Opinion ID: 2403988
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: the inherently coercive nature of the police conduct

Text: In taking the case under advisement, the trial judge asked rhetorically whether considering how closely I think you have to scrutinize these types of situations because of the inherent[ly] coercive nature of the police approaching someone in a confining situation like a bus, need not the police be very circumspect in reference to what they do? (Emphasis added). The judge viewed the situation in this case as totally different from a request to search made at a defendant's home, or even on the street, because that would have a different psychological impact under these circumstances. The judge thus recognized, shortly after hearing the testimony, that the situation confronting Burton was inherently coercive. [2] Moreover, in my view, the existence of coercive pressures was not due solely to the physical layout of the bus. Many persons, perhaps most, would view the request of a police officer to make a search as having the force of law. State v. Johnson, 68 N.J. 349, 346 A.2d 66, 68 (1975). In my opinion, everything that the police did or failed to do and that Burton did or failed to do must be considered with the coercive potential of the situation firmly in mind. The detectives who conducted this search were not born yesterday. They were surely aware that it would not be easy, within the confines of that bus, for a passenger to defy them and to withhold his consent. [3] Detective Oxendine testified that she did not advise Burton of his right to terminate the discussion without answering her questions because the law says I don't have to tell him, so no, I didn't tell him. Obviously, she did not want to make such defiance any easier. Detective Hairston likewise stated that he did not tell Burton that he was not required to consent to the search. There was a meaningful message in the detectives' failure to apprise Burton of his rights. In United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 64 L.Ed.2d 497 (1980), the Supreme Court sustained the search of a woman at an airport, largely because the officers had carefully advised her of her rights. The Court stated that it is especially significant that the respondent was twice expressly told that she was free to decline to consent to the search, and only thereafter explicitly consented to it. Although the Constitution does not require proof of knowledge of a right to refuse as the sine qua non of an effective consent to a search, [ Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218], at 234 [93 S.Ct. 2041, 2051, 36 L.Ed.2d 854] [1973] (footnote omitted), such knowledge was highly relevant to the determination that there had been consent. And, perhaps more important for present purposes, the fact that the officers themselves informed the respondent that she was free to withhold her consent substantially lessened the probability that their conduct could reasonably have appeared to her to be coercive. Id. at 558-59, 100 S.Ct. at 1879 (emphasis added). In In re J.M., supra note 2, 619 A.2d at 503, this court, quoting from Mendenhall, also recognized the significance, in appraising the voluntariness of a defendant's consent, of the police having advised (or failed to advise) him of his rights. The converse of the last sentence of the quoted passage from Mendenhall is equally compellingthe detectives' failure in this case to inform Burton that he had the right to refuse to consent was also especially significant, for it substantially increased the probability that the police conduct could reasonably have appeared to him to be coercive. Mendenhall, supra, 446 U.S. at 558-59, 100 S.Ct. at 1879-80. Indeed, such a failure on the part of the police to advise a defendant of his right to refuse consent will sometimes invalidate a consent search because such a warning was necessary to counteract other coercive elements. 3 W. LAFAVE, SEARCH AND SEIZURE: A TREATISE ON THE FOURTH AMENDMENT § 8.2(i), at 213 (2d ed. 1987). As the judge himself remarked, there were substantial coercive elements present here.