Court Opinion

ID: 9848561
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:22:22.189334+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:23.760284
License: Public Domain

*549MOSK, J.
I dissent.
A confession is voluntary when it is the product of a rational intellect and a free will. (Blackburn v. Alabama (1960) 361 U.S. 199, 208 [4 L.Ed.2d 242, 249, 80 S.Ct. 274].) If the will of the accused is overborne by the interrogation and if he would have remained silent but for the improper influence, the resultant confession must be deemed involuntary. (Bram v. United States (1897) 168 U.S. 532, 562 [42 L.Ed. 568, 580, 18 S.Ct. 183].) An involuntary confession tends to be unreliable. (Jackson v. Denno (1964) 378 U.S. 368, 383 [12L.Ed.2d 908, 919, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 1 A.L.R.3d 1205].) “These standards are applicable whether a confession is the product of physical intimidation or psychological pressure, and, of course, are equally applicable to a drug-induced statement. It is difficult to imagine a situation in which a confession would be less the product of a free intellect, less voluntary, than when brought about by a drug having the effect of a ‘truth serum.’ ” (Townsend v. Sain (1963) 372 U.S. 293, 307-308 [9 L.Ed.2d 770, 782-783, 83 S.Ct. 745].)
In its only judicial definition the drug scopolamine is described as a truth serum which causes amnesia and hallucination, gives its subject a “heightened motivation to cooperate” (United States ex rel. Townsend v. Twomey (7th Cir. 1971) 452 F.2d 350, 368) and results in disorientation from his environment. (Id. at p. 367.) In the Townsend case, scopolamine (also known as hyoscine) was administered together with phenobarbital, a tranquilizer; in the instant case it was added to Demerol, an analgesic.
The majority, in footnote 7, cite as authority a 1951 medical dictionary declaring scopolamine, to possess sedative qualities. I hope no inference arises therefrom that although statements obtained through use of truth serum are inadmissible, interrogation by police of a suspect under sedation is to be condoned.
While it may be true that generally the colloquial “truth serum” is sodium pentathol, scopolamine appears to have some of the same effects, in that the drug obtunds consciousness, producing a “twilight sleep,” and the patient has none of his conscious defenses. Unlike sodium pentathol, however, under scopolamine the tendency is to babble confusedly, in a delirium; where normally the subject might not answer, under this drug he will answer but not necessarily truthfully.
Modern medical texts describe the effects of scopolamine in these terms:
Goodman and Gilman, Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics (3d ed. 1970), page 535: “The behavior and mental symptoms [after injection of the drug] suggest an acute organic psychosis. Memory is disturbed, orientation is faulty, hallucinations (especially visual) are common . . . and *550mania and delirium are not unusual. The diagnosis of an acute schizophrenia episode or alcoholic delirium has been mistakenly made.”
Falconer, Patterson and Gustafson, Current Drug Handbook (1972) page 60: “[Scopolamine] exerts a depressant action on the brain, heart and respiration; side effects include impaired vision, delirium, convulsions, with occasional severe depression.”
Beeson and McDermott, Textbook of Medicine (13th ed. 1971) page 146: “The mental symptoms [of ingestion of scopolamine] include drowsiness, confusion, disorientation, and vivid optical hallucinations . . . .”
II Gleason, Gosselin, Hodge and Smith, Clinical Toxicology of Commercial Products, page 34: “. . . Many of the untoward signs and symptoms [of scopolamine usage] can be related to paralysis of the glands and smooth muscles . . . the most dangerous and spectacular manifestations arise from intense excitation of the central nervous system. The symptomatology includes restlessness, fatigue, excitement and confusion, progressing to mania and delirium.”
Dorland’s Medical Dictionary (24th ed.) page 1355: “Scopolamine is an alkaloid of the atropo-belladonna family and is used as a central nervous system depressant, chiefly found in the form of scopolamine hydrobromide. It has a sedative effect on the brain and produces retrograde amnesia, blocking out memories of pain.”
Burger, Medicinal Chemistry (3d ed.) page 1549: “The poisonous nature of solanaceous alkaloids [which include scopolamine] have been known for many centuries. The toxic properties of the deadly nightshade are evident when . . . the black berries ... of hedgerow . . . are eaten. The [victims] become delirious.” And on page 1544: “Anti-cholinergic drugs [of which scopolamine is one] interfere with physiologic functions that are dependent on cholinergic nerve transmission.”1
What can be gleaned from these and all reliable references is that statements made under the effect of scopolamine, administered for any purpose, are inherently unreliable and not in any sense voluntary. The drug is not, as erroneously described by the majority, a mere sedative. If the subject to whom the drug is administered becomes confused, amnesiac and hallucinating, it would appear that anything related during such period cannot be held competent and admissible.
