Opinion ID: 1832278
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Defendant's Allegedly Coerced Confession

Text: Defendant complains that his confession was coerced by police brutality and threats. At the motion to suppress the confession, as well as at trial, defendant testified in great detail about physical abuse by various police officers and the threats they made during his interrogation. He testified: the police came to his house at 4:30 a.m., burst into his room, and closed the door behind them; Detectives Sansone and Brewer drove him to the side a school building, where Brewer rubbed his pistol in defendant's face and made suggestive statements; he was then driven to the police station, where he was interrogated by various officers, but he kept telling them that he did not know anything; Detectives Smith and Odom came into the interrogation room and asked him questions, and when he did not know the answers they wanted, they slapped him, kicked him, and dug their fingernails into the back of his ear; when he continued to proclaim his innocence after Detectives Browning and Sansone came into the room, Browning grabbed him in a choke hold and threatened to break his neck; when he still would not cooperate, Sansone, Brewer and Detective Rice put a plastic bag over his head, told him that Smothers was a close friend and that he was going to pay for what he did, stuck pictures of Smothers in the bag, and then tightened it so that he could not breathe; at the same time, Rice hit him in the chest six or seven times; finally, they removed the bag from his head and asked him to sign some statements, but he refused; he asked for a lawyer and for one phone call, but was denied; Brewer read a few statements and asked if that is what he thought had happened the night of the murder, and he said that he did not know; Brewer then asked him to sign the statement, and again he refused; and Brewer then took his hand and forced him to initial the statements. At the motion to suppress, all eight detectives who took part in Broadway's arrest, transportation and interrogation testified, denying that defendant was ever threatened, intimidated, coerced, or verbally or physically abused. During the trial, each of the detectives specifically denied defendant's assertions of coercion. Detective Odom testified that he never hit defendant. Detective Sansone testified that he never saw Detective Brewer rub a gun across defendant's face when he and Brewer transported defendant to the station. He also denied that they threatened or hit defendant, or handed a bag to Rice to be placed on defendant's head. Detective Smith specifically denied that he ever dug his fingernails into the area behind defendant's ears and denied that he kicked defendant. Before a confession or inculpatory statement can be introduced into evidence, the state must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the statement was made freely and voluntarily and not under the influence of fear, duress, intimidation, menace, threats, inducements or promises. La. Code Crim. Proc. art. 703; La.Rev.Stat. 15:451; State v. Vessell, 450 So.2d 938, 942 (La.1984). When an accused alleges specific instances of police misconduct in reference to a confession, the state must specifically rebut the allegations. Vessell, 450 So.2d at 942-43. In the present case, the state specifically rebutted defendant's testimony as to numerous instances of misconduct by the police, both before and during his interrogation, by presenting all the officers involved that night, who specifically described their actions and denied that any misconduct took place. The trial judge, faced with contradictory testimony which calls for a determination of the credibility of the witnesses, obviously disbelieved the version presented by defendant and found credible the testimony of the eight detectives involved. Such credibility determinations lie within the sound discretion of the trial judge, and his ruling will not be disturbed unless clearly contrary to the evidence. Vessell, 450 So.2d at 943. The jury at trial also heard defendant's testimony about the circumstances surrounding his statement, as well as the contradictory testimony of the eight officers. In determining the weight to be given the statement under La.Code Crim. Proc. art. 703G, the jury made a credibility determination and accepted the officers' version. The record thus provides a reasonable basis for the jury's credibility determination. This court should not disturb that determination unless it was substantially affected by the improperly admitted hearsay evidence of Brumfield's implication of defendant in the crime.