Court Opinion

ID: 9534375
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:39:00.918438+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:30:24.775410
License: Public Domain

Rose, J.,
with whom Young, J., joins,
dissenting:
I dissent because the majority is providing police and prosecutors with an investigatory weapon which they have little if any need for, but which has great potential for intentional abuse and inadvertent harm and havoc.
This case sets the limits to which law enforcement can go in using deception or falsehoods to secure a confession from a *329defendant. Unfortunately, the majority sets no limits at all-permitting the police to use all manner of falsehoods and deception in attempting to secure a confession. Understanding that law enforcement needs some latitude in fighting crime, this court should permit police to use verbal deception but prohibit their use of falsehoods or deception in written or other tangible form, such as falsified lab tests, witness statements, or doctored photographs. This strikes an appropriate balance between the necessity for the police to use some deception in developing evidence, while prohibiting the carrying of such deception or falsehoods to a truly unfair advantage over an accused.
“The test for determining admissibility of a statement obtained by police deception is whether that deception produced a false or untrustworthy confession or statement.” State v. Haywood, 439 N.W.2d 511, 514 (Neb. 1989). As the majority correctly states, this is the approach most courts have taken on this issue. See State v. Kelekolio, 849 P.2d 58, 71-74 (Haw. 1993); C.T. Drechsler, Annotation, Admissibility of Confession as Affected by Its Inducement through Artifice, Deception, Trickery, or Fraud, 99 A.L.R.2d 772 (1965 & Supp. 1993).
In this case, the detective’s lie and the falsified lab report went to the strength of the evidence against Bessey and may not have implicated any concerns on Bessey’s part other than consideration of his own guilt or innocence and the evidence against him. On the other hand, none of the cases cited above or cited by the majority to support its opinion dealt with the fabrication of documents or physical evidence by police. Thus, those cases did not consider the reliability of a confession induced by confrontation with ostensibly irrefutable hard scientific evidence, as opposed to mere oral allegations. Nor did they consider the propriety or practical consequences of police fabrication of documents or other evidence. Although these considerations are implicated in the instant case, the majority fails to acknowledge them and therefore fails to recognize that the Florida court’s distinction between oral lies and fabricated physical or documentary evidence is based on a very real and significant difference.
The Florida court held that the manufacture of documents by police to obtain a confession overstepped the line of permitted deception and violated due process under the federal and state constitutions. State v. Cayward, 552 So. 2d 971, 974 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1989), review dismissed, 562 So. 2d 347 (Fla. 1990). The defendant in that case was suspected of sexually assaulting and smothering his five-year-old niece, but the police had insufficient evidence to charge him.
With the knowledge of the state attorney’s office, the police fabricated two scientific reports which they intended to use *330as ploys in interrogating the defendant. One false report was prepared on stationery of the Florida Department of Criminal Law Enforcement; another was prepared on stationery of Life Codes, Inc., a testing organization. These false reports indicated that a scientific test established that the semen stains on the victim’s underwear came from the defendant. The police showed the reports to the defendant as a device to induce a confession. Some time later during the interview, the defendant confessed.
Id. at 972.
The Florida court cited “the basic principle that when conduct of law enforcement is outrageous, due process bars the government from invoking judicial process to obtain a conviction,” but it also recognized that “police deception does not render a confession involuntary per se.” Id. at 973.
The instant case, however, presents a different question and one which appears to be one of first impression not only in Florida but in the United States. The reporters are filled with examples of the police making false verbal assertions to a suspect, but counsel has not indicated nor has our research revealed any case in which the police actually manufactured false documents and used them precisely as the police did in this case.
Id. Reasonable expectations regarding the adversarial nature of police interrogation “do not encompass the notion that the police will knowingly fabricate tangible documentation or physical evidence against an individual. . . . Thus we think the manufacturing of false documents by police officials offends our traditional notions of due process of law under both the federal and state constitutions.” Id. at 974.
In addition, the court in Cayward based its decision on “practical concerns.” Id. “Unlike oral misrepresentations, manufactured documents have the potential of indefinite life and the facial appearance of authenticity. A report falsified for interrogation purposes might well be retained and filed in police paperwork. Such reports have the potential of finding their way into the courtroom.” Id. The court noted the immense workload of the police and prosecutors and the long periods of time that investigations and prosecution may take. Officials who prepare false reports may leave, die, or forget the origins of the reports. The prevalence of photocopying exacerbates the possibility for confusion. Also, false documents might be disclosed to the media as a public record. Id.
The Cayward court went on to note that courts routinely accept documents which appear to be self-authenticating. One of the *331reports in Cayward was such a document. Furthermore, to approve the false reports at issue might open the door to fabrication of court documents, such as warrants or judgments, which could erode the public’s respect for the authority of court orders. Id. at 975.
The majority has not addressed or even acknowledged these concerns raised by the Florida court. A complicated federal drug case shows that these practical concerns are not merely farfetched hypotheticals. In United States v. Khoury, 901 F.2d 948, 969-71 (11th Cir. 1990), modified on other grounds, 910 F.2d 713 (11th Cir. 1990), the defendants moved for a new trial because government prosecutors had withheld an exculpatory investigatory report from them in violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963). At an ex parte in camera hearing, the government informed the district court that the report
was completely fictitious, signed by non-existent DEA special agents, chronicling a conversation that never occurred with a confidential informant who was invented by the DEA. The purpose of this elaborate ruse was to create seemingly exculpatory material, plant it in the law enforcement computer network, and thus track down unauthorized access to the computer by someone associated with a defendant in the case.
Khoury, 901 F.2d at 970. The district court denied the defendants’ motion for a new trial. The circuit court reversed this denial because it was based on unsworn and mostly hearsay statements. The circuit court remanded for an evidentiary hearing to determine whether the report constituted Brady material. Id. at 971. The Khoury court cited Cayward and stated its own concern about “the potential that false documents have to wreak havoc should they go astray.” Id. at 970. “Nonetheless, we recognize that such falsifications, in certain circumstances, may be a necessary investigative method . . . .” Id. Unlike here, the false document in Khoury was not employed to obtain a confession.
Another problem with the majority opinion is that it tacitly assumes that police and prosecutors need to fabricate evidence to be effective in cases like this, but the State has shown no necessity for the use of fabricated physical or documentary evidence in attempting to obtain confessions from suspects. The rationale in Cayward applies to “fabricating] tangible documentation or physical evidence against an individual.” Cayward, 552 So. at 974. Due process would not be violated by oral misrepresentations by police regarding the contents or nature of a document or audio tape or other tangible item. Police officers could still employ such items as props, claiming that they were evidence *332against a suspect, without fabricating evidence and creating the potential for intentional or unintentional misuse. The record in this case indicates that any document looking like a lab report would have worked just as well with Bessey: it appears that the police and the lab had no sample of DNA from Bessey to compare any recovered semen with, but Bessey did not understand the implications of this. On the other hand, a more knowledgeable suspect, even if guilty, would realize that such a lab report must be phony, whether police actually fabricated it or just claimed to have it. The potential for havoc and injustice resulting from allowing police to fabricate evidence to obtain confessions appears to be much greater than its potential benefits in obtaining otherwise unobtainable, valid confessions.
The concerns voiced in Cayward and Khoury apply in this case. Cayward is well reasoned and persuasive authority, especially in regard to the practical problems and potential abuse that fabrication of documents can lead to. This court would be well advised to adopt its reasoning and hold that the use of fabricated documents to induce confessions violates due process under both the federal and the state constitutions. U.S. Const, amends. V and XIV, § 1; Nev. Const, art. 1, § 8.