Opinion ID: 1706879
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Law on Confessions

Text: Beginning in 1936 with Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U.S. 278, 56 S.Ct. 461, 80 L.Ed. 682 (1936), the Supreme Court judged the admissibility of confessions in state courts under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. See Wayne Lafave & Jerold H. Israel, Criminal Procedure § 6.1(c) at 292 (2d ed.1992). The Court employed a totality-of-the-circumstances review of the record to determine whether the confession had voluntarily been given. See id.; see also Haynes v. Washington, 373 U.S. 503, 513-14, 83 S.Ct. 1336, 10 L.Ed.2d 513 (1963); Chambers v. Florida, 309 U.S. 227, 228-29, 60 S.Ct. 472, 84 L.Ed. 716 (1940). The Court in Miranda, relying upon the Self-Incrimination Clause of the Fifth Amendment, applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, [16] held that statements made by a defendant during a custodial interrogation are inadmissible unless the defendant is informed of certain rights and freely decides to waive those rights. [17] The prophylactic Miranda rights are `not themselves rights protected by the Constitution but [are] instead measures to insure that the right against compulsory self-incrimination [is] protected.' New York v. Quarles, 467 U.S. 649, 654, 104 S.Ct. 2626, 81 L.Ed.2d 550 (1984) (quoting from Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U.S. 433, 444, 94 S.Ct. 2357, 41 L.Ed.2d 182 (1974)). In reviewing the validity of a waiver, courts must utilize the same totality of the circumstances review used to determine whether a confession itself is voluntarily given. See Moran v. Burbine, 475 U.S. 412, 421, 106 S.Ct. 1135, 89 L.Ed.2d 410 (1986); Sliney v. State, 699 So.2d 662, 668 (Fla.1997), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 118 S.Ct. 1079, 140 L.Ed.2d 137 (1998). The totality-of-the-circumstances approach is adequate to determine whether there has been a waiver even where interrogation of juveniles is involved. Fare v. Michael C., 442 U.S. 707, 725, 99 S.Ct. 2560, 61 L.Ed.2d 197 (1979). Moreover, an express written or oral statement of waiver of the right to remain silent or the right to counsel is usually strong proof of the validity of that waiver but is not inevitably either necessary or sufficient to establish waiver. North Carolina v. Butler, 441 U.S. 369, 373, 99 S.Ct. 1755, 60 L.Ed.2d 286 (1979). The Supreme Court also has held that a suspect who has once responded to unwarned yet uncoercive questioning is not thereby disabled from waiving his rights and confessing after he has been given the requisite Miranda warnings. Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298, 318, 105 S.Ct. 1285, 84 L.Ed.2d 222 (1985). In Elstad, the Supreme Court rejected the argument that the traditional exclusionary rule applicable to fruits of unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution is applicable to situations in which police officers during a custodial interrogation solicit incriminating statements without first advising the defendant of his Miranda rights. Relying on Harris v. New York, 401 U.S. 222, 91 S.Ct. 643, 28 L.Ed.2d 1 (1971) (voluntary statements solicited from defendant in violation of Miranda may nevertheless be used to impeach defendant on cross-examination), and Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U.S. 433, 94 S.Ct. 2357, 41 L.Ed.2d 182 (1974) (evidence secured by statements obtained in violation of Miranda does not render evidence inadmissible per se), the Court reasoned that it would be an unwarranted extension of Miranda to hold that a simple failure to administer the warnings, unaccompanied by actual coercion or other circumstances calculated to undermine the suspect's ability to exercise his free will, so taints the investigatory process that a subsequent voluntary and informed waiver is ineffective for some indeterminate period. Elstad, 470 U.S. at 307-09, 105 S.Ct. 1285.