Court Opinion

ID: 9626464
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:13:48.337584+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:27.835338
License: Public Domain

CARLEY, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
After conducting hearings, the trial court found that Spence’s confession to murder was admissible against him and that a search of his apartment was valid. Today, a majority of this Court affirms the denial of Spence’s motion to suppress evidence obtained in the search, and I concur fully in that holding. As to the confession, however, the majority substitutes its own contrary findings for those reached by the trial court, and holds that Spence’s statement is inadmissible at trial. Because I believe that the trial court was correct in its ruling on the admissibility of the confession, I respectfully dissent to the reversal of the judgment in that regard.
The majority acknowledges that, prior to his interrogation, Spence received the warnings mandated by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (86 SC 1602, 16 LE2d 694) (1966) and that he expressly waived his rights. Thus, it is undisputed that, before being questioned, he was advised that anything he said to Detective Quinn could be used against him in court and that, notwithstanding this admonition, he agreed to waive his right to remain silent and to proceed with the interrogation.
Spence nevertheless urges, and the majority agrees, that his confession is inadmissible because, in the course of the ensuing questioning, Detective Quinn told him that the statement would remain “confidential.” In accepting this argument, the majority *703overly emphasizes the detective’s use of the word “confidential,” while failing to give proper consideration to the actual context in which that word was used. The dispositive issue is not whether the interrogator used the word “confidential,” but whether his comments were such as to vitiate the Miranda warnings and waiver which Spence had previously given. Neither lying nor the use of trickery to obtain a confession will render an accused’s statement inadmissible “so long as ‘ “the means employed are not calculated to procure an untrue statement.” ’ [Cit.]” DeYoung v. State, 268 Ga. 780, 789 (8) (493 SE2d 157) (1997). Thus,
trickery or deceit is only prohibited to the extent that it deprives the defendant of knowledge essential to his ability to understand the nature of his rights and the consequences of abandoning them. [Cit.] “Neither mere emotionalism and confusion, nor mere trickery will alone necessarily invalidate a confession.” [Cit.]
Hopkins v. Cockrell, 325 F3d 579, 584 (5th Cir. 2003). Accordingly, the Miranda warnings having been given and Spence having waived his rights, the confession should not be suppressed unless
[i]t is clear from the context of the confession itself and its surrounding circumstances that [Detective Quinn’s] conduct ... passed the line into the sort of lying that deprives a defendant “of the knowledge essential to his ability to understand the nature of his rights and the consequences of abandoning them.” [Cit.] . . . An officer cannot read the defendant his Miranda warnings and then turn around and tell him that despite those warnings, what the defendant tells the officer will be confidential and still use the resultant confession against the defendant.
Hopkins v. Cockrell, supra at 584-585. Therefore, “[t]elling [an accused] that a confession is not going to hurt and, on the contrary, will benefit him as much as the police, is not consistent with the warnings required by Miranda.” Foster v. State, 258 Ga. 736, 742 (8) (b) (374 SE2d 188) (1988).
However, in this case, the trial court found that the officer had not crossed the veracity line and that, consequently, Spence had not been deprived of the benefit of the Miranda warnings which preceded the interrogation. In making that determination, the trial court, unlike the majority, correctly focused on the context in which Detective Quinn made the “confidential” comment. He neither explicitly nor implicitly promised that, contrary to the previously given Miranda *704warnings, Spence’s statement would not be used against him in court. Compare Foster v. State, supra; Hopkins v. Cockrell, supra. Instead, the officer simply responded to Spence’s expression of fear that “when he [got] to jail, everybody gonna know I said something. ... I mean, not [what I’m] there for. I mean I don’t want anybody to think I (unintelligible).” (Emphasis supplied.) The trial court found that the assurance that the statement would remain “confidential” was a limited promise that the officer would not divulge its contents to other inmates who were, in Spence’s own words, “there” in “jail.” The trial court concluded that
it is clear that the promise of confidentiality made to [Spence] by Detective Quinn was in direct response to [Spence’s] concern that anything he said would get back to the people in jail and they would know he had talked. This is not the same as promising [Spence] that his statement would be kept confidential in the context of what would or would not be used against him in a court of law. To this extent, . . . [Spence’s] confession was not made in response to a false police representation that the confession would not be used against [him] at trial, nor was the promise of confidentiality made to [Spence] by Detective Quinn inconsistent with his Miranda warnings such that the confession should be suppressed.
The majority does not hold that, under the totality of the circumstances, the trial court’s finding was clearly erroneous. Instead, in determining the meaning of Detective Quinn’s responses the majority simply dismisses the context in which the promise as to confidentiality was made. I respectfully submit that, in doing so, the majority fails to follow the long-standing controlling standard for determining the admissibility of an accused’s confession.
“The standard for determining the admissibility of confessions is the preponderance of evidence. To determine whether the [S]tate has proven that a confession was made voluntarily, the trial court must consider the totality of the circumstances. Unless clearly erroneous, a trial court’s findings as to factual determinations and credibility relating to the admissibility of a confession will be upheld on appeal.” [Cit.]
Bell v. State, 280 Ga. 562, 564 (2) (a) (629 SE2d 213) (2006). The totality of the circumstances, which must include the expression of the fear of disclosure expressed by Spence himself, did not demand a finding that the promise as to confidentiality was an unqualified and *705untrue statement on Detective Quinn’s part that, contrary to the Miranda warnings previously given, an incriminating admission would not be used against him in court. Therefore, the majority erroneously disregards the trial court’s finding of fact and thereby prevents the State from introducing into evidence Spence’s clearly admissible confession to the murder for which he is being tried.
Decided March 19, 2007.
Pate & Brody, Bernard S. Brody, for appellant.
Paul L. Howard, Jr., District Attorney, Christopher M. Quinn, Bettieanne C. Hart, Assistant District Attorneys, Thurbert E. Baker, Attorney General, for appellee.