Court Opinion

ID: 9775774
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 19:08:42.727777+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:30.940763
License: Public Domain

FONES, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
I agree with Sections I, II and the first grammatical paragraph of Section III of the majority opinion.
But, I agree with defendant’s contention that the interrogation techniques employed by Officers Winston and Ailor that includ*285ed misrepresentation and deception at the jail in Ohio, were psychologically coercive, that the confession was improperly influenced and involuntary and that the taint of that interrogation rendered the Knoxville interrogation and confession inadmissible.
The Miranda court, noting that coercion can be mental as well as physical, examined the modern tactics of in-custody interrogation as reflected by the police manuals and texts in use by law enforcement agencies.1 Among the tactics that are relevant here because they were obviously used by the officers in the course of the Ohio interrogation are the following:
[Display an air of confidence in the suspect’s guilt and from outward appearance to maintain only an interest in confirming certain details. The guilt of the subject is to be posited as a fact. The interrogator should direct his comments toward the reasons why the subject committed the act, .... The officers are instructed to minimize the moral seriousness of the offense, to cast blame on the victim or on society. These tactics are designed to put the subject in a psychological state where his story is but an elaboration of what the police purport to know already — that he is guilty. Explanations to the contrary are dismissed and discouraged.
86 S.Ct. at 1615.
After citing other tactics such as the Mutt and Jeff Act and the reverse line-up technique, the Court concludes:
It is obvious that an interrogation environment is created for no purpose other than to subjugate the individual to the will of his examiner. This atmosphere carries its own badge of intimidation. To be sure, this is not physical intimidation, but it is equally destructive of human dignity. The current practice of incommunicado interrogation is at odds with one of our nation’s most cherished principles — that the individual may not be compelled to incriminate himself. Unless adequate protective devices are employed to dispell the compulsion inherent in custodial surroundings, no statement obtained from the defendant can truly be the product of his free choice.
Id. at 1619.
The United States Supreme Court said in McNabb v. United States, 318 U.S. 332, 63 S.Ct. 608, 87 L.Ed. 819 and repeated in Miranda that the voluntariness doctrine in state cases, encompasses all interrogation practices which are likely to exert such pressure upon an individual as to disable him from making a free and rational choice. 384 U.S. at 464, 465, 86 S.Ct. at 1623.
In the first part of the interrogation the two officers state facts and pose leading questions that make it clear to defendant that they are knowledgeable about the insignificant things he did, the places he had been and the people he saw on the day of the crime. They mention finding a half pint bottle of vodka that had had bourbon in it, said the preacher had told them defendant could not handle liquor and asked defendant if that was true. Defendant responded that he could handle liquor, whereupon Ailor observed that, “There ain’t nobody that can handle acid, though, is there?”, and defendant responded “No.” He was then asked if he had a “bad trip” and he responded, “I reckon.”
They told him Reverend Thomas said he found him in the basement that had just been washed out, wearing pants and no shirt, that they went up to the kitchen and there was blood on the table and defendant was asked if he remembered what he told Reverend Thomas. He responded that he told him that he got in a fight with some guy, that it started in the kitchen, but that he did not know the identity of the guy, just somebody he met on Gay Street. They told him that they knew he had been shooting pool at the Hideaway that afternoon and that according to Reverend Thomas the *286defendant got in a fight downtown and got his nose broken.
At this point he was asked if he remembered how he got from downtown to Reverend Thomas’ house that night, if he remembered being at the Trailways bus station and the public library and his response to each question was that he did not remember. He did remember being at the Hideaway Lounge. They shifted to Lee Standi-fer, asked how long he had known her and was she pushing him to marry her and getting on his nerves. The officers asked if he had any “feelings for her” and he responded affirmatively. The officers then said they might as well tell him what they knew; that he had picked her up at the Y.W.C.A., took her to the Hideaway, and the library where he checked out the book Insatiability, that when he left the library they went to the bus station and again he was asked if he remembered going there and he said he did not. He was asked if he remembered getting in Jim Shook’s cab and going out to Stone Road. He insisted that he could not remember leaving the Hideaway, “let alone being at the library and the Trailways.” He was then asked if he had had sex with the victim before and if he had sex with her that night, both of which he denied. At about this time the officers produced a picture of Lee Standifer. Quoted excerpts from the transcript follow:
AILOR: David, you, look at you — you are on the verge of crying right now.
