Court Opinion

ID: 9553016
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:20:42.2062+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:29:30.729177
License: Public Domain

LUMPKIN, Presiding Judge,
concurring in results:
I concur in the results reached by the Court and join in the Courts decision to affirm the judgment and sentence. While I agree with the analysis set forth by the Court as to Propositions II and III, I do not join in the analysis forming the basis of the denial of the allegation of error in Proposition I.
The focus of Appellant’s first proposition of error is, in fact, that the statements given were involuntary statements. Therefore, the Court’s statement “[Ujnlike the Arnold, case, there is no dispute here that the statement was voluntarily given”, does not correctly state the nature of the issue raised by the Appellant. I agree with the Court the facts reveal a lack of any question regarding the voluntariness of this statement, however, the voluntariness is still contested by the Appellant and upon which she bases this allegation of error.
I agree the requirements of a Miranda warning were not applicable to this noncustodial interrogation, which was arranged by Appellant and her attorney. See Miranda v. State of Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). However, the issue of voluntariness must be addressed regardless of whether the statement is an “admission” or a “confession”. This Court has previously defined the difference between an admission and confession as follows:
When a person only admits certain facts from which the jury may or may not infer guilt, there is no confession.... A confession of guilty is an admission of the criminal act itself, not an admission of a fact or circumstance from which guilt may be inferred. Lewis v. State, 493 P.2d 91, 94 (Okl.Cr.1991); O’Neal v. State, 468 P.2d 59, 66 (Okl.Cr.1970) (citing State v. Campbell, 73 Kan. 688, 85 P. 784 (1906)).
However, based on the facts presented in this case, the characteristics which distinguish between an admission and a confession is a distinction without a difference. This Court said in O’Neal:
It is now the preferable rule that an admission which is significantly incriminating, but short of a confession must, like a confession, have been made voluntarily and without improper inducement, to be evidence against the accused. All the reasons for excluding involuntary confessions apply to involuntary admissions as well.
*375The fact that an appellant’s admissions were obtained by individuals who did not adhere to some type of “Marquis of Queensberry rules” does not warrant automatic reversal. The Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution is not concerned with “moral and psychological pressures to confess emanating from sources other than official coercion.” Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298, 305, 105 S.Ct. 1285, 1290, 84 L.Ed.2d 222 (1985). The Court went further and stated:
Indeed, far from being prohibited by the Constitution, admissions of guilt by wrongdoers, if not coerced, are inherently desirable. ... Absent some officially coerced self-accusation, the Fifth Amendment privilege is not violated by even the most damning admissions. Id. (quoting United States v. Washington, 431 U.S. 181, 187, 97 S.Ct. 1814, [1818], 52 L.Ed.2d 238 (1977)).
Prior to the Supreme Court’s decision in Miranda, the admissibility of an accused’s in-custody statements was judged solely by whether they were “voluntary” within the meaning of the Due Process Clause.
If a suspect’s statements had been obtained by ‘techniques and methods offensive to due process’, Haynes v. Washington [373 U.S. 503], at 515 [83 S.Ct. 1336 at 1344, 10 L.Ed.2d 513 (1963)], or under circumstances in which the suspect clearly had no opportunity to exercise ‘a free and unconstrained will,’ Id., at 514 [83 S.Ct. at 1343], the statements would not be admitted. Elstad, 470 U.S. at 304. [105 S.Ct. at 1290].
Where an unwarned statement is preserved for use in situations that fall outside the sweep of the Miranda presumption, “the primary criterion of admissibility [remains] the ‘old’ due process voluntariness test.” Id. 470 U.S. at 307-08, 105 S.Ct. at 1292.
Based on the facts presented in this case, Miranda safeguards clearly did not apply. Appellant did not, and could not, seriously argue she was in custody. Police were present in Appellant’s lawyer’s office, with both Appellant and her lawyer present, at Appellant’s invitation. There is nothing in the record to show circumstances in which the Appellant was in any way deprived of an opportunity to exercise “a free and unconstrained will.” The only issue remaining is whether the actions utilize by the police officers in this situation constituted “techniques and methods offensive to due process”, as established in the Elstad decision. The law enforcement officers interviewed Appellant with her attorney present, in her attorney’s office. I find nothing improper about the law enforcement officers telling the suspect she should cooperate. And, while the use of misstatements of fact by the officers regarding the evidence they had collected may not comport with a sense of “fair play”, the statements made in this fact situation do not amount to a due process violation. Under the totality of the circumstances as set forth in United States v. Washington, 431 U.S. 181, 188, 97 S.Ct. 1814, 1819, 52 L.Ed.2d 238 (1977), I find nothing in the techniques used in this case which is so offensive to due process that suppression of Appellant’s admissions is necessary. See Frazier v. Cupp, 394 U.S. 731, 89 S.Ct. 1420, 22 L.Ed.2d 684 (1969) (police misrepresented to defendant his cousin had already confessed to the crime, and the defendant followed suit; while misrepresentation was relevant, it was insufficient to make the otherwise voluntary confession inadmissible). This admission by the Appellant was, without doubt, voluntary and the method utilized by the law enforcement officers to obtain the admission, does not violate due process. I therefore concur in the results reached by the Court in this case and would AFFIRM the judgment and sentence.