Court Opinion

ID: 9533864
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:35:07.674197+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:29:12.012616
License: Public Domain

*89Thompson, C. J.,
with whom Mowbray, J., agrees,
dissenting:
The failure of the trial court to allow the jury to decide whether the defendant’s confessions were freely and voluntarily given should be deemed prejudicial error. Indeed, every jurisdiction which follows the Massachusetts Rule in the handling of confessions holds that the failure to instruct the jury that it must decide whether the confessions were voluntary, and to disregard them if it determined that they were not voluntarily given, is reversible error. State v. Pulliam, 349 P.2d 781 (Ariz. 1960); United States v. Inman, 352 F.2d 954 (4th Cir. 1965); State v. Brewton, 395 P.2d 874, 879 (Ore. 1964); People v. Huntley, 204 N.E.2d 179 (N.Y. 1965); People v. Mials, 278 N.Y.S.2d 1020, 1022 (Sp. Ct. N.Y. 1967); People v. Bevins, 351 P.2d 776, 779-80 (Cal. 1960); State v. Breaker, 136 N.W.2d 161 (Neb. 1965). The defendant need not request such instruction. The court must give it sua sponte. State v. Pulliam, supra; People v. Mials, supra; State v. Breaker, supra; People v. Bevins, supra; United States v. Inman, supra.
Confessions possess a shattering force. Reversal is automatic if a confession is in fact coerced. Payne v. Arkansas, 356 U.S. 560, 568 (1958); Haynes v. Washington, 373 U.S. 503 (1963); Lynumn v. Illinois, 372 U.S. 528, 537 (1963); Clewis v. Texas, 386 U.S. 707 (1967); Davis v. North Carolina, 384 U.S. 737 (1966); Spano v. New York, 360 U.S. 315 (1959). Since it is the jury, not the court, that decides the defendant’s fate, it seems only fair that the defendant should have the opportunity before the jury itself to challenge his confessions. People v. Huntley, supra. His right to a jury trial on this critical issue should be preserved. State v. Brewton, supra. This court adopted the Massachusetts Rule in preference to other ways of handling confessions at trial. Carlson v. State, 84 Nev. 534, 536, 445 P.2d 157 (1968). We should not now ignore its violation as meaningless.
The defendant took the stand and testified fully. His testimony, if believed, gave the jury a basis to decide that his confessions were the product of coercion. The jury was precluded from making that decision. This, the majority calls harmless error since only the accused testified that his confessions were involuntary! Does this mean that in a criminal case the uncorroborated evidence offered by an accused need not be considered by the jury? This evaluation of evidence and of the credibility of witnesses is an activity in which this court should not indulge. In fact, it is prohibited by Nev. Const, art. 6, § *904, which declares that our appellate jurisdiction over a criminal case is limited to questions of law alone.