Court Opinion

ID: 9749026
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:21:34.346984+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:42.587965
License: Public Domain

JIM GUNTER, Justice, dissenting. |57I join in the portion of Justice Brown’s dissenting opinion that the 09.28.06 8:55 interview was not the result of an Edwards violation. I also agree with Justice Brown’s conclusion that Osburn’s confessions were not the product of intimidation and coercion. The tactics used by Agents Newton and Boshears, according to the majority, were coercive in nature because they appealed to Osburn’s concern for his children. This, I must say, is contrary to our prior case law. We have observed that the police may, without violating an accused’s rights, attempt to play on his sympathies or explain to him that honesty is the best policy, provided that the accused’s decision to make a custodial statement is voluntary in the sense that it is the product of the accused’s exercise of his free will. Pilcher v. State, 355 Ark. 369, 136 S.W.3d 766 (2003) (quoting Hood v. State, 329 Ark. 21, 947 S.W.2d 328 (1997)). We have further stated that the police may use some psychological tactics in eliciting a custodial statement from the accused, so long as the means employed are not calculated to procure an untrue statement, and the accused’s free will is not completely overborne. Id. A review of the transcripts from the 09.28.06 4:45 interview does not reveal that Agents Newton and Boshears improperly used coercive or intimidating tactics. On the contrary, the transcripts show that Newton and Boshears were appealing to Osburn’s sympathies when they explained to Osburn that his children may be “embarrassed” and “dragged into” the investigation. Similar tactics have been approved of by this court. In \^Hood, supra, this court held that threats to arrest Hood’s wife did not render his confession involuntary. Again in Rankin v. State, 338 Ark. 723, 1 S.W.3d 14 (1999), this court approved of tactics appealing to an accused’s concern for family. Rankin alleged that his interrogators told him that his brother and mother were going to be held at the police station until he gave an incriminating statement. We held that even if Rankin’s allegations were believed to be the truth, such tactics, alone, would not cause his statement to be involuntary. Additionally, in Pilcher, supra, we made no finding of police coercion where Pil-cher’s statements were obtained after interrogators threatened to prosecute Pil-cher’s parents. I find the alleged coercive acts in the instant case to be not so unlike the sets of facts in our prior cases where we approved of such psychological tactics. Moreover, I must note that no threats of violence or physical harm were made by Osburn’s interrogators. After reviewing the transcripts of Osburn’s interviews, I simply cannot say that Osburn’s statements were the product of coercive and intimidating police tactics.