WINSTON: I believe you cared for that little girl.
AILOR: It’s tearing you up inside.
WINSTON: I don’t believe you’re that kind of guy.
AILOR: You can help yourself by telling the truth.
WINSTON: If you was drinking and you made a mistake, son (indiscernable). If you was drunk—
(Whereupon there was a pause.)
MILLER: If I was drunk, if I was sober, I’ve still got the rest of my life to look at behind bars.
WINSTON: You’re a young man. It makes a difference. She was drinking too, you know, I don’t believe you meant to kill her. I believe you got carried away though after you — after you hit her.
(Whereupon there was a pause.)
WINSTON: Did she scratch your eyes or something?
MILLER: No.
AILOR: David, we have placed you drinking all afternoon,- we have placed you picking her up, we have placed you taking her out — I think it was the Hideaway — where we have, got a witness. I don’t have all the notes right here with me. Place you in the library. Place her urinating on herself. It appeared to be you were drunk or high. We have got a police officer that you know, a cab driver that you know, both from going in the Trailways, could see you getting in a cab. The time frames all fit. We have got you with her at the house; and just a few minutes later we have got Calvin coming home in a house covered with blood, and you disappearing the next day. Son, you can only help yourself. No matter what happens, you’re going to have to have peace of mind sooner or later.
WINSTON: She — her hair didn’t look like that when you was dating her, did it?
AILOR: You are going to have to get it off your chest sooner or later.
MILLER: One of you all got a match?
AILOR: I don’t have any cigarettes; I’ve got a match though. Do they let you keep matches here?
MILLER: Yeah.
AILOR: Keep them.
MILLER: Thank you.
WINSTON: I don’t believe you meant to do it, Dave. I don’t believe you’re that — -that hard a person. I believe that liquor made you do it, and the pills.
MILLER: It wasn’t liquor; it was the acid.
*287AILOR: Just tell us what happened David. What — what—
WINSTON: Son, we are trying to help you.
AILOR: What set it off that night?
(Whereupon there was a pause.)
AILOR: On acid — I have seen people on acid, and I have had good friends that were on it. And somebody could do something, and you change from must being in one frame of mind, and all at once you are just like that (snapped fingers) in another one, right? Is that basically what happened?
(Whereupon there was a pause.)
WINSTON: Did you have a bad trip when you all got to the house?
(Whereupon there was a pause.)
AILOR: David, there’s two ways you can look at this. We’ve got — we’ve got (indiscernable) evidence on you. You can more or less throw yourself on the mercy of the Court, even though you are probably going to do some years. But if you keep it bottled up inside of you, ten years is going to seem like a lifetime. And you can get paroled in ten years. I have seen a lot of people on a murder charge get out in ten years, or less.
WINSTON: We are not saying you could get out in that — in that length of time, but if—
AILOR: We’re not—
WINSTON: —if you were on acid, and the preacher come in, and he — he knows you was on acid. He said you were high.
MILLER: He knows I’m always getting high.
WINSTON: That’s kind of like a drunk driver killing somebody, you know?
AILOR: If you get it off your chest, Dave, it’s going to make — if you do serve time it’s going to make that time easier. And if you cooperate with the police department and the District Attorney’s Office who authorized us to come up here — we can’t make you any deals, but if you try not to cover it up, Dave, and tell us what happened, it can’t hurt you. Let’s look at it that way. Look at it in that light. It can’t hurt you. You can look at you and tell that it’s eating you up inside, (indis-cernable) at you.
