Opinion ID: 2066238
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Voluntariness of Brisbon's Confession

Text: Brisbon moved to suppress the admission of his confession into evidence, claiming that it was an involuntary statement elicited in violation of the Fifth Amendment. Before trial, Brisbon filed a motion to suppress his confession and witness identifications. The judge called for a hearing, but Brisbon's counsel presented no evidence relevant to the confession, choosing instead to argue only the suppression of witness identifications. At trial, after Detective Credle testified about the police interrogation and Brisbon's confession, Brisbon renewed the motion to suppress his confession. The court denied the motion: I have heard absolutely nothing that would show that it was not voluntary. The fact that they used trickery has been well recognized in the case law as appropriate [ ]or at least admissible, and everything else, at this point at least, does not support the notion that it was involuntary, and that there wasn't any undue delay from the time he came in from P.G. County. It was within hours after that. Court was closed already. I haven't heard anything thus far that would render the statement [in]voluntary. Certainly what is played on the tape does not reflect an involuntary statement. . . . . [Counsel:] Your Honor, to complete the record, I would only state that we submit that the strong coercion and the involuntariness of the statement is supported strongly by the fact that the trickery was not against Mr. Brisbon himself, but was against the well-being of his grandmother and his mother. Brisbon then took the stand and testified about how he felt pressured to confess when the police had lied to him about the fate of his mother and grandmother. [9] In response to the government's request that the judge make some ... findings [10] on the question of voluntariness, the trial judge stated that even taking into account Mr. Brisbon's testimony, I would find that [the confessed] statements were wholly voluntary. [11] Once a motion has been made to suppress a confession as involuntary, [t]he burden is on the government to prove that the statements of the accused were voluntarily given without police coercion.... Generally, the factors for consideration in determining voluntariness include [(1)] the circumstances surrounding the questioning, [(2)] the accused's age, education, and prior experiences with the law, [(3)] his physical and mental condition at the time the statement was made, [(4)] other factors showing coercion or trickery, and [(5)] the delay between the suspect's arrest and the confession. Davis v. United States, 724 A.2d 1163, 1167-68 (D.C.1998) (citations omitted). The government must prove voluntariness by a preponderance of the evidence. Lego v. Twomey, 404 U.S. 477, 489, 92 S.Ct. 619, 30 L.Ed.2d 618 (1972). We review the trial court's findings of the historical facts that occurred during interrogation under a clearly erroneous standard. See Morris v. United States, 728 A.2d 1210, 1215 (D.C.1999); Peay v. United States, 597 A.2d 1318, 1320 (D.C.1991) (en banc). The ultimate question of whether the confession was voluntary for Fifth Amendment purposes, however, is a legal question we review de novo, viewing the totality of the circumstances. See Davis, 724 A.2d at 1168. Appellant's argument focuses on delay and the officers' use of deception. With respect to delay, the record shows that by the time appellant signed the Miranda waiver card, he had been in custody for approximately seven hours. Any delay of more than three hours is closely scrutinized, see D.C.Code § 5-115.01 (2001), but this by no means leads to an automatic finding of involuntariness if the circumstances, taken as a whole, support that the confession was voluntary. See Bond v. United States, 614 A.2d 892, 899-900 (D.C. 1992). Here, the police do not appear to have delayed in giving Miranda warnings for any coercive effect; rather, the delay was mostly the result of Brisbon having been arrested outside the District. Once they arrived at the D.C. police station and booking was completed, the detectives informed Brisbon of the charges against him and gave him Miranda warnings before beginning to interrogate him. Moreover, there was no evidence that the number of hours or conditions in custody, or the length of the questioning itself, were unreasonable or had a coercive effect on Brisbon. [12] We are more troubled by the deception used by the police officers and its coercive potential. The injunction against the admission of involuntary confessions is grounded in two separate clauses of the Fifth Amendment. See Dickerson v. United States, 530 U.S. 428, 433, 120 S.Ct. 2326, 147 L.Ed.2d 405 (2000). The first is the privilege against self-incrimination, see U.S. CONST. amend. V (nor shall [any person] be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself); Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298, 306-07, 105 S.Ct. 1285, 84 L.Ed.2d 222 (1985) (noting that the use of compelled