Opinion ID: 2222357
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: voluntariness of post-4:15 statements to the abductors.

Text: 1. Since the Miranda rules are not apposite to the statements [24] made by the defendant to his abductors, the admissibility of these statements at trial is governed by the due process standard of voluntariness. Delle Chiaie v. Commonwealth, 367 Mass. 527, 533 (1975). Davis v. North Carolina, 384 U.S. 737, 740 (1966). Procunier v. Atchley, 400 U.S. 446, 453 (1971). A conviction founded in whole or in part on statements which are the product of physical or psychological coercion deprives the defendant of his right to due process of law under the Fourteenth Amendment and, as a consequence, is invalid. Rogers v. Richmond, 365 U.S. 534, 540-541 (1961). Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 376 (1964). See Commonwealth v. Harris, 364 Mass. 236, 241 (1973). Such convictions are invalid irrespective of the truth or falsity of the statements admitted. The use of coerced confessions ... is forbidden because the method used to extract them offends constitutional principles ( Lego v. Twomey, 404 U.S. 477, 485 [1972]) and because declarations procured by torture [or other coercive means] are not premises from which a civilized forum will infer guilt. Lyons v. Oklahoma, 332 U.S. 596, 605 (1944). See Rogers v. Richmond, supra, at 540-541; Jackson v. Denno, supra, at 385-386. Cf. Stein v. New York, 346 U.S. 156, 192 (1953). There is no easy acid test for voluntariness. Judicial determinations must rest on more than a mere colormatching comparison of analogous cases. Reck v. Pate, 367 U.S. 433, 442 (1961). In each case, the court must assess the totality of relevant circumstances to ensure that the defendant's confession was a free and voluntary act and was not the product of inquisitorial activity which had overborne his will. Clewis v. Texas, 386 U.S. 707, 708 (1967). Procunier v. Atchley, 400 U.S. 446, 453 (1971), and cases cited. Delle Chiaie v. Commonwealth, 367 Mass. 527, 533 (1975). See Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 225-226 (1973). The burden of proof is on the government to show such voluntariness by a preponderance of the evidence. Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 376-377 (1964). Lego v. Twomey, 404 U.S. 477, 489 (1972). [25] 2. These principles apply even though the statements were extracted by private coercion, unalloyed with any official government involvement. We have not squarely decided this point previously, but it is implicit in our decisions in Commonwealth v. White, 353 Mass. 409, 417-418 (1967), cert. den. 391 U.S. 968 (1968) (voluntariness test applied to confession made to private parties after two statements to police which were inadmissible under Miranda ), Commonwealth v. Wallace, 356 Mass. 92, 96-97 (1969) (statements to Canadian police), and Commonwealth v. Martin, 357 Mass. 190, 193 (1970). The Supreme Court of the United States has not spoken to the question [26] but it has invoked the usual analysis where pressure was exerted by private persons while the defendant was nominally in official custody. See Thomas v. Arizona, 356 U.S. 390 (1958) (private citizen, a member of a posse, abused a prisoner who later confessed to the authorities). A number of State courts have applied the due process analysis to circumstances in which the only claimed coercion leading to a confession was private. See, e.g., Palmore v. State, 244 Ala. 227 (1943); State v. Christopher, 10 Ariz. App. 169 (1969); People v. Haydel, 12 Cal.3d 190 (1974); Lawton v. State, 152 Fla. 821 (1943). Underlying the above-cited decisions in this jurisdiction and other jurisdictions is the fundamental recognition that a statement obtained through coercion and introduced at trial is every bit as offensive to civilized standards of adjudication when the coercion flows from private hands as when official depredations elicit a confession. Statements extracted by a howling lynch mob or a lawless private pack of vigilantes from a terrorized, pliable suspect are repugnant to due process mandates of fundamental fairness and protection against compulsory self-incrimination. See People v. Berve, 51 Cal.2d 286, 290 (1958). 3. When, as in the instant case, several statements given at different times by the defendant must be evaluated for voluntariness, a finding that an earlier statement was involuntary does not necessarily require suppression of the later statements. The admissibility of the later confession depends upon the same test  is it voluntary. Of course the fact that the earlier statement was obtained from the prisoner by coercion is to be considered in appraising the character of the later confession. The effect of earlier abuse may be so clear as to forbid any other inference than that it dominated the mind of the accused to such an extent that the later confession is involuntary.... Commonwealth v. White, 353 Mass. 409, 417 (1967), cert. den. 391 U.S. 968 (1968), quoting from Lyons v. Oklahoma, 322 U.S. 596, 603 (1944). It is equally true, however, that the defendant may have been under no compulsion at the time of the later statements and may have felt no effect of the earlier abuse at the time. The later statements, then, would be admissible. The United States Supreme Court has never held that making a confession under circumstances which preclude its use, perpetually disables the confessor from making a usable one after