Opinion ID: 2393134
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Voluntariness of Defendant's Confession

Text: Defendant contends that his first statement to Detective Porter, upon his return from disclosing the location of Nadeau's body, was not made voluntarily. However, before we can examine the merits of defendant's contention, we must first resolve the potential difficulty caused by the Superior Court's failure to make an explicit finding of voluntariness. At the hearing held on his pretrial motion to suppress, defendant testified that when he told Porter he wanted to go to bed, Porter responded that it would be better to get everything out in the open right away. Defendant thus figured he would not be allowed to go to bed that night and claims that his subsequent statement was influenced by lack of sleep. Porter testified that he did not suggest that defendant could not go to bed until he made a statement. In fact, Porter said that defendant gave him the impression that he wanted to talk, and at no time during the ensuing conversation did defendant attempt to leave or stop talking, nor did he say that he wanted to go to sleep. After the hearing testimony was complete, defense counsel argued to the court that defendant's statement to Porter should be suppressed for two reasons: first, that it was the tainted fruit of defendant's allegedly coerced statement given to his father and the deputy sheriff before the body was discovered; and second, that it was made after extensive questioning and after defendant was denied the opportunity to sleep. The Superior Court justice, who later presided at trial, prefaced his oral ruling from the bench by stating that his decision necessarily involved the determination of whether defendant had knowingly and intelligently waived his right to have a lawyer present, and whether defendant's statements were induced by pressure, force, or fear. The justice found defendant's statement to his father and the deputy sheriff to have been given voluntarily, and thus defendant's statement to Porter could not be tainted; the court also found no Miranda violations in the statement to Porter. The court concluded that the statement was admissible and denied defendant's motion to suppress, but made no express finding that the statement to Porter had been made without coercion. During trial, in response to defendant's renewed involuntariness objection to admission of the statement into evidence, the court stated that it had already passed on the voluntariness issue. Neither at the motion hearing nor at trial did defendant mention the absence of an express finding of voluntariness. In Maine, confessions are governed by the orthodox rule, under which the presiding justice, after an independent evidentiary hearing, solely and finally determines the evidentiary admissibility of a confession. State v. Collins, Me., 297 A.2d 620, 635-36 (1972). See also M.R.Evid. 104(a), 104(c). This procedure, which requires the primary determination of voluntariness by the judge, was specifically approved by Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 378-79, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 1781-82, 12 L.Ed.2d 908 (1964). The Court in Jackson v. Denno required that there be a full and reliable independent judicial determination of voluntariness. The trial judge need not make formal findings of fact or write an opinion, but his conclusion that the confession is voluntary must [nonetheless] appear from the record with unmistakable clarity. Sims v. Georgia, 385 U.S. 538, 544, 87 S.Ct. 639, 643, 17 L.Ed.2d 593 (1967). The Sims rule was most recently applied by the Supreme Court in Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 397 n. 12, 98 S.Ct. 2408, 2416, n. 12, 57 L.Ed.2d 290 (1978), where the unstated finding of voluntariness appeared from the record with unmistakable clarity because the parties, immediately prior to the trial court's ruling of admissibility, had directed their arguments to whether the challenged confessions had been made voluntarily. The thrust of Jackson v. Denno , Sims, and Mincey is that where, as in Maine, by state procedure the trial judge is required to determine voluntariness for the purpose of admissibility of a confession, the simple denial of a motion to suppress will be adequate when the record clearly shows that the ruling was in fact based on a finding of voluntariness. See Peterson v. State, 372 So.2d 1017, 1019-21 (Fla.App. 1979), aff'd 382 So.2d 701 (Fla. 1980). In the case at bar, as in Mincey, the voluntariness issue before the Superior Court justice on the motion to suppress was clearly and explicitly stated by defense counsel immediately before the justice denied the motion from the bench. Additionally, the justice's comments regarding the Miranda and coercion questions posed by defendant's motion indicates that he was fully aware of his duty to make a separate and independent finding of the voluntariness of each of the seven statements sought to be suppressed. Under the circumstances, although it would have been better practice for the court to state that it found defendant's confession to Porter to be voluntary and to give its reasons for so concluding, the Superior Court justice's finding of voluntariness appears on the record with the unmistakable clarity required by Sims v. Georgia . The determination of the presiding justice that a confession was voluntarily given will not be disturbed on appeal if there is evidence providing rational support for the conclusion he reached. State v. Catlin, Me., 392 A.2d 27, 30 (1978), quoting State v. Farley, Me., 358 A.2d 516, 519 (1976). Turning to the merits of defendant's argument, we find the evidence here does provide rational support for the justice's ruling. According to defendant's own testimony, Detective Porter did not tell him that he had to stay awake and continue talking; rather, Porter merely suggested that it would be best for defendant to speak honestly, given defendant's previous stories and his obvious involvement in Nadeau's murder. Porter used no promises of leniency, no threats, and no harsh or deceptive interrogation techniques. Defendant was not surrounded by a team of interrogators and was well aware of his Miranda rights. He dictated a written confession and then read and signed it. Additionally, when he summoned Porter to his cell some fifteen hours after signing his confession, he did so not to complain about a coerced confession but to correct certain lies he had told. In sum, there is ample evidence to support the conclusion that defendant's confession was voluntarily given.