Opinion ID: 1495730
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: introduction

Text: Petitioner makes two basic arguments. First, he contends that, although the statute may serve to preclude suppression of a confession solely because of a violation of the time requirement of the presentment rule, it does not preclude suppression where the violation is not merely an incidental one. He argues that where the facts of a case show that police chose to delay presentment unnecessarily, and to deliberately flout the rule in order to interrogate a defendant, a court has the authority under the statute to suppress the statement for violation of the rule, even where the resulting statements meet the traditional test of voluntariness under the common law or constitution. We reject that argument. The test under the statute, and under the Constitution, remains voluntariness. Deliberate violations of the rule, as we shall explain, bear heavily on whether a resulting statement is voluntary, but they do not, of themselves, form an independent basis for rendering inadmissible a statement that is otherwise voluntary and admissible. To conclude otherwise would be tantamount to ignoring the statute, which, in the absence of some Constitutional defect, we are not permitted to do. Petitioner also argues that the court erred in finding the statements to be voluntary. He pieces together the delay and the circumstances of the delay, and, characterizing his stay in the homicide unit interrogation room as unacceptably coercive and inhumane, contends that, [i]f it is not unreasonably coercive to delay presentment of an injured defendant for nearly two days, to keep him in a windowless room clad only in a hospital gown, with his only rest on the floor, and to do so solely for the purpose of creating a coercive atmosphere in which to obtain a confession, then the prompt presentment rule is truly meaningless, and the due process limitations on interrogation, a sham. Although possessing more than a grain of truth, that statement stretches the facts a bit and, for that reason, is unacceptable. We do believe, however, that the trial court gave insufficient weight to the continued and unlawful detention of petitioner following his statements regarding the two robberies. We shall conclude that, while the statute makes a delay in presentment only one factor in determining voluntariness and admissibility, not all factors that may weigh on voluntariness are necessarily equal in import, and that, when the delay is not only violative of the Rule but deliberate and designed for the sole purpose of soliciting a confession, it must be given very heavy weight. There is no indication that, with respect to the statements regarding the three murders, the trial court gave the continued delay such weight. When we do so, it becomes clear that those latter statements were involuntary and therefore inadmissible.