Opinion ID: 200820
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Allegedly Coerced Confession.

Text: North impliedly urges plain error in the failure of the court to exclude his confession from evidence and/or to order a hearing into its voluntariness. North admitted on direct examination that he had made an inculpatory statement to government investigators during a pretrial proffer session, but he said that the statement was a lie. On cross-examination, he asserted that the statement had been elicited from him by the investigators through threats and the torture of his family members. Upon our own review of the record, we see no meaningful indicia of coercion. North's conclusory accusations instead seem to be refuted by the circumstances surrounding the proffer session.3 Accordingly, there was no plain error in the court's failure sua sponte to either notice this as an issue or to order a hearing on the voluntariness of the statement. See generally 3 A government investigator testified that the proffer session was arranged to accommodate North's spontaneous request for the session. North was apparently represented by counsel at the time (or, at least, was given the opportunity to have counsel present. -17- United States v. Santiago Soto, 871 F.2d 200, 201-03 (1st Cir. 1989).