Court Opinion

ID: 9648331
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:14:32.856064+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:58.881979
License: Public Domain

Johnson, J.,
¶ 32. dissenting. Regardless of whether or not Pont-briand was in police custody, I cannot agree with the majority that he made his statements voluntarily, and I therefore respectfully dissent.
¶33. In a relatively recent decision upholding the constitutional basis of Miranda, the U.S. Supreme Court recounted a brief history of the law governing the admission of confessions. Dickerson v. United States, 530 U.S. 428, 432-34 (2000). There, the Court observed that the policy of excluding coerced confessions has venerable roots in the English common law, where courts recognized that “‘a confession forced from the mind by the flattery of hope, or by the torture of fear, comes in so questionable a shape... that no credit ought to be given to it; and therefore it is rejected[.]’” Id. at 433 (quoting King v. Warickshall, 168 Eng. Rep. 234, 235 (K.B. 1783)). In the United States, that policy has evolved into a doctrine — based in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments — that excludes involuntary statements made to police officers. Id. Until Miranda, the Court continued to base its decisions excluding coerced confessions primarily on notions of due process, and it has not abandoned the voluntariness doctrine as a distinct body of law even as its focus has shifted to questions of police custody during suspect interrogation. 530 U.S. at 434 (citing Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1 (1964)).
*135¶ 34. In Miranda, the Court confronted the deeply troubling practice of “incommunicado interrogation of individuals in a police-dominated atmosphere,” Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 445 (1966), where officers created an interview environment designed “to subjugate the individual to the will of his examiner,” id. at 457; accord State v. Garbutt, 173 Vt. 277, 282, 790 A.2d 444, 448 (2001). The Court went on to hold that police must advise suspects of their rights to silence and counsel before interrogating them in a custodial setting. Miranda, 384 U.S. at 479. The decision did not, however, eviscerate the older doctrine excluding involuntary statements made in noncustodial contexts, and concluded that the Fifth Amendment “serves to protect persons in all settings in which their freedom of action is curtailed in any significant way from being compelled to incriminate themselves.” Id. at 467; accord State v. Badger, 141 Vt. 430, 449-50, 450 A.2d 336, 347-48 (1982). In subsequent years, the test of voluntariness has evolved into an inquiry that examines whether the totality of the circumstances surrounding a confession suggests that the police overbore the suspect’s will. Dickerson, 530 U.S. at 434.
¶35. The totality of the circumstances approach recognizes the-synergistic nature of coercive interrogations. The combination of many subtle police tactics often results in a coercive atmosphere that is obscured when the context is broken down to its constituent parts. For this reason, involuntary confession cases are highly fact-specific, and include situations, such as this one, where the police did not beat or physically harm the suspect, but instead subjected him to tactical psychological coercion. See Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279, 287-88 (1991) (explaining that coercive police conduct includes not only physical abuse or threats but also subtle forms of psychological coercion). In Dickerson the Court recognized that “custodial police interrogation, by its very nature, isolates and pressures the individual ... [e]ven without employing brutality, the ‘third degree’ or [other] specific stratagems,... [it] exacts a heavy toll on individual liberty and trades on the weakness of individuals.” 530 U.S. at 435 (internal quotations omitted). The same concerns arise in noncustodial interrogations where the totality of the circumstances indicate that police have created an atmosphere designed to exploit an individual’s weaknesses. People v. Gennings, 808 P.2d 839, 844 (Colo. 1991).
¶ 36. As the phrase suggests, many factors can come together to create a totality of circumstances sufficient to overbear a suspect’s will. In some cases, one particular circumstance may so offend our basic notion of a free and uncoerced confession that it alone renders a *136suspect’s statements involuntary. In other cases, no single factor is enough to overbear an individual’s will, but the aggregate effect of many subtle, exploitative techniques is a coercive environment powerful enough to elicit an involuntary confession. To aid in evaluating the myriad considerations relevant to the totality of the circumstances inquiry, the Colorado Supreme Court has developed a list of factors, including:
(1) whether the defendant was in custody; (2) whether the defendant was free to leave; (3) whether the defendant was aware of the situation; (4) whether the police read Miranda rights to the defendant; (5) whether the defendant understood and waived Miranda rights; (6) whether the defendant had an opportunity to confer with counsel or anyone else prior to or during the interrogation; (7) whether the statement was made during the interrogation or volunteered later; (8) whether the police threatened defendant or promised anything directly or impliedly; (9) the method or style of the interrogation; (10) the defendant’s mental and physical condition just prior to the interrogation; (11) the length of the interrogation; (12) the location of the interrogation; and (13) the physical conditions of the location where the interrogation occurred.
People v. Medina, 25 P.3d 1216, 1222-23 (Colo. 2001) (citing Gennings, 808 P.2d at 844). This list is not exclusive, nor is it weighted toward any particular factor, and a given case may not implicate all of the factors listed. Gennings, 808 P.2d at 844. It is, however, a useful rubric to guide our evaluation of the voluntariness of Pontbriand’s statements in this case. In conducting this evaluation, it is critical to remember that the State ultimately bears the burden of proving, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Pontbriand’s statements were not the product of undue coercion. State v. Brunell, 150 Vt. 388, 390, 554 A.2d 242, 243 (1988).