those conditions have been removed. United States v. Bayer, 331 U.S. 532, 541 (1947). Two lines of analysis emerge from the case law and guide our analysis of the voluntariness of the defendant's post-4:15 statements. We are still required to look to the totality of the circumstances. Clewis v. Texas, 386 U.S. 707, 710 (1967). Darwin v. Connecticut, 391 U.S. 346, 349 (1968). See United States v. Bayer, supra, at 540-541. However, these lines of analysis furnish convenient, commonsense approaches to ordering and evaluating the necessary elements of the circumstances which bear on the voluntariness of the later statements. In the first line of analysis, the court must look for a break in the stream of events, the coercive circumstances which extracted earlier statements, sufficient to insulate the [subsequent] statement from the effect of all that went before. Clewis v. Texas, supra, at 710. The focus of this line of analysis is on external constraints, continuing or new, which may have overborne the defendant's will. When circumstances no longer coerce the defendant, a break in the stream has occurred. The second line of analysis looks more specifically to the effect of the previous confession on the defendant's will. To be admissible, subsequent statements may not be merely the product of the erroneous impression that the cat was already out of the bag ( Darwin v. Connecticut, 391 U.S. 346, 351 [1968] [Harlan, J., concurring and dissenting]) because one coerced confession has let the secret out for good. United States v. Bayer, 331 U.S. 532, 540 (1947). Pursuant to our order of January 8, 1975, the judge has filed supplementary findings addressing the issue of voluntariness as elucidated by these lines of analysis. After a detailed recitation of the evidence and the facts found by him, he concluded that the post-4:15 P.M. statements made by the defendant to his abductors were voluntary and admissible. We believe such a conclusion was warranted. a. Break in the stream of events. The judge quite correctly ruled that statements obtained by the concerned group from the defendant prior to the departure from the cabin were involuntary because induced by threats, duress, intimidation, fear, and at least some violence (the original striking of the defendant at Mt. Ida). The defendant, held incommunicado (see, e.g., Rogers v. Richmond, 365 U.S. 534, 536 [1961]) by his violent, lawbreaking captors (see, e.g., Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U.S. 278 [1936]) in a remote hunting cabin, was subjected to continuous rough questioning and threats (see, e.g., Lynumn v. Illinois, 372 U.S. 528 [1963]) designed to overcome his resistance and extract by psychological compulsion what he would not give freely. These circumstances are so inherently coercive that ... [their] very existence is irreconcilable with the possession of mental freedom [by the person] ... against whom ... [the] full coercive force is brought to bear. Ashcraft v. Tennessee, 322 U.S. 143, 154 (1944). Reck v. Pate, 367 U.S. 433, 442 (1961). However, as the trial judge found on sufficient evidence, once the defendant had admitted his connection with the death, all hostility and intimidation ceased. The defendant's captors no longer threatened him or sought to elicit further information through their rough persistent questioning. A peculiar relationship of friendship and mutual trust seems to have arisen between Ferreri and the defendant. Thus, though the defendant remained captive while the concerned group discussed their next move, the atmosphere of coercion had been dispelled to a large extent. After the group had left the cabin, even the vestige of coercion inherent in the group's control over the defendant's person vanished. Numerous opportunities for escape were presented to the defendant. The defendant eschewed these opportunities, though, as the trial judge found on ample evidence, [27] he knew he could have effected an escape. The defendant could have made some protest or sign when the group was within range of the hunters' guns. The warning about funny business, issued by Liimatainen, was an invitation to outcry by the defendant. Yet he chose not to seek assistance. Similarly, on the trip back to Boston, the defendant made no attempt to attract attention at the Massachusetts Turnpike toll booths through which the group passed. While Fontacchio and Campbell, the other members of the concerned group in the car, dozed, the defendant conversed in a friendly manner with Ferreri, the driver. At the Weston toll, the defendant contributed part of the necessary payment because Ferreri lacked sufficient funds. When the group reached the Sears parking lot, the defendant again let pass opportunities for escape. He did not attempt to escape to the nearby MBTA station or to mingle with shoppers traversing the parking lot. He could have but did not create a disturbance which would have drawn public attention to his plight. Rather, he acted like a man who felt sufficiently in control of his circumstances to make a free choice. Initially, he refused to go down to the burial site, but he agreed when armed with the only weapon then in evidence. Even then, he exercised his will and halted short of the precise site. He gave Ferreri directions to the body and, while Ferreri searched, engaged in casual incriminating conversation with Heard. His statements to Heard exhibited a bravado and lack of fear which were indicative of mental freedom