testimony is prohibited in the government's case-in-chief). The second is the Due Process Clause. See Miller v. Fenton, 474 U.S. 104, 110, 106 S.Ct. 445, 88 L.Ed.2d 405 (1985) (Indeed, even after holding that the Fifth Amendment privilege against compulsory self-incrimination applies in the context of custodial interrogations ... the Court has continued to measure confessions against the requirements of due process. (citations omitted)). In early Supreme Court jurisprudence, involuntary confessions were held inadmissible, stressing their inherent untrustworthiness. [13] See Chambers v. Florida, 309 U.S. 227, 240, 60 S.Ct. 472, 84 L.Ed. 716 (1940) (noting that the suspect's first confession, which was rejected because it was found wanting, resulted in continued questioning until the suspect made statements acceptable to the state's attorney); Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U.S. 278, 282, 56 S.Ct. 461, 80 L.Ed. 682 (1936) (reversing conviction based on confession deemed unreliable where defendants were beaten by officers and were told that the whipping would continue unless and until they confessed, and not only confessed, but confessed in every matter of detail as demanded by those present). In Rogers v. Richmond, 365 U.S. 534, 81 S.Ct. 735, 5 L.Ed.2d 760 (1961), the Court explained that the reliability of a confession  although obviously important to the truth-seeking purpose of a criminal trial  is not the touchstone of the inquiry: Our decisions ... have made clear that convictions following the admission into evidence of confessions which are involuntary, i.e., the product of coercion, either physical or psychological, cannot stand. This is so not because such confessions are unlikely to be true but because the methods used to extract them offend an underlying principle in the enforcement of our criminal law: that ours is an accusatorial and not an inquisitorial system  a system in which the State must establish guilt by evidence independently and freely secured and may not by coercion prove its charge against an accused out of his own mouth. Id. at 540-41, 81 S.Ct. 735 (citing cases). See United States ex rel Chabonian v. Liek, 366 F.Supp. 72, 76-77 (D.Wis.1973) (The focus of the Court has thus been broadened from protecting the innocent from the possibility of a false confession to protecting the guilty from unfair methods of procuring statements from them.). The judicial inquiry into voluntariness, based on due process concerns, has been described as a hybrid amphibian, Culombe v. Connecticut, 367 U.S. 568, 605, 81 S.Ct. 1860, 6 L.Ed.2d 1037 (1961), because it subsumes a complex of values, Blackburn v. Alabama, 361 U.S. 199, 207, 80 S.Ct. 274, 4 L.Ed.2d 242 (1960). As the Court has explained, The locus of the right [in the Due Process Clause] is significant because it reflects the Court's consistently held view that the admissibility of a confession turns as much on whether the techniques for extracting the statement, as applied to this suspect, are compatible with a system that presumes innocence and assures that a conviction will not be secured by inquisitorial means as on whether the defendant's will was in fact overborne. Miller, 474 U.S. at 116, 106 S.Ct. 445 (citing Gallegos v. Colorado, 370 U.S. 49, 51, 82 S.Ct. 1209, 8 L.Ed.2d 325 (1962)); Culombe, 367 U.S. at 605, 81 S.Ct. 1860). And the Court has observed that [t]he privilege against self-incrimination enjoined by the Fifth Amendment is not designed to enhance the reliability of the factfinding determination; it stands in the Constitution for entirely independent reasons. Allen v. Illinois, 478 U.S. 364, 375, 106 S.Ct. 2988, 92 L.Ed.2d 296 (1986) (citing Rogers, 365 U.S. at 540-41, 81 S.Ct. 735) (distinguishing reliability concerns in noncriminal cases). Although the Court has recognized that the voluntariness rubric has been variously condemned as `useless' ... `perplexing'... and `legal double talk,' Miller, 474 U.S. at 116 n. 4, 106 S.Ct. 445, [14] in Dickerson the Court confirmed that it has never abandoned this due process jurisprudence and its focus on an inquiry that examines `whether a defendant's will was overborne' by the circumstances surrounding the giving of a confession, 530 U.S. at 434, 120 S.Ct. 2326 (quoting Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 226, 93 S.Ct. 2041, 36 L.Ed.2d 854 (1973)). To implement these principles, and recognizing the inherent difficulty in ascertaining whether a suspect has been coerced into confessing, we have said that [c]onfessions generally are not vitiated when they are obtained by deception or trickery, as long as the means employed are not calculated to produce an untrue statement. In re D.A.S., 391 A.2d 255, 258 (D.C.1978) (emphasis added). This short-form guideline reflects the dual due process concerns that a confession may not be obtained by means that are offensive to due process (inquisitorial methods that overbear the suspect's will) and that such undue coercion is likely to lead to a false confession. See Rogers, 365 U.S. at 541, 81 S.Ct. 