Opinion ID: 2574897
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Alleged promise of leniency/immunity

Text: More than 100 years ago, this court addressed the then well-settled law of confessions: It is well settled that an extrajudicial confession will not be received in evidence unless it has been freely and voluntarily made. If it has been extorted by fear or induced by hope of profit, benefit, or amelioration, it will be excluded as involuntary. However, the advice or admonition to the defendant to speak the truth, which does not import either a threat or benefit, will not make a following confession incompetent. State v. Kornstett, 62 Kan. 221, 227, 61 P. 805 (1900) (cited with approval in State v. Harris, 284 Kan. 560, 579, 162 P.3d 28 [2007]). This basic approach was clarified by the United States Supreme Court in Fulminante, 499 U.S. at 285, 111 S.Ct. 1246: Although the Court noted in Bram [ v. United States, 168 U.S. 532, 18 S.Ct. 183, 42 L.Ed. 568 (1897)] that a confession cannot be obtained by ` any direct or implied promises, however slight, nor by the exertion of any improper influence'... this passage from Bram ... under current precedent does not state the standard for determining the voluntariness of a confession.... (Emphasis added.) On the issue of promises of leniency to the accused, this court has most recently stated that in order to render a confession involuntary as a product of a promise of some benefit to the accused, including leniency, the promise must concern action to be taken by a public official; it must be such that it would be likely to cause the accused to make a false statement to obtain the benefit of the promise; and it must be made by a person whom the accused reasonably believes to have the power or authority to execute it. [Citations omitted.] (Emphasis added.) Brown, 285 Kan. at 276, 173 P.3d 612. See K.S.A. 60-460(f)(2)(B).