Opinion ID: 1323198
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: admissibility of statements made by williams to the police

Text: At trial the defendant moved to suppress his incriminating statements, contending that at the time he gave them he was emotionally confused, under duress, and not competent to give an accurate statement and thus unable knowingly and intelligently to waive his constitutional rights. The trial court denied the motion. The burden is upon the Commonwealth to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Williams' statement was voluntary. See Rodgers v. Commonwealth, 227 Va. 605, 608, 318 S.E.2d 298, 300 (1984); Stockton v. Commonwealth, 227 Va. 124, 140, 314 S.E.2d 371, 381, cert. denied, 469 U.S. 873, 105 S.Ct. 229, 83 L.Ed.2d 158 (1984); Griggs v. Commonwealth, 220 Va. 46, 49, 255 S.E.2d 475, 477 (1979); McCoy v. Commonwealth, 206 Va. 470, 474, 144 S.E.2d 303, 307 (1965). Whether a statement is voluntary is ultimately a legal rather than a factual question, but subsidiary factual questions are entitled to a presumption of correctness. See Miller v. Fenton, 474 U.S. 104, 112, 106 S.Ct. 445, 450, 88 L.Ed.2d 405 (1985); Gray v. Commonwealth, 233 Va. 313, 324, 356 S.E.2d 157, 163 (1987). Moreover, Rodgers points out that following a trial court's finding of voluntariness, the scope of our appellate review is limited to determining whether the evidence supports the finding. The trial court's finding on this issue is entitled to the same weight as a fact found by a jury, and that finding will not be disturbed on appeal unless plainly wrong. Rodgers, 227 Va. at 608-09, 318 S.E.2d at 300. The defendant injected himself into this case by writing a letter to the chief of police in which he said: I can't write or spell too good So Please bare with me. I know what I am saying and what I'm going to Do. I call Capt. Dose, back in Feb. of this year one night at 2:25 p.m. and told him about that man Who Die on Henry St. I said that I might have known what happen to him, but I didn't Leve my name. Well, I kill him myself. And all them cars That someone when in while Those pleople were at work, I when in those cars. Mills, Holetells, on the streets, Just about all over Danville, and also that Lady on W. Green St. I did it, but I am very sorry I did. I just can't hole all of this inside of me. It's getting to the pont that I don't know who I am anymore. I will only talk with you, please. After that letter was received, two detectives interviewed the defendant, and he implicated himself in the crime, explaining to the detectives that his conscience was bothering him and he wanted to talk to somebody. In a taped statement Williams explained his reason for confessing by saying, I couldn't live with myself no more with what I had done to these two people. And I just wish I could get some help from somebody. After having spoken with his relatives, Williams recanted the statements, claiming that he was having some kind of nightmares and dreams. However, he reaffirmed the statements a few days later. A clinical psychologist found Williams to be of low intelligence but that he had a good understanding of court procedures and was capable of understanding his rights and making a knowing and voluntary waiver of them. He also concluded that Williams' claims of dreams and hallucinations were malingered claims. A forensic psychiatrist who examined Williams did not believe he experienced hallucinations but that he had an unexplained unusual power through dreams to visualize something that has happened in the past. The psychiatrist indicated Williams was not suffering from mental illness or defect and was competent to give statements to the police. This evidence convinces us that the trial judge had ample grounds to support his finding that Williams was competent to make the statements to the police. Williams now attacks the voluntariness of his statements, asserting that they were induced by a promise of reward. It is true, as the defendant contends, that a confession is inadmissible where it [is] induced by the hope of the gain of some advantage or to avoid some evil in reference to the proceeding against the declarant. Jackson v. Commonwealth, 116 Va. 1015, 1020, 81 S.E. 192, 194 (1914); see Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742, 753, 90 S.Ct. 1463, 1471, 25 L.Ed.2d 747 (1970). However, the cases relied upon by Williams are inapposite on their facts. In Jackson, we said the confession was induced by the hope, inspired by what [the sheriff's agent] had said to [Jackson], that he would thereby escape the extreme penalty of the law for this offense [of murder]. Jackson, 116 Va. at 1019, 81 S.E. at 193. In Macon v. Commonwealth, 187 Va. 363, 46 S.E.2d 396 (1948), we reversed a criminal conviction based solely on a confession which the defendant later repudiated and which was itself ... based on supposed facts proven untrue and is incredible. [1] Id. at 378, 46 S.E.2d at 403. In Belcher v. Commonwealth, 160 Va. 891, 168 S.E. 468 (1933), we found that a Commonwealth's Attorney had; intentionally so conducted his conversations with [the accused's] brother and with [the accused], and so shaped his language as to raise in the mind [of the accused] the hope and belief that, if he told what he knew about this crime and testified in behalf of the commonwealth against others who were implicated by his statement, he would not be prosecuted. Id. at 905, 168 S.E. at 473. This brief recital of the facts in these cases is sufficient to show their inapplicability to this case. The most Williams can say is that [t]he two police officers obtained [my] confession by raising [my] hopes of obtaining psychological and mental `help.' This falls far short of a confession induced by the hope of gaining some advantage or avoidance of some evil in reference to the proceeding against the defendant. See Townes v. Commonwealth, 214 Va. 683, 685, 204 S.E.2d 269, 271 (1974). Williams makes the subsidiary contention that his various confessions are internally inconsistent, and are contradicted by other evidence in the case, making them less reliable. The credibility, weight, and value of confessions are all jury matters. Mathews v. Commonwealth, 207 Va. 915, 918-19, 153 S.E.2d 238, 240 (1967); Noe v. Commonwealth, 207 Va. 849, 852-53, 153 S.E.2d 248, 250 (1967). We must assume that this jury considered the alleged inconsistencies and resolved them against the defendant, as it had a right to do under the evidence in the case. For the reasons assigned, we find no error in the trial court's conclusion that the confessions were voluntary.