735 (noting that confessions cruelly extorted may be and have been, to an unascertained extent, found to be untrustworthy). Thus, we have affirmed a conviction based on a confession obtained after the police used a technique where the police ran a fake lie-detector test on the defendant. Contee v. United States, 667 A.2d 103, 104 (D.C.1995). As we explained, the suspect in a Contee -type situation retains ultimate control over his statements because he privately knows whether they are in fact lies. Similarly, in Davis, we concluded that the trickery (falsely telling the suspect that his co-perpetrator had said that Davis was carrying a particular weapon) did not require suppression of a confession in part because it was inconsistent with Davis's own first-hand knowledge, and, therefore, as the defendant himself testified, he was not fooled. Davis, 724 A.2d at 1168. Here, on the other hand, Brisbon was subjected to a very different kind of psychological pressure, unrelated to the evidence the police purport to have that a suspect is guilty of the charged crime. After being told by the officers that his mother and grandmother had been arrested [15] as a result of the discovery of drugs and a shotgun during a search of their house, Brisbon testified, he felt coerced to tell the police what they want[ed] to hear, so that his mother and grandmother would be released. The truth of the premise underlying the officers' deception  the existence of contraband of which Brisbon would have known  gave force to the officers' deception. We have not previously been presented with the question whether the technique used here  which could be taken by a suspect in custody as an implicit threat or a promise involving family members  was calculated to exert so much pressure on a suspect as to lead to a confession, whether true or false. Unlike the suspects in Contee and Davis, where the the only adverse consequences of [not giving a confession] ... were the results of ultimately being convicted of the crime, Ledbetter v. Edwards, 35 F.3d 1062, 1070 (6th Cir.1994), Brisbon was confronted with a lie unrelated to the government's evidence of his guilt, that had consequences to others, not solely to his own fate. See Holland v. McGinnis, 963 F.2d 1044, 1052 (7th Cir.1992) (noting that the police tactic used in Lynumn v. Illinois, 372 U.S. 528, 83 S.Ct. 917, 9 L.Ed.2d 922 (1963), where the suspect was threatened with loss of her children and federal benefits also distorted the suspect's rational choice ( i.e., is it wise or morally right to confess given the aforementioned beliefs and judgments [concerning her own guilt and the government's evidence]?) by introducing a completely extrinsic consideration: an empty but plausible threat to take away something to which she and her children would otherwise be entitled). As observed in Ledbetter, [a] defendant who is completely innocent might well confess in the [latter] circumstances ... for fear of the extraneous adverse consequences[; b]y contrast, an innocent defendant in the [former] circumstances ... would have little incentive to render a false confession. 35 F.3d at 1070. This is at least in part because a suspect who is in the dark about what he is told is more susceptible to the coercive pressure of trickery, as he is dependent on what the police tell him, than one who can, as in Contee and Davis, use his own resources to test what he knows against what the police tell him, which would help him withstand the psychological manipulation. Extrinsic pressure not only impair[s] free choice, but also cast[s] doubt upon the reliability of the resulting confession.... Holland, 963 F.2d at 1052. The detectives in this case candidly testified that they lied to Brisbon in order to get him to admit his involvement in the case and to lure the truth from him. When the officers who question a suspect by using trickery demonstrate an undeviating intent ... to extract a confession... the confession obtained must be examined with the most careful scrutiny.... Spano v. New York, 360 U.S. 315, 324, 79 S.Ct. 1202, 3 L.Ed.2d 1265 (1959); see Beasley v. United States, 512 A.2d 1007, 1015 (D.C.1986) (The use of deception or trickery by police during an interrogation, while subject to close scrutiny, does not in and of itself render an otherwise voluntary confession invalid. (emphasis added)). We apply that close scrutiny here. [16] We begin by cautioning that the kind of deception employed here, involving supposed harm to vulnerable family members, could well cross the line beyond the type of tactics vel non that a court will tolerate because they are so offensive to a civilized system of justice that they must be condemned under the Due Process Clause.... Miller, 474 U.S. at 109, 106 S.Ct. 445; see also Colorado v. Connelly, 479 U.S. 157, 163 n. 1, 107 S.Ct. 515, 93 L.Ed.2d 473 (1986) (outlining examples of forms of psychological and physical pressures that have been deemed coercive); Brown, 297 U.S. at 286, 56 S.Ct. 461 (conviction reversed because confessions were obtained by torture