end of next week. . . . . DETECTIVE CORBIN: And I mean, it's like you said earlier, I could die, I could die. You don't have to die, okay? You don't have to spend the rest of your life in prison. We can get to the bottom of this thing, hear your version, we can sort it out from here. . . . . DETECTIVE CORBIN: Okay, explain to me everything that's happening, go through the whole thing. You won't have any questions, you won't have any fears. You already know what's the worst, and you won't have that. You'll know exactly what's happening. . . . . OFFICER TIMOTHY: You know, you made a mistake, yeah. You know, you did, you made a big screw up. But like we said, you didn't mean to do that. Yeah, you should do some time for the robbery, you know, you shouldn't have done that. You know better than that, you're smarter than that. (Emphasis added.) ¶30 Promises of leniency necessarily imply the threat of harsher punishment. On some occasions in the interrogations, that connection was made explicit: DETECTIVE CORBIN: Right now you're booked on a capital offense. Right now capital offenses are punishable by death, period. You're looking at lethal injection, okay? You're looking at a firing squad, what are the other choices, is that it? OFFICER TIMOTHY: Hanging. DETECTIVE CORBIN: Hanging, okay? So basically what you're talking about unless you're a macho guy, you're probably looking at lethal injection, okay? I don't think we even need to go there. You see what I'm saying? Let's just put that behind us, let's look at what really happened that night, and let's get this death row bullshit out of the way, and let's get you to a point where you're able to say, Hey look, okay, I'm cutting the bullshit. I know what happened, this is what happened. (Emphasis added.) ¶31 At points in the interrogations, the officers suggested to Rettenberger that the murder could be recast as a crime far less serious in nature than capital homicide. This tactic is effective at eliciting admissions for the same reason that more explicit promises of prosecutorial leniency work: because the interrogator communicates that the suspect will receive a reduced level of punishment ... if he admits to a description of the offense the interrogator finds acceptable. Ofshe & Leo, The Decision to Confess Falsely, at 999. In one form or another, the officers suggested that the murder was unintentional at least 39 times during the interrogations. Among other things, they told Rettenberger that the killing wasn't intentional; it started out as one thing, but things got out of hand; they knew he was not a murderer; the wounds from the gunshot shouldn't have been fatal; he didn't mean to kill anyone; he was not a bad person; you guys didn't mean for this to happen; the officers could explain to the judge that this thing wasn't premeditated; things got out of hand, he struggled with you guys; they knew Rettenberger didn't go in there with the intention of killing him. In short, they told him they believed the whole thing was a mistake. The legal significance of Rettenberger's intent was made explicit: DETECTIVE CORBIN: This  no one meant for this to happen. This was not a capital offense. This was not a situation where you guys planned on doing this. This was not pre-meditated. Yeah, the robbery was. So it's robbery. The time you get on robbery, bare minimum. First offense, you're hardly looking at anything. (Emphasis added.) ¶32 These and similar statements by the officers, standing alone, may not have overcome Rettenberger's will such that his confession was involuntary. At a minimum, however, they constitute evidence that, when considered in light of the totality of circumstances, strongly weighs against the conclusion that the confession was voluntary.
¶33 Another important consideration is whether the defendant was subjected to extended periods of incommunicado interrogation. Cf. Mabe, 864 P.2d at 894. In the present case, Rettenberger's interrogations took place over a two-day period. The first interrogation lasted between one and a half to two hours. Rettenberger was then placed in solitary confinement where he spent approximately 22 hours with neither pillow nor blanket. The next day he was interrogated a second time. ¶34 Although the State concedes some troubling conduct occurred in the first interview, it argues that the two interrogations should be viewed as separate events and that any illegality in the first interview was cured by the subsequent period of isolation. We cannot agree. It is true that the passage of time can, in some circumstances, dissipate any lingering effects of police coercion. Mabe, 864 P.2d at 894. In this case, however, it is not appropriate to view Rettenberger's time in solitary confinement as curative. In this case, however, the evidence indicates that the isolation exacerbated Rettenberger's disposition. At the suppression hearing, Dr. Gregory testified that the period of solitary confinement would have caused Rettenberger to have increased vulnerability and anxiety, compromising his ability to make decisions. Furthermore, the character and content of the second interrogation related directly to the first. Where there exists a causal relationship between two interviews, it is not appropriate to view them in isolation. See id. In this case, we conclude that the two interrogations and the period of isolation [a]ll were simply parts of one continuous process. Leyra v. Denno, 347 U.S. 556, 561, 74 S.Ct. 716, 98 L.Ed. 948 (1954). ¶35 Other factors also weigh against the State's claim that the confession was voluntary. During the first interrogation, Rettenberger made several requests to call his mother or to use the telephone. Although the officers suggested that he would be allowed to call his mother, he was not. Furthermore, Rettenberger's parents contacted the police to request that they be allowed to supply a lawyer for him. Their request was denied. In addition, despite request, Rettenberger was not allowed to use the bathroom. The officers seldom denied any of Rettenberger's requests outright; they brushed them aside with vague references and changes of subject. The interview videotapes demonstrate that Rettenberger was easily distracted from his requests by this technique. ¶36 Finally, although this court is not prepared to take judicial notice of hypnotic techniques, and the parties did not brief this issue, we express concern that a suggestive hypnotic interrogation technique may have been utilized in the first interrogation. See Appendix. We take this opportunity to note that we have held hypnotically enhanced witness testimony to be inherently unreliable and inadmissible. We further note that the reliability of such testimony will not improve merely because the hypnotically enhanced testimony comes from a defendant in the form of a confession. See State v. Tuttle, 780 P.2d 1203, 1207-11 (Utah 1989).