Opinion ID: 1244769
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: coerced confessions and error

Text: Let us proceed from what is, and must be, common ground.
It is error under the United States Constitution to admit a defendant's coerced confession into evidence at a criminal trial. The Fifth Amendment establishes a privilege against self-incrimination: No person ... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.... The constitutional provision has remained unchanged since its ratification in 1791. In Bram v. United States (1897) 168 U.S. 532, 542 [42 L.Ed. 568, 573, 18 S.Ct. 183] (hereafter sometimes Bram ), the United States Supreme Court expressly concluded that [i]n criminal trials, in the courts of the United States, wherever a question arises whether a confession is incompetent because not voluntary, the issue is controlled by that portion of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, commanding that no person `shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.' In addition, the Bram court impliedly concluded that the Fifth Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination extends its reach beyond the criminal courtroom and operates even in the absence of compulsion commonly so called. (See Bram v. United States, supra, 168 U.S. at pp. 542-561 [42 L.Ed. at pp. 573-580].) Thus, at one point the Bram court stated: `But a confession, in order to be admissible, must be free and voluntary: that is, must not be extracted by any sort of threats or violence, nor obtained by any direct or implied promises, however slight, nor by the exertion of any improper influence.... A confession can never be received in evidence where the prisoner has been influenced by any threat or promise; for the law cannot measure the force of the influence used, or decide upon its effect upon the mind of the prisoner, and therefore excludes the declaration if any degree of influence has been exerted.' ( Bram v. United States, supra, 168 U.S. at pp. 542-543 [42 L.Ed. at pp. 573-574], ellipsis in original, quoting 3 Russell on Crimes (6th ed.) p. 478.) At another point, the Bram court stated: The rule is not that in order to render a statement admissible the proof must be adequate to establish that the particular communications contained in a statement were voluntarily made, but it must be sufficient to establish that the making of the statement was voluntary; that is to say, that from the causes, which the law treats as legally sufficient to engender in the mind of the accused hope or fear in respect to the crime charged, the accused was not involuntarily impelled to make a statement, when but for the improper influences he would have remained silent. ( Bram v. United States, supra, 168 U.S. at p. 549 [42 L.Ed. at pp. 575-576].) The conclusions reached in Bram remain good law. Indeed, they were explicitly reaffirmed by the United States Supreme Court in Miranda v. Arizona (1966) 384 U.S. 436, 460-462 [16 L.Ed.2d 694, 715-717, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 10 A.L.R.3d 974]. [2] The Fifth Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination is available against the individual states as well as the United States itself. (See, e.g., Miranda v. Arizona, supra, 384 U.S. at pp. 458-464 [16 L.Ed.2d at pp. 714-718].) In Barron v. Baltimore (1833) 32 U.S. (7 Pet.) 243, 247-250 [8 L.Ed. 672, 674-675], which was decided before the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, the United States Supreme Court held that the Fifth Amendment applied to the federal government alone. In Twining v. New Jersey (1908) 211 U.S. 78, 99-114 [53 L.Ed. 97, 106-112, 29 S.Ct. 14], and Adamson v. California (1947) 332 U.S. 46, 53-54 [91 L.Ed. 1903, 1909-1910, 67 S.Ct. 1672, 171 A.L.R. 1223], the court concluded that the federal constitutional privilege was not made applicable to the states through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In Malloy v. Hogan (1964) 378 U.S. 1, 3-8 [12 L.Ed.2d 653, 656-660, 84 S.Ct. 1489] (hereafter sometimes Malloy ), however, the court held to the contrary.
Separately and independently, it is error under the California Constitution to admit a defendant's coerced confession into evidence at a criminal trial. Section 15 of article I of the state charter establishes its own privilege against self-incrimination: Persons may not ... be compelled in a criminal cause to be a witness against themselves.... This provision derives from former section 13 of article I of the currently effective Constitution of 1879: No person shall ... be compelled, in any criminal case, to be a witness against himself.... That provision, in turn, was taken from section 8 of article I of the original, and now superseded, Constitution of 1849: No person ... shall ... be compelled, in any criminal case, to be a witness against himself.... For present purposes, the state constitutional privilege is much the same as the federal. (See, e.g., People v. Loper (1910) 159 Cal. 6, 17-20 [112 P. 720].)