revolting to the sense of justice). This is especially true if such tactics are used on a suspect particularly susceptible to police pressure. See Spano, 360 U.S. at 321, 79 S.Ct. 1202 (noting that due to increased use of more sophisticated psychological persuasion, more difficult... delicate judgments must be made, taking into account mental state of the suspect). We have already expressed doubt about the police's use of deceptive tactics to persuade a suspect that a confession is in his best interest, in light of the evidence already amassed by the government when, in fact, there is no such evidence. See Beasley, 512 A.2d at 1016 ([W]e do not condone certain of the tactics used by the police in this case [promise of leniency and deception concerning strength of the government's evidence], and such tactics have made this a close case). But the use of deception to exert psychological pressure that exploits vulnerabilities extraneous to the offense charged, such as the threat of adverse consequences to family members if the suspect does not confess or cooperate with the investigation, is in a different category that has been singled out for condemnation. See Lynumn, 372 U.S. at 534, 83 S.Ct. 917 (confession involuntary where suspect, who had been set up by informant and had no prior experience with criminal law, was threatened with loss of children and federal aid if she did not cooperate); Rogers, 365 U.S. at 549, 81 S.Ct. 735 (expressing view that issue of voluntariness might fairly have gone either way in the whole of the testimony where detained suspect who initially denied involvement in shooting confessed after being told that his wife would be brought into custody for questioning); Spano, 360 U.S. at 324, 79 S.Ct. 1202 (confession involuntary where the police used the suspect's childhood friend, who falsely stated that the suspect's telephone call [to him] had gotten him into trouble, that his job was in jeopardy, and that loss of his job would be disastrous to his three children, his wife and his unborn child); cf. Davis, 724 A.2d at 1168 (finding confession voluntary when [s]pecifically, [the police] made no threats or promises); Contee, 667 A.2d at 104 (finding confession voluntary although appellant asserted that the police used promises and implied threat, when he generally does not articulate what those promises were ... nor does the record support his bare assertions); Ledbetter, 35 F.3d at 1069 (suspect who was not physically punished or threatened and who waived Miranda rights three times not coerced into confessing even though officers lied about evidence incriminating him). [17] Here, the trial court denied Brisbon's motion to suppress without taking note of the questionable mode of psychological pressure employed in this case, [18] and found that his statements were wholly voluntary, without detailing the factors that led to that determination. We know from the record that the court had just heard the testimony of the officers, who admitted that they lied to Brisbon about his mother's arrest and grandmother's hospitalization in order to get him to confess, but said that they did not promise Brisbon that his confession would result in the exoneration of his mother or Brisbon's ability to see his grandmother. Brisbon, on the other hand, testified that he felt pressured to confess by the officers' deception which included that even his frail elderly grandmother had not only been hospitalized, but also arrested along with his mother. See note 9, supra. The effect that the officers' tactics reasonably had on Brisbon is a critical element of the voluntariness inquiry. The officers' description of Brisbon's reaction to their fabrication about his grandmother's and mother's plight (Brisbon dropped his head, was quiet, and said that he did it, because he did not want to get others in trouble) does not necessarily describe a person forced by circumstances to confess, but it clearly shows that Brisbon was emotionally impacted by the lies the officers had told him. Cf. Ledbetter, 35 F.3d at 1066 (noting that suspect broke down in tears and started crying, said he was sorry for the way it happened....). The trial judge's determination, made after hearing the testimony of Brisbon and the officers and seeing the videotape of the confession, where Brisbon denied any coercion, [19] apparently was that the officers' calculated play on his emotional attachment to his mother and grandmother did not equate to unconstitutional coercion. It is of course possible that the unwelcome news about his mother's arrest and grandmother's hospitalization, rather than being something that overcame his will and coerced him to confess, could have instead shocked Brisbon into taking responsibility for his actions. See Agnew v. United States, 813 A.2d 192, 195 (D.C.2002) (suspect told the police that he wanted to come clean). In other words, the truthful information Brisbon had received about the seizure of drugs and a shotgun from their house might have induced him to want to spare them the trouble of