Opinion ID: 2208121
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: did the court of appeals err in imposing a duty on the trial judge to hold a walker hearing sua sponte in the presence of alerting circumstances?

Text: In the landmark case, Jackson v Denno, 378 US 368; 84 S Ct 1774; 12 L Ed 2d 908 (1964), the United States Supreme Court held that the constitution requires that at some point during criminal proceedings a defendant have the right to object to the use of his confession and to have a fair hearing and reliable determination on the issue of voluntariness. In a later case, Wainwright v Sykes, 433 US 72; 97 S Ct 2497; 53 L Ed 2d 594 (1977), the Court further held, however, that the Constitution does not require a voluntariness hearing absent some contemporaneous challenge to the use of the confession. Id., p 86. Michigan follows the so-called orthodox rule providing for a separate hearing outside the presence of the jury for the purpose of allowing the trial judge to determine the voluntariness of a confession. If the judge finds the confession to be involuntary, the matter ends there and the jury never considers it. If the confession is found to be voluntary, it is admitted with jury consideration limited only to weight and credibility, People v Walker (On Rehearing), 374 Mich 331; 132 NW2d 87 (1965). Michigan also requires that a defendant challenge the voluntariness of a confession before demanding that a Walker hearing be held. People v Shipp, 21 Mich App 415, 420; 175 NW2d 529 (1970); People v Hooks, 112 Mich App 477; 316 NW2d 245 (1982). In People v Hooks, supra, p 480, Judge RILEY recognized an exception to the general raise-or-waive rule where the factual situation itself raises a substantial question of voluntariness. Alerting circumstances may be a defendant's mental, emotional or physical condition, evidence of police threats, or other obvious forms of physical and mental duress. The reason for the alerting-circumstances exception is that a conviction based on an involuntary confession deprives the defendant of due process. [5] `[T]he proscription against the use of involuntary confessions reflects the basic societal conviction that the very integrity of the criminal justice system is compromised when it operates to take advantage of a person whose volitional capacity is seriously impaired.' Hooks, supra, p 481, quoting United States v Powe, 192 US App DC 224, 232; 591 F2d 833 (1978). See also United States v Renteria, 625 F2d 1279, 1283 (CA 5, 1980); United States v Bentley, 726 F2d 1124, 1128-1129 (CA 6, 1984); United States v Taylor, 374 F2d 753, 756 (CA 7, 1967); Hizel v Sigler, 430 F2d 1398, 1400-1401 (CA 8, 1970); Jacobson v California, 431 F2d 1017, 1018-1019 (CA 9, 1970); United States v Hart, 729 F2d 662, 666 (CA 10, 1984); United States ex rel Gainer v New Jersey, 278 F Supp 127 (D NJ, 1967); Commonwealth v Harris, 371 Mass 462; 358 NE2d 982 (1976); State v Pearce, 266 NC 234; 145 SE2d 918 (1966). In Hooks, the incriminating statement was obtained roughly eight hours after the defendant had been seriously wounded in the chest and struck on the head. At the time of the statement, he was attached to a life-support machine, had various tubes attached to his body, was in pain, under medication, and in a weakened state both physically and mentally. The defendant also testified that he had not read the officer's transcription of his statement before he signed it and that the officer had to hold his head up so that he could see the line he was signing. The weakened mental and physical state of the defendant was considered sufficient to present an alerting circumstance which should have triggered the court's sua sponte inquiry into the voluntariness of the statement. Hooks, supra, p 482. Because the burden placed upon the trial court by this holding was immense, Judge RILEY emphasized the necessity to rule narrowly on the basis of the extreme facts of the case. Undoubtedly, certain alerting circumstances require the trial court to raise the issue of voluntariness on its own. We also agree that because of the heavy burden placed upon the trial court by such a rule, the Hooks rule is limited to those cases in which the evidence clearly and substantially reflects a question about the voluntary nature of a confession or implicates other due process concerns. We do not find in this case any challenge to the defendant's statements that raise a due process issue regarding the defendant's physical or mental capacity to make a voluntary statement, [6] as in People v Hooks, supra , and, therefore, this exception to the general raise-or-waive rule is inapplicable. The rule of Jackson v Denno, supra , and the exception to the raise-or-waive rule is directed to those situations in which a confession might be involuntary in the traditional sense that that term was historically used in Fifth Amendment jurisprudence. See, e.g., Payne v Arkansas, 356 US 560; 78 S Ct 844; 2 L Ed 2d 975 (1958); Haynes v Washington, 373 US 503; 83 S Ct 1336; 10 L Ed 2d 513 (1963). In this case, the Court of Appeals has extended the Hooks exception to require an additional inquiry sua sponte regarding whether the defendant made an intelligent and voluntary waiver of the prophylactic rules of Miranda v Arizona, 384 US 436; 86 S Ct 1602; 16 L Ed 2d 694 (1966), and the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. Perhaps because over time the profession has come to use the term,  Walker hearing to refer to that phase of motion practice in which all issues of admissibility of a defendant's statements are resolved, [7] the Court of Appeals did not distinguish the voluntariness issue from the separate and distinct concerns addressed in Miranda. The Court of Appeals decision focuses on whether the defendant's Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights to counsel were validly waived as opposed to whether the defendant's confession was voluntary. However, as the Supreme Court has observed, a simple failure to administer Miranda warnings is not in itself a violation of the Fifth Amendment. Oregon v Elstad, 470 US 298, 306, n 1; 105 S Ct 1285; 84 L Ed 2d 222 (1985). The Miranda exclusionary rule, however, serves the Fifth Amendment and sweeps more broadly than the Fifth Amendment itself. It may be triggered even in the absence of a Fifth Amendment violation. The Fifth Amendment prohibits use by the prosecution in its case in chief only of compelled testimony. Failure to administer Miranda warnings creates a presumption of compulsion. Consequently, unwarned statements that are otherwise voluntary within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment must nevertheless be excluded from evidence under Miranda. [ Id. at 306-307.] Clearly, this is not a case involving a voluntariness issue such as Hooks. We therefore conclude that People v Hooks did not require the remand to the trial court here ordered.