of action. Given the opportunities for escape, the lack of physical restraint, and the defendant's possession of the weapon, we believe that the judge had ample justification for his findings that the defendant's statements and actions were not products of coercion exerted after he left the cabin. These factors separate the later statements from the coercive circumstances surrounding the earlier ones. Cf. Clewis v. Texas, 386 U.S. 707, 710 (1967). This is not a case such as Leyra v. Denno, 347 U.S. 556 (1954), or Beecher v. Alabama, 389 U.S. 35 (1967), in which the later statements were extracted by part of a continuous coercive process. This is not a case such as Reck v. Pate, 367 U.S. 433 (1961), Clewis v. Texas, 386 U.S. 707 (1967), or Darwin v. Connecticut, 391 U.S. 346 (1968), in which the defendant remained in official custody without access to potentially friendly faces [28] or intercession for the duration of the stream of events. The objective evidence of the defendant's behavior after leaving the cabin substantiates the judge's finding that the mere continuation in the presence of the concerned group did not coerce the defendant or render his post-4:15 P.M. statements involuntary. b. Cat out of the bag. The cat-out-of-the-bag line of analysis requires the exclusion of a statement if, in giving the statement, the defendant was motivated by the belief that, after a prior coerced statement, his effort to withhold further information would be futile and he had nothing to lose by repetition or amplification of the earlier statements. Such a statement would be inadmissible as the direct product of the earlier coerced statement. The primary exposition of the underlying proposition by the United States Supreme Court occurs in United States v. Bayer, 331 U.S. 532, 540-541 (1947). Mr. Justice Jackson wrote: Of course, after an accused has once let the cat out of the bag by confessing, no matter what the inducement, he is never thereafter free of the psychological and practical disadvantages of having confessed. He can never get the cat back in the bag. The secret is out for good. In such a sense, a later confession always may be looked upon as fruit of the first. However, Mr. Justice Jackson qualified his statement of the principle: But this Court has never gone so far as to hold that making a confession under circumstances which preclude its use, perpetually disables the confessor from making a usable one after those conditions have been removed. Mr. Justice Harlan returned to the point in his opinion (concurring in part and dissenting in part) in Darwin v. Connecticut, 391 U.S. 346, 350-351 (1968). He wrote: A principal reason why a suspect might make a second or third confession is simply that, having already confessed once or twice, he might think he has little to lose by repetition. If a first confession is not shown to be voluntary, I do not think a later confession that is merely a direct product of the earlier one should be held to be voluntary. It would be neither conducive to good police work, nor fair to a suspect, to allow the erroneous impression that he has nothing to lose to play the major role in a defendant's decision to speak a second or third time.... I would remand for further proceedings, in order to give the prosecution the opportunity to show that the third confession was not merely the product of the erroneous impression that the cat was already out of the bag. Id. at 350-351. [29] The evidence supports the supplementary finding of the judge that there was no `cat out of the bag' aspect to ... [the defendant's post-4:15 P.M.] statements and actions. The judge was warranted in finding that the defendant did not yield further information out of a conviction that his first coerced statement had damned him and in finding that subsequent admissions were not attributable to a feeling that nothing further would be lost by repetition. As the judge found, the defendant evidenced no fear of culpability after the statements in the cabin and did not believe what he said in the cabin would have serious adverse effects. [30] In his conversation with Heard, the defendant disclaimed any fear that the statements made under coercion would lead to his conviction. He stated that a (specific) good lawyer would discredit his abductors' testimony and secure his acquittal in any subsequent proceeding. He may have thought he had little to lose ( Darwin v. Connecticut, 391 U.S. 346, 350 [1968] [Harlan, J.]) through further admissions, but not because he feared the use of his previous statements. He may have thought he had little to lose based on an actual belief that he could not be convicted. Perhaps he thought that the kidnappers believed and accepted his story that the victim's death was accidental. The post-4:15 statements and actions appear to be attributable to the peculiar friendship which the defendant formed with Ferreri or to relief at having divulged his secret at last. [31] Neither of these sentiments is the sentiment against which the cat-out-of-the-bag analysis would guard. Fear, continuation of coercive effects, and a sense of futility of attempting to get the cat back in the bag are the objects of the analysis. See Darwin v. Connecticut, supra, at 350; Harrison v. United States, 392 U.S. 219, 224-226 (1968). In these circumstances, we cannot say, contrary to the judge's findings, that the post-4:15 statements and actions were involuntary because they were products of