being linked to his criminal activities. Brisbon testified that his mother had been arrested the year before on his account; and his mother confirmed in her testimony that she had been arrested, jailed and released, after which Brisbon became very protective of her and his ill grandmother. [20] This previous experience  and whether the officers who interrogated him were aware of it would be relevant both to an evaluation of the officers' tactics and Brisbon's foreseeable reaction to the officers' deception involving yet another arrest of his mother for which he was to blame. The issue, however, was not explored on the record. Moreover, the officers' exchange with Brisbon about his mother and grandmother preceded the videotaped confession, so the trial judge was not able to evaluate from the tape itself Brisbon's reaction and his statements to the officers when he first confessed. From our own review of the record, we note other factors that arguably would weigh in favor of a finding of voluntariness. See Byrd v. United States, 618 A.2d 596, 599 (D.C.1992) (in considering the voluntariness of a confession, appellate court conducts an independent review of the record to evaluate the totality of the circumstances). First, although this was the first time Brisbon had been charged and prosecuted, he had a previous arrest, a fact indicating that he had some familiarity with the criminal justice system. See Hawkins v. United States, 304 A.2d 279, 281 (D.C.1973) (noting that courts examine the individual's prior experiences, including those with the criminal justice system which tend to indicate an awareness of his rights ...); cf. Lynumn, 372 U.S. at 534, 83 S.Ct. 917 (reversing conviction where suspect who confessed had had no previous experience with the criminal law, and had no reason not to believe that the police had ample power to carry out their threats); Spano, 360 U.S. at 321-22, 79 S.Ct. 1202 (noting that suspect who confessed under pressure was a foreign-born young man of 25 with no past history of law violation or of subjection to official interrogation....). But we do not know anything else about the circumstances of Brisbon's prior arrest, or whether he was subject to interrogation at that time. [21] Second, Brisbon twice waived his Miranda rights, including, specifically, the right to remain silent, once at the beginning of the interrogation, and again at the start of the videotaped confession. See Frazier v. Cupp, 394 U.S. 731, 739, 89 S.Ct. 1420, 22 L.Ed.2d 684 (1969) (Before petitioner made any incriminating statements, he received partial warnings of his constitutional rights; this is of course, a circumstance quite relevant to a finding of voluntariness.); United States v. Charlton, 565 F.2d 86, 89 (6th Cir.1977) (Obviously anyone who knows his rights and determines to confess does so for a reason. That the defendant's reason was to protect his son does not, in our judgment, render his confession involuntary or necessitate a finding that he was coerced or that his will was overborne.). Third, there is no indication based on the record that due to Brisbon's age (twenty-two), educational background, or physical or mental condition, he was particularly susceptible to psychological pressure, save for the obvious emotional hot buttons  his concern for his mother and grandmother that the police sought to manipulate. See Frazier, 394 U.S. at 739, 89 S.Ct. 1420 ([Petitioner] was a mature individual of normal intelligence). Fourth, the letter Brisbon wrote to Wonson from jail showed the cunning disposition of a person able to withstand pressure and game the system. In the letter Brisbon told Wonson that after having implicated Wonson in his confession, he would take the dive on this shit by [him]self, in order to secure a severance, and then flip the script at trial by tell[ing] [the court] some sucker shit like [the] police had made [him] a hard, ... hostage situation.... See note 7, supra. See Gomez v. United States, 597 A.2d 884, 892 (D.C.1991) (Where no coercive or deceptive tactics used, [suspect's] explanation of his motive [in order to protect his innocent friend] supports the view that [suspect] understood that he did not have to confess but chose to do so for logical and well-thought out reason.). Finally, Brisbon confessed not only to the murder and assault of two innocent persons in a hail of bullets fired into a group at Eastern High, but also went on to confess to other, unrelated crimes  going well beyond what even he testified the officers told him they wanted to hear. In light of these indications that Brisbon may well have been able to resist the officers' deceptive pressure tactics, we are inclined to conclude that Brisbon did not in fact succumb to them, and that his videotaped confession was therefore voluntary and admissible. [22] We recognize that the question of voluntariness in this case is a close one, however, and do not decide it, because we can conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that even if the confession should have been suppressed, its