Informing the federal and state constitutional privileges against self-incrimination and the related rules barring the admission of a coerced confession are diverse values and purposes. In Anglo-American law generally, many policies ... have been advanced as ... justification for the privilege against self-incrimination. (8 Wigmore, Evidence (McNaughton rev. 1961) § 2251, p. 297 [hereafter 8 Wigmore]; accord, People v. Coleman (1975) 13 Cal.3d 867, 875 [120 Cal. Rptr. 384, 533 P.2d 1024]; see Murphy v. Waterfront Comm'n (1964) 378 U.S. 52, 55 [12 L.Ed.2d 678, 681-682, 84 S.Ct. 1594] [hereafter sometimes Murphy ]; see generally 8 Wigmore, supra, § 2251, pp. 295-318; 1 McCormick, Evidence (4th ed. 1992) § 118, pp. 430-435 [hereafter 1 McCormick].) Some are real, others only apparent; some implicate themselves in many situations, others only in a few; some are basic, others merely derivative. (See generally 8 Wigmore, supra, § 2251, pp. 295-318; 1 McCormick, supra, § 118, pp. 430-435.) Among these policies, three are worthy of note in the present matter. One is the prevention of overreaching by the government and the consequent mistreatment of the individual, whether by physical torture or psychological pressure, by blatant measures or subtle devices (see 8 Wigmore, supra, § 2251, pp. 315-316; 1 McCormick, supra, § 118, p. 433)  put otherwise, the avoidance of a recurrence of the Inquisition and the Star Chamber, even if not in their stark brutality ( Ullmann v. United States (1956) 350 U.S. 422, 428 [100 L.Ed. 511, 519, 76 S.Ct. 497, 53 A.L.R.2d 1008]; accord, Board of Education v. Mass (1956) 47 Cal.2d 494, 503 [304 P.2d 1015] (conc. opn. of Carter, J.)). [3] Another policy is the exclusion of evidence that is regarded as inherently unreliable, i.e., the self-incriminating admissions of the accused (1 McCormick, supra, § 118, p. 432), in accordance with what has been described as our distrust of self-deprecatory statements ( Murphy v. Waterfront Comm'n, supra, 378 U.S. at p. 55 [12 L.Ed.2d at pp. 681-682]; accord, People v. Jimenez (1978) 21 Cal.3d 595, 605 [147 Cal. Rptr. 172, 580 P.2d 672]). But the policy that is the most substantial, expansive, and fundamental is this: The privilege contributes toward a fair state-individual balance by requiring the government to leave the individual alone until good cause is shown for disturbing him and by requiring the government in its contest with the individual to shoulder the entire load. (8 Wigmore, supra, § 2251, p. 317.) For it is the prevailing ethic that the individual is sovereign and that proper rules of battle between government and individual require that the individual not be bothered for less than good reason and not be conscripted by his opponent to defeat himself.... ( Id., § 2251, p. 318.) The United States Supreme Court has recognized the point as to the federal constitutional privilege against self-incrimination. Thus, in Murphy v. Waterfront Comm'n, supra, 378 U.S. 52, the court declared at page 55 [12 L.Ed.2d at pages 681-682]: The privilege against self-incrimination `registers an important advance in the development of our liberty  one of the great landmarks in man's struggle to make himself civilized.' [Citation.] It reflects many of our fundamental values and most noble aspirations, including our preference for an accusatorial rather than an inquisitorial system of criminal justice and our sense of fair play which dictates `a fair state-individual balance by requiring the government to leave the individual alone until good cause is shown for disturbing him and by requiring the government in its contest with the individual to shoulder the entire load[.]' (Fn. omitted.) In Malloy v. Hogan, supra, 378 U.S. 1, the court observed at pages 7 to 8 [12 L.Ed.2d at pages 658-659]: [T]he American system of criminal prosecution is accusatorial, not inquisitorial, and ... the Fifth Amendment privilege is its essential mainstay. [Citation.] Governments, state and federal, are thus constitutionally compelled to establish guilt by evidence independently and freely secured, and may not by coercion prove a charge against an accused out of his own mouth. And in Miranda v. Arizona, supra, 384 U.S. 436, the court elaborated at page 460 [16 L.Ed.2d at page 715]: [T]he constitutional foundation underlying the privilege is the respect a government  state or federal  must accord to the dignity and integrity of its citizens. To maintain a `fair state-individual balance,' to require the government `to shoulder the entire load,' [citation], to respect the inviolability of the human personality, our accusatory system of criminal justice demands that the government seeking to punish an individual produce the evidence against him by its