Court Opinion

ID: 9448406
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:34:50.382391+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:25.217421
License: Public Domain

DUFFY, Circuit Judge
(concurring in the result).
In my view, the majority has reached the correct result. However, there are statements in the opinion with which I do not agree and by which I do not wish to be bound.
It seems to me a complete non sequitur to say that because a man has committed a fiendish murder that he thereby demonstrates or proves that he is immune to all pressures and coercions which may be applied after he had been placed in custody.
Time after time the United States Supreme Court has given relief to defendants in brutal murder cases because of coercion that had been applied to such defendants after they had been taken into custody. I can recall no Supreme Court opinion where the Court went into the details of the crime in order to determine whether the defendant was such an individual as to be subject to coercion.
In Leyra v. Denno, Warden, 347 U.S. 556, 74 S.Ct. 716, 98 L.Ed. 948, petitioner a 50-year old man, was charged with murdering his parents by beating them with a hammer. This crime could certainly be characterized as brutal and ruthless. The Supreme Court reversed the denial of an application for habeas corpus holding the confession elicited by a state-employed psychiatrist had been obtained by coercion in violation of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
In Beck v. Pate, Warden, 367 U.S. 433, 81 S.Ct. 1541, 6 L.Ed.2d 948, the brutal murder of a Chicago physician was involved. In Culombe v. Connecticut, 367 U.S. 568, 81 S.Ct. 1860, 6 L.Ed.2d 1037, the offense was described as a “crime of community-disturbing violence.” In these cases the Supreme Court held the confessions obtained by the police were involuntary because of the coercive methods used. In none of these opinions is there a consideration of the details of the crime itself as a factor indicating coercion or lack of coercion.
Many cases could be cited where the Supreme Court has reversed convictions because of the admission into evidence *424of confessions obtained by coercion. Several examples are: Payne v. Arkansas, 356 U.S. 560, 78 S.Ct. 844, 2 L.Ed.2d 975 (first degree murder); Turner v. Pennsylvania, 338 U.S. 62, 69 S.Ct. 1352, 93 L.Ed. 1810 (murder); Harris v. South Carolina, 338 U.S. 68, 69 S.Ct. 1354, 93 L.Ed. 1815 (double murder); Watts v. Indiana, 338 U.S. 49, 69 S.Ct. 1347, 93 L.Ed. 1801 (murder).
Here again, it apparently never occurred to the Supreme Court that the details of the crime and a narration of the injuries inflicted would be a factor in determining whether the defendant would be subject to coercion.
In my judgment, it adds nothing to the force or validity of the argument made in the majority opinion as to immunity from coercion, to narrate in minute detail the lurid and grisly details of the injuries suffered by the little girl, the innocent victim.