admission was harmless. See Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279, 285, 111 S.Ct. 1246, 113 L.Ed.2d 302 (1991) (admission of involuntary confession is trial error subject to harmless error analysis); Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967) ([B]efore a [constitutional] error can be held harmless, the court must be able to declare a belief that it was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.). We recognize that a defendant's confession is uniquely powerful evidence and that its erroneous admission will be deemed harmless only rarely, by an overwhelming government case. See Fulminante, 499 U.S. at 312, 111 S.Ct. 1246 (Rehnquist, J., for plurality) (noting that an involuntary confession may have a more dramatic effect on the course of a trial than do other trial errors ... [and] may be devastating to a defendant); id. at 292, 111 S.Ct. 1246 (White, J., dissenting in part) (A defendant's confession is probably the most probative and damaging evidence that can be admitted against him. (citation omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted)); id. at 313, 111 S.Ct. 1246 (Kennedy, J., concurring) (noting that the court conducting a harmless-error inquiry must appreciate the indelible impact a full confession may have on the trier of fact). For the following reasons, we think that even if we assume that Brisbon's confession was involuntary, and its admission unconstitutional, it was nevertheless harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Chapman, 386 U.S. at 24, 87 S.Ct. 824. This is a case where the government's evidence was not merely sufficient, or even strong, but presented `overwhelming evidence' of guilt. Fields v. United States, 952 A.2d 859, 862 (D.C.2008) (quoting Harrington v. California, 395 U.S. 250, 254, 89 S.Ct. 1726, 23 L.Ed.2d 284 (1969) (applying overwhelming evidence test where court erroneously admitted co-defendant's confession in violation of defendant's right to confrontation under the Sixth Amendment)); cf. Fulminante, 499 U.S. at 297, 111 S.Ct. 1246 (White, J., for plurality) (reversing conviction where [a]bsent the confession[ ], it was unlikely that [the suspect] would have been prosecuted at all, because the physical evidence from the scene and other circumstantial evidence would have been insufficient to convict). Apart from the challenged confession, the evidence arrayed against Brisbon consisted of the testimony of several witnesses and other confessions the admissibility of which is not challenged. An eyewitness to the shooting, Jameice Phillips identified Brisbon, who she knew as Ronnie T, as the shooter. She testified that she had known him through friends and family, for five years. On cross-examination, she maintained that she was sure that the person [she] knew as Ronnie T, was the person who was shooting at the vehicle. Although Phillips was impeached with a relatively minor inconsistency in her testimony to the grand jury, she was not biased, unreliable, or unable or unwilling to identify the shooter. Nor was Brisbon's videotaped confession to the officers his only admission of guilt. Dana Route testified that Brisbon had also confessed to her, shortly after the shooting. Although Route herself had cause to be concerned that she might be implicated in the crime, and therefore could have been perceived as biased, she not only explained the reason for her late report to the police, but also gave credence to her account by admitting to her own participation in the events. Route testified that she accompanied Brisbon to buy the stolen truck, and saw appellants leave the house with two rifles, which Brisbon had just cleaned. She testified that when appellants came back, she heard Brisbon tell Wonson, I can't believe your gun jammed (which was corroborated by the unspent cartridge found at the scene), and she later drove with Brisbon to the place where he set fire to the truck. Michael Cobb corroborated Route's testimony by identifying Brisbon as the person to whom he sold the stolen truck used in the shooting, and identifying that truck as the one torched the day after the shooting. At trial, Brisbon admitted that two weeks before the trial, he had requested a meeting with the prosecutor. At that meeting, accompanied by his counsel, Brisbon confessed again to the motivation for preparation and execution of the shooting at Eastern High. [23] Finally, Brisbon's letter to Wonson from jail about the sucker shit he planned to present at trial to impeach his confession to the police could have been interpreted by the jury as a strongly implied admission of involvement in the shootings. Even after Brisbon's videotaped confession to the officers was admitted, the issue of its voluntariness and credibility remained for the jury. The jurors were instructed to weigh the credibility of Brisbon's confession in light of his testimony that it had been coerced: It is for you to decide whether a witness made a statement on an earlier occasion and whether it was, in fact, consistent with the witness' in-court