earlier statements. Cf. United States v. Gorman, 335 F.2d 151, 157 (2d Cir.1965), cert. den. 384 U.S. 1024 (1966). [32] 4. In holding the post-4:15 statements made to the abductors admissible, we do not in any way approve the illegal and reprehensible manner in which they were obtained. Justice Kaplan's dissent begins with a statement which focuses attention on the dangerous vigilantism evident in this case and which indicates that such vigilantism must not be condoned. We join with him in vigorous condemnation of the violence, kidnapping and intimidation practiced by the members of the concerned group. Regardless of the nature of the crime alleged to have been committed by the defendant, there can be no justification for such unlawful conduct. Such conduct, apart from its illegality, is contrary to all acceptable norms of human behavior. It cannot be countenanced in any form. The rule of law and lawful procedures must be followed. Having said this much, we must add that it is also the duty of this court to follow settled rules of law in its review of the facts of the case found by the trial judge. It is settled (and undisputed) that an appellate court cannot disturb the judge's findings of subsidiary facts if they are supported by the evidence. In like manner, this court may not draw inferences contrary to those of the trial judge which were derived from his subsidiary findings and from oral testimony. See Glover v. Waltham Laundry Co. 235 Mass. 330, 333 (1920). There is a very real and practical reason for the rule: The appellate court did not conduct the trial or the voir dire. It has neither heard the witnesses nor seen all of the evidence. It lacks the exposure to appearance and demeanor on the witness stand which assists the trial judge in his evaluation of veracity and resolution of conflicting testimony. In the instant case, none of the dissenters is willing to say that the judge below was plainly wrong in his findings. Each purports to accept the basic historical or subsidiary facts found below but then reaches a result inconsistent with the trial judge's factual finding that the defendant was completely free from fear after the encounter with the hunters. Justice Kaplan returns to the record in order to divine the defendant's state of mind throughout the period following the departure from the cabin. He concludes (contrary to the trial judge's findings) that the defendant remained under the heel of the kidnappers and that his statements at the Sears parking lot were ... made within a continuing constraint and compulsion. Justice Hennessey, while unwilling to draw these further inferences, nevertheless finds that the Commonwealth has not proved that the defendant's admissions were voluntary by a fair preponderance of the evidence. He refuses to be bound by the judge's inference ... that is synonymous with voluntariness. Is it now open to this court to disregard the trial judge's findings and to come to a contrary conclusion? We think not. A decision as to the voluntariness of the defendant's admissions involves determination of his state of mind at the time they were made. State of mind is a question of fact. See Kelley v. Jordan Marsh Co. 278 Mass. 101, 106 (1932); Commonwealth v. Holiday, 349 Mass. 126, 128 (1965). It can be established by the defendant's direct testimony or through reasonable inferences drawn from other proved facts and demeanor evidence. In the instant case, the defendant testified directly to the precise question at issue  namely, his state of mind at the time he agreed to disclose the gravesite to the concerned group. He testified that he had agreed to lead the group to the body in order to get out of the cabin. He claimed that members of the group had told him that he would never leave the cabin alive if he did not tell them the location of the body. Thus, it was his story that fear engendered his cooperation with his captors, his disclosure of the gravesite and his other admissions. However, this testimony cannot be of any significance here and cannot be employed to support inferences contrary to those of the trial judge. The trial judge, who had the opportunity to observe all of the witnesses, evaluated the defendant's testimony and rejected it. The judge observed the defendant on the stand, his appearance and his mannerisms; the tone of his voice and his attitude as he was examined and cross-examined; his facial expressions and his general demeanor. [33] In short, the trial judge's primary function on this issue (voluntariness) was to ascertain the defendant's state of mind  whether he was telling the truth as to the reasons he gave for his decision to reveal the gravesite (and as to his state of mind ). The trial judge, in rejecting the defendant's testimony, necessarily found that he was not telling the truth. This was a finding of fact based on oral testimony of the defendant and of other witnesses. An appellate court cannot find to the contrary. This is not to say that merely because the judge disbelieved the defendant's testimony he could, without additional evidence, find the reverse to be true. His finding of the reverse must be supported by other relevant evidence. Here there was extensive testimony, as fully delineated elsewhere in this opinion, tending to demonstrate the change of mood and relationship found by the judge below. It was more than sufficient to sustain the government's burden of proof. The judge's finding of voluntariness must stand.