own independent labors, rather than by the cruel, simple expedient of compelling it from his own mouth. We have recognized the same point as to the state constitutional privilege against self-incrimination. Our discussion in such decisions as People v. Jimenez, supra, 21 Cal.3d 595, and People v. Schader (1969) 71 Cal.2d 761 [80 Cal. Rptr. 1, 457 P.2d 841], furnishes proof. In both cases, we effectively construed the guaranty of the state charter as the court in Murphy and Malloy had construed the guaranty of the federal. (See People v. Jimenez, supra, 21 Cal.3d at p. 605; People v. Schader, supra, 71 Cal.2d at pp. 769-770.) Underlying the federal and state constitutional rules barring the admission of a coerced confession are policies that correspond  unsurprisingly  to those of the federal and state constitutional privileges against self-incrimination. Accordingly, one of these policies is the prevention of governmental overreaching. (See e.g., 1 LaFave & Israel, Criminal Procedure (1984) § 6.2(b), pp. 442-443 [hereafter LaFave & Israel] [discussing the federal constitutional rule]; Miller v. Fenton (1985) 474 U.S. 104, 109 [88 L.Ed.2d 405, 410, 106 S.Ct. 445] [same; implying, in words quoted from Brown v. Mississippi (1936) 297 U.S. 278, 286 [80 L.Ed. 682, 687], that the rule's purpose is to deter official conduct that is `revolting to the sense of justice']; People v. Atchley (1959) 53 Cal.2d 160, 170 [346 P.2d 764] [stating generally that coerced confessions are excluded because, among other reasons, exclusion serves to discourage the use of physical brutality and other undue pressures in questioning those suspected of crime].) Another policy is the exclusion of evidence deemed unreliable. (See, e.g., 1 LaFave & Israel, supra, § 6.2(b), pp. 442, 444 [discussing the federal constitutional rule]; People v. Atchley, supra, 53 Cal.2d at p. 170 [stating generally that coerced confessions are excluded because, among other reasons, they are untrustworthy].) [4] The most basic of the policies, however, is simply the ensuring of fairness in the contest between the government and the individual. (See, e.g., Colorado v. Connelly, supra, 479 U.S. at p. 167 [93 L.Ed.2d at pp. 484-485] [discussing the federal constitutional rule; stating, in words quoted from Lisenba v. California (1941) 314 U.S. 219, 236 [86 L.Ed. 166, 179-180, 62 S.Ct. 280], that `[t]he aim of the requirement of due process is not to exclude presumptively false evidence, but to prevent fundamental unfairness in the [government's] use of evidence [against the individual], whether true or false[]']; People v. Atchley, supra, 53 Cal.2d at p. 170 [stating generally that coerced confessions are excluded because, among other reasons, it offends `the community's sense of fair play and decency' to convict a defendant by evidence extorted from him].) It goes without saying that the fairness policy that underlies both the federal and state constitutional privileges against self-incrimination and the related rules barring the admission of a coerced confession does not seek to further the ascertainment of the truth in criminal proceedings. (See, e.g., Tehan v. Shott (1966) 382 U.S. 406, 416 [15 L.Ed.2d 453, 459-460, 86 S.Ct. 459] [stating that the federal constitutional privilege is not an adjunct to the ascertainment of truth].) Nor is this policy merely neutral in this regard. Rather, it serves in fact to frustrate efforts to attain the goal. (See, e.g., Baxter v. Palmigiano (1976) 425 U.S. 308, 319 [47 L.Ed.2d 810, 821-822, 96 S.Ct. 1551] [stating that the federal constitutional privilege derogates rather than improves the chances for accurate decisions].) What it aims to promote, as the discussion above suggests, is not the reliability of the outcome of an individual criminal trial, but the legitimacy of the criminal justice system itself. In view of the foregoing, it is plain that the admission, at a federal criminal trial, of a coerced confession offensive to the Fifth Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination constitutes a denial of due process of law under that same amendment. (See Miranda v. Arizona, supra, 384 U.S. at p. 503 [16 L.Ed.2d at p. 740] (conc. & dis. opn. of Clark, J.).) Similarly, the admission, at a state criminal trial, of a confession of this sort denies due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. (See, e.g., Payne v. Arkansas (1958) 356 U.S. 560, 568 [2 L.Ed.2d 975, 981, 78 S.Ct. 844] [hereafter sometimes Payne ].) In California, the admission of a coerced confession offensive to the federal and/or state constitutional privilege also denies due process under sections 7 and 15 of article I of the state charter. (See, e.g., People v. Benson, supra, 52 Cal.3d at p. 778.)