testimony here. Evidence has been introduced that Mr. Brisbon made statements to the police about the crime charged. You should weigh that evidence with caution and carefully consider all the circumstances surrounding the making of the statement. Do this in deciding whether the Defendant made the statement and what weight to give it along with all the other evidence when deciding the guilt or innocence of the Defendant. If you decide that the Defendant did make the statement, in examining the circumstances surrounding the statement, you may consider whether the Defendant made it freely and voluntarily, with an understanding of what he was saying. You may consider whether he made it without fear, threats, coercion or force, either physical or psychological, and without promise of reward. You may consider the conversations, if any, between the police and the Defendant. For example, you may consider whether the police warned him of his rights, where and when the statement was given, the length of time, if any, that the police questioned him, who was present, the physical and mental condition of the Defendant. You may consider the age, disposition, education, experience, character and intelligence of the Defendant. Considering all the circumstances, you should give his statement such weight as you think it deserves. See CRIMINAL JURY INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, No. 2.48 (2008). At closing Brisbon's trial counsel focused the jury's attention on the question of coercion: Ladies and gentlemen, I told you at the beginning that this case would come down to whether or not you could believe that police officers would force a confession from an innocent person. Ladies and gentlemen, that's what the case was from the beginning, and that's what the case is about now. . . . . I submit to you ladies and gentlemen, that there is no question that Mr. Brisbon's response was a response given trying to help his family, and he would have done anything to try to help his family. Just like the officers indicated they would lie or do whatever was necessary to get this case resolved.... Mr. Brisbon would do whatever was necessary to assist his grandmother and his mother under these circumstances. . . . . You have to consider that he was lying for reasons which he considered to be valid, protecting his family, protecting his circumstances, his mother's and his grandmother's, and ladies and gentlemen, although he must  he made a very, very bad choice, it doesn't make him a killer. Here, the jurors were urged to assess for themselves whether Brisbon was forced to say something untrue. Brisbon's trial counsel apprised the jury of the conditions under which Brisbon gave the confession, and the trial court properly instructed that the jurors were the final arbiters of its trustworthiness. Although the erroneous admission of an involuntary confession cannot be cured by presenting the physical and psychological conditions under which the confession was elicited, the Court has recognized the critical role of the jury in evaluating evidence so highly relevant to its consideration of the guilt or innocence of the defendant, because ... confessions, even those that have been found to be voluntary, are not conclusive of guilt. And, as with any other part of the prosecutor's case, a confession may be shown to be insufficiently corroborated or otherwise ... unworthy of belief. Crane v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 683, 689, 106 S.Ct. 2142, 90 L.Ed.2d 636 (1986) (quoting Lego, 404 U.S. at 485-86, 92 S.Ct. 619). Whatever doubts the jury could have entertained about Brisbon's videotaped confession  or any taint from its erroneous admission  would have been outweighed by Brisbon's subsequent and independent confessions to Route and to the prosecutor that were removed in time and circumstance from the videotaped confession. Cf. Fulminante, 499 U.S. at 299, 111 S.Ct. 1246 (White, J., dissenting in part) (recognizing that in some cases two confessions, delivered on different occasions to different listeners, might be viewed as being independent of each other). On this record, where the jurors were pointedly directed to Brisbon's videotaped confession and the serious questions it raised for their consideration, we have no cause to second-guess a verdict that is otherwise supported by overwhelming independent evidence of Brisbon's guilt. See Sims v. Brown, 425 F.3d 560, 571 (9th Cir.2005) (assuming that statement I had to kill that boy was involuntary and should not have been admitted, but affirming conviction where evidence of guilt was overwhelming and there is no reasonable likelihood that the challenged statements actually prejudiced defendant); Berg v. Maschner, 260 F.3d 869, 871 (8th Cir.2001) (assuming that confession was erroneously admitted and concluding that it was harmless when there remains overwhelming independent evidence as to the defendant's guilt, consisting of eyewitness testimony and defendant's immediate arrest in possession of gun used in shooting) (citations omitted).