*551The majority concede that scopolamine was administered to defendant on the day he confessed, but they declare the hospital records “are ambiguous as to the hour” of administration. It is true that the records are not as explicit as might be desired. Nevertheless it taxes credulity to find that no relationship exists between injection of a drug with truth serum qualities and police questioning on the same day, and it is equally incomprehensible to speculate, as do the majority in footnote 6, that the truth drug may have been given after the confession. One is compelled to ask: since Demerol had been given to ease his pain, what possible purpose could there be in administering a type of truth serum to this defendant if not to facilitate his response to interrogation?
Conceding that the hospital records do not relate the precise hour drugs were given to defendant on the day he confessed, I find a chain of persuasive circumstantial evidence from which one must conclude his response to police interrogation was not free and voluntary.
We are compelled to resort to circumstantial evidence because of gaps in the record. The lacunae are attributable not to defendant but to the inadequacy of his previous counsel—the same counsel who failed to file a brief on appeal and who was found by Judge Weigel of the United States District Court to be ineffective under the standards of Gairson v. Cupp (9th Cir. 1969) 415 F.2d 352. We should not, therefore, deny this defendant our studied consideration of his appeal on the merits merely because he had the misfortune to be represented ineffectively. Indeed, the federal court’s factual determination of inadequacy of representation suggests we must delve into the appeal with a more thorough independent analysis, rather than to rely, as do the majority, on the trial court’s blanket finding of voluntariness of the two confessions.
Defendant was admitted to the hospital at 10:10 a.m. on February 28 with serious wounds. The preoperative diagnosis was that of a stab wound in the abdomen with two diaphragmatic rents, one centimeter and two centimeters in extent. A police officer, with stenographer, questioned him at 10:30 a.m. for 15 or 20 minutes. The officer admitted that defendant grimaced in obvious pain. It is not unreasonable to infer that defendant also suffered shock as a result of his traumatic experience. The hospital records reflect that defendant was in need of medication, for scopolamine and Demerol had been promptly ordered by the doctor. If we cannot assume the nursing staff complied immediately with the medical directive, certainly there must have been compliance within four hours. To suggest otherwise, as do the majority, is a startling and unsupported indictment of the hopsital for unconscionable inefficiency in the care and treatment of a seriously wounded patient.
*552Four hours later, at precisely 2:40 p.m., the second interrogation took place. The police officer testified that at that time defendant did not appear to be in pain. Since corrective surgery had not yet been performed and nothing further had been ordered or done to assuage defendant’s discomfort, it is logical to attribute the lack of evident pain and the abject cooperation with the interrogator to the injection of the drugs previously ordered—Demerol, the analgesic, and scopolamine, the type of truth serum.
Thus, even if it were proper initially to question a seriously wounded suspect in obvious pain, probably in shock, and in need of medication, shortly before surgery—which I am not prepared to concede—certainly there is no conceivable rationale by which the statements induced in the second interrogation, after injection of drugs, should have been received in evidence.
I would hold that an insurmountable burden rests on the prosecution when it' seeks to introduce into evidence a confession obtained from a suspect who has been administered a type of truth serum drug or who has been sedated with any drugs having a tendency to affect his normal mental processes. Chief Justice Traynor, for the majority of this court in In re Cameron (1968) 68 Cal.2d 487, 502 [67 Cal.Rptr. 529, 439 P.2d 633], found a tranquilizing drug to have destroyed the defendant’s will to resist, to have rendered him unable to comprehend the seriousness of his predicament or the significance of acceding to the prosecution’s reconstruction of the crime. So here I would find the second confession, given while defendant was under the influence of scopolamine, to be clearly involuntary. I also have serious doubts as to the admissibility of the first confession, given either after the drug was administered or, if before, at a time when the suspect was seriously wounded, in intense pain and probably in shock, and determined by physicians to be in need of medication.
I would reverse the judgment.

Also see The Merck Index (Stecher ed. 1968) page 936; Schmidt, Attorney’s Dictionary of Medicine, page 274-275; Stedman’s Medical Dictionary (22d ed.) page 1129.