Opinion ID: 727279
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Mr. Mize's failure to object to the admission of Mr.

Text: 21 Nickel's statements to the police on the ground 22 that they were involuntary did not 23 prejudice Mr. Nickel's defense. 24 Mr. Nickel also asserts that Mr. Mize's failure to challenge the voluntariness of his statements to the police prejudiced his defense. He implies that had Mr. Mize objected to the admission of these statements, they would have been suppressed as involuntary under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because of his history of mental problems and because his statements to the police were a direct product of betrayal by his attorney Boyer, see Aplt's Br. at 37. 25 Under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, a confession to police is admissible if it  'is made freely, voluntarily and without compulsion or inducement of any sort.'  Haynes v. Washington, 373 U.S. 503, 513, 83 S.Ct. 1336, 1343, 10 L.Ed.2d 513 (1963) (quoting Wilson v. United States, 162 U.S. 613, 623, 16 S.Ct. 895, 899, 40 L.Ed. 1090 (1896)); see also Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293, 307, 83 S.Ct. 745, 754, 9 L.Ed.2d 770 (1963) (If an individual's 'will was overborne' or if his confession was not 'the product of a rational intellect and a free will,' his confession is inadmissible because coerced. (footnotes and citations omitted)). Thus, to conclude that a confession is involuntary under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, we must find that it was the result of coercive police activity. Colorado v. Connelly, 479 U.S. 157, 167, 107 S.Ct. 515, 521, 93 L.Ed.2d 473 (1986). 26 Although the confessant's mental condition is surely relevant to an individual's susceptibility to police coercion, mere examination of the confessant's state of mind can never conclude the due process inquiry. Id. at 165, 107 S.Ct. at 520-21; see also Culombe v. Connecticut, 367 U.S. 568, 602, 81 S.Ct. 1860, 1879, 6 L.Ed.2d 1037 (1961) (listing the confessor's mental state as a relevant factor in the due process voluntariness inquiry); Fikes v. Alabama, 352 U.S. 191, 198, 77 S.Ct. 281, 285, 1 L.Ed.2d 246 (1957) (holding that the circumstances of pressure applied against the power of resistance of this petitioner, who cannot be deemed other than weak of will or mind, deprived him of due process of law); Purvis v. Dugger, 932 F.2d 1413, 1422 (11th Cir.1991) (holding that the petitioner's confession was voluntary where the petitioner had a history of schizophrenia, was susceptible to authority figures, and had a childlike mentality, but where there was no evidence of police coercion), cert. denied, 503 U.S. 940, 112 S.Ct. 1485, 117 L.Ed.2d 627 (1992); United States v. Macklin, 900 F.2d 948, 950, 951 (6th Cir.) (holding that the defendants' confessions were voluntary where one defendant was mildly mentally retarded and the other was borderline mentally retarded, but where there was no evidence of police coercion), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 840, 111 S.Ct. 116, 112 L.Ed.2d 86 (1990). If mental impairment ... should have reasonably been apparent to ... interrogators, then a lesser quantum of coercion [will] render the confession involuntary. United States v. Sablotny, 21 F.3d 747, 752 (7th Cir.1994); see also Williams v. Collins, 16 F.3d 626, 638 (5th Cir.) (noting as relevant to the petitioner's claim that his confession to police was involuntary, due to police coercion and to his diminished capacity, that neither the police officers, who were experienced in detecting drug or alcohol usage, nor the petitioner's father, testified that [the petitioner] appeared to be impaired in any way), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 42, 129 L.Ed.2d 937 (1994). However, even in such cases, for a confession to be involuntary, the police must somehow overreach by exploiting a weakness or condition known to exist. United States v. Robertson, 19 F.3d 1318, 1321 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 271, 130 L.Ed.2d 189 (1994); see also United States v. Guerro, 983 F.2d 1001, 1004 (10th Cir.1993) (same); Thompson v. Cox, 352 F.2d 488, 489 (10th Cir.1965) (holding that the petitioner's confession to police was voluntary where there was no evidence that any information gained by police from the lie detector test or the interrogation of the petitioner while he was on medication was used as a tool to influence [the petitioner's] final decision to tell of his participation in the crime); Miller v. Dugger, 838 F.2d 1530, 1537 (11th Cir.) ([E]ven the interrogators' knowledge that a suspect may have mental problems does not make the suspect's statement involuntary unless '[t]he police exploited this weakness with coercive tactics.'  (quoting Connelly, 479 U.S. at 165, 107 S.Ct. at 520)), cert. denied, 486 U.S. 1061, 108 S.Ct. 2832, 100 L.Ed.2d 933 (1988). In conducting this due process inquiry, we examine the totality of the circumstances. Haynes, 373 U.S. at 513, 83 S.Ct. at 1342; Culombe, 367 U.S. at 606, 81 S.Ct. at 1881. 27 Here there is no evidence of, nor does Mr. Nickel even expressly allege the existence of, police coercion, as Connelly requires. See Aplt's Br. at 37. He merely asserts that due to his history of mental illness, his statements to the police were involuntary. As Connelly makes clear, Mr. Nickel's mental condition, in the absence of any evidence of police coercion, does not alone make his statements to the police involuntary. See, e.g., Connelly, 479 U.S. at 164-65, 107 S.Ct. at 520-21. Thus, Mr. Nickel has failed to show that his statements to police were involuntary and that there is a reasonable probability that they therefore would have been suppressed if Mr. Mize had objected to them. See Clabourne, 64 F.3d at 1378 (affirming the denial of the appellant's petition for a writ of habeas corpus, which was based on a claim that his attorney provided ineffective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment by failing to introduce evidence that the appellant's confession was involuntary, because there was no evidence of police coercion); Jones v. Delo, 56 F.3d 878, 887-88 (8th Cir.1995) (affirming the denial of the appellant's petition for a writ of habeas corpus, which was based on a claim that his attorney had provided ineffective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment by failing to produce evidence at trial of the appellant's inability to validly waive his Miranda rights, because no such evidence was available to his counsel, and there was no evidence of police coercion), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 1330, 134 L.Ed.2d 481 (1996); LaRette v. Delo, 44 F.3d 681, 688-89 (8th Cir.) (rejecting the defendant's claim that his statements to police were involuntary where the defendant failed to allege that there was any coercive police activity), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 246, 133 L.Ed.2d 172 (1995). 28 Even if we construed Mr. Nickel's claim that his statements to the police were a direct product of betrayal by his attorney Boyer, see Aplt's Br. at 37, as an implied claim of police coercion, such a claim would fail. Mr. Boyer's activities in sending Mr. Nickel to the police station and informing the police of Mr. Nickel's possible involvement in the murder of Ms. Kuhlman do not constitute police coercion because Mr. Boyer is not a member of the police, nor was he acting at the direction or on behalf of the police. See Darghty v. State, 530 So.2d 27, 31 (Miss.1988) (Conduct by third parties not connected with the law enforcement officers in the investigation will not vitiate a confession which might be rendered incompetent and inadmissible if such conduct had been committed by a law enforcement officer.). 29 We thus conclude that Mr. Nickel has not shown that there is a reasonable probability that, had Mr. Mize moved to suppress his statements to the police, Mr. Nickel would not have been convicted of murder. Instead, if Mr. Mize had presented evidence of Mr. Nickel's mental condition at the time of his interview with the police, the evidence would have gone to the weight and reliability, rather than to the admissibility, of Mr. Nickel's statements. Cf. Robertson, 19 F.3d at 1322. Further, even if Mr. Mize had moved to suppress Mr. Nickel's statements to the police, and the trial court had granted this motion, the independent evidence of Ms. Perret's testimony that Mr. Nickel confessed to her would have been sufficient to support Mr. Nickel's conviction. Thus, Mr. Nickel has not shown that Mr. Mize's failure to move to suppress Mr. Nickel's confession to the police satisfies Strickland 's second element of prejudice to the defense.