¶ 37. Looking to the factors identified in Medina, it is significant that the police chose to interview Pontbriand as he lay in a hospital emergency room bed receiving medical treatment. Medina, 25 P.3d at 1222-23. He had undergone a series of diagnostic tests just before the questioning began and was, in this sense, confined to the room with police officers, who made it clear that they knew he had committed a crime. While the majority focuses on the physical circumstances of the hospital setting — discussing the impact of the restraints on Pont-*137briand’s movement, describing the officers’ relative location in the room, and characterizing their posture near the bed — the more salient concern here is Pontbriand’s mental and emotional condition. He was sick and vulnerable, and in such a state he was particularly susceptible to manipulation and intimidation. Dizzy, suffering from dehydration, and later diagnosed with cancer, Pontbriand was in no position to make a major life decision. The officers gained a considerable psychological advantage under these circumstances, and, regardless of intent, their tactics plainly set the stage for a coercive interrogation. See id. (looking to the defendant’s mental and physical condition, awareness of the situation, and the location, conditions, and tactics of interrogation).
¶ 38. Within this already coercive context, the officers visibly displayed a printed copy of the incriminating communication that Pontbriand had sent to his girlfriend, see Gennings, 808 P.2d at 843-44 (“Coercive police conduct includes not only physical abuse or threats ... but also subtle forms of psychological coercion.”), and told him it would be better for everyone involved if he got everything out in the open. After Pontbriand said he was afraid to talk, Corporal Claremont told him to “[p]ut [his] fears aside for a minute and then think about the other people involved____And really, the only way to help that situation ... is to be completely open about it.” He went on to suggest that he and his partner were “the kinder, gentler police,” and told Pontbriand that it was “much better that we talk to you than if you just marched into a police station with people who don’t have special training of this type.” See Hutto v. Ross, 429 U.S. 28, 30 (1976) (per curiam) (excluding statements “extracted by any sort of threats or violence, [or] obtained by any direct or implied promises, however slight” (internal quotations omitted)).
¶ 39. The officers made certain to inform Pontbriand that he was not under arrest, and therefore they felt free to avoid advising him of his Miranda rights. While such advice may not have been constitutionally mandated in this case, courts have treated the omission of these simple warnings as evidence of a coercive interrogation environment. See Edwards v. State, 973 P.2d 41, 49 (Wyo. 1999) (listing the absence of Miranda warnings among components of a coercive interrogation); accord Medina, 25 P.3d at 1222-23. Indeed the officers here not only chose to forego Miranda, but when Pontbriand asked to speak to a lawyer Officer Morrison responded by saying, ‘We’ll respect that and I just want to let you know that this is your opportunity to give us your side of the story because we are not going to come back again.” Faced *138with the possibility of losing the chance to present police with a competing version of the facts, Pontbriand relinquished his right to counsel and reluctantly began to make a series of incriininating statements. Despite the majority’s attempts to distinguish the case law, in similar circumstances we have held that such tactics amount to unconstitutional coercion. See State v. Cox, 147 Vt. 421, 425, 519 A.2d 1144, 1147 (1986) (suppressing statements where the “defendant was presented with two choices: (1) to await [the arrival of counsel] and forfeit the interview, or (2) to proceed with the interview without additional advice”); accord Collazo v. Estelle, 940 F.2d 411, 414, 416 (9th Cir. 1991).
¶ 40. After evaluating the facts of this case against the policy supporting the U.S. Supreme Court’s historical rejection of coerced statements and the factors identified in Medina, I believe the State has failed to demonstrate that the trial court erred in excluding the statements Pontbriand made to police confirming the substance of his earlier e-mail. See Gennings, 808 P.2d at 844 (“[T]he deliberate exploitation of a person’s weakness by psychological intimidation can ... constitute a form of governmental coercion that renders a statement involuntary.”). In this case, the totality of the circumstances — Pont-briand’s illness and confinement in the hospital, the display of the incriminating message, the failure to advise him of his rights to silence and counsel, and the officers’ decision to continue questioning after the request for counsel — created a coercive atmosphere sufficient to make his statements involuntary.
¶ 41. The decision to pursue a coercive interrogation strategy in this case is particularly unsettling because the police already had possession of Pontbriand’s electronic confession, making his statements from the hospital bed largely redundant. In such circumstances, the better course would have been to simply advise Pontbriand of his constitutional rights, and ask him if he wanted to make any additional statements. Because I do not believe that the State has demonstrated that the chosen strategy, one based on the subtle manipulation and psychological intimidation of a person who is demonstrably ill, passes constitutional muster, I respectfully dissent. I am authorized to state that Justice Dooley joins this dissent.