In the instant case, the officers not only employed the subtle tactics recommended for success in obtaining confessions by the police manuals, but strayed far beyond the pale, in identifying themselves as authorized by the attorney general’s office, suggesting to defendant that it could not hurt him to tell them what happened and to throw himself on the mercy of the Court; that defendant could be paroled in ten years, that lots of people on a murder charge got out in ten years and killing while on acid was kind of like a drunk driver killing somebody. All of those tactics preceded any incriminating responses by defendant.
We recently dealt with the standard to be applied in determining whether an alleged confession of a criminal defendant is sufficiently voluntary to be admitted into evidence in State v. Kelly, 603 S.W.2d 726 (Tenn.1980). Therein we cited Bram v. United States, 168 U.S. 532, 18 S.Ct. 183, 42 L.Ed. 568 (1897) as the leading case and continued as follows:
“In that case the Supreme Court interpreted the Fifth Amendment to mean that in order for a confession to be admissible it must be ‘free and voluntary; that is, must not be extracted by any sort of threats or violence, nor obtained by any direct or implied promises, however slight, nor by the exertion of any improper influence.’ 168 U.S. at 542-43, 18 S.Ct. at 187. Down through the years the Bram standard has been cited with approval and followed by the Supreme Court in Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1, 84 S.Ct. 1489, 12 L.Ed.2d 653 (1964); Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742, 90 S.Ct. 1463, 25 L.Ed.2d 747 (1970); Hutto v. Ross, 429 U.S. 28, 98 S.Ct. 202, 50 L.Ed.2d 194 (1976).”
603 S.W.2d at 727.
*288The giving of Miranda warnings and obtaining a waiver of counsel does not authorize the subsequent use of physical or mental coercion that disables a suspect from making free and rational choices with regard to his continuing responses. It is my opinion that the in-custody interrogation at the jail in Columbus, Ohio, was permeated with psychological coercion and implied promises to the extent that defendant’s inculpatory responses were improperly influenced and the entire interrogation would have been inadmissible if offered at trial. The State’s professed excuse for not seeking its admission at trial was that the sound quality was poor. I have played the tape and read the court reporter’s transcript of the tape which was accurate and the few indistinguishable words on the tape are clearly insignificant. The taped interrogation of defendant by the same two officers less than twelve hours later, that was introduced at trial, was free of improper inducements and most of the suspect tactics but, in my opinion, of substantially the same sound quality.
In Kelly we also discussed the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Rogers v. Richmond, 365 U.S. 534, 81 S.Ct. 735, 5 L.Ed.2d 760 (1961). The following portions of our quotes from Rogers are, I believe, particularly relevant to the instant case:
“Our decisions under that [Fourteenth] Amendment have made clear that convictions following the admission into evidence of confessions which are involuntary, i.e., the product of coercion, either physical or psychological, cannot stand. This is so not because such confessions are unlikely to be true but because the methods used to extract them offend an underlying principle in the enforcement of our criminal law: that ours is an accusatorial and not an inquisitorial system — a system in which the State must establish guilt by evidence independently and freely secured and may not by coercion prove its charge against an accused out of his own mouth. (Citations omitted.)
“From a fair reading of these expressions (excerpts from the opinions of the Connecticut courts), we cannot but conclude that the question whether Rogers’ confessions were admissible into evidence was answered by reference to a legal standard which took into account the circumstance of probable truth or falsity. And this is not a permissible standard under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The attention of the trial judge should have been focused, for purposes of the Federal Constitution, on the question whether the behavior of the State’s law enforcement officials was such as to overbear petitioner’s will to resist and bring about confessions not freely self-determined — a question to be answered with complete disregard of whether or not petitioner in fact spoke the truth.” (Emphasis added.) 81 S.Ct. at 739-41. 603 S.W.2d at 728.
I share what is obviously the belief of the majority of this Court and the trial judge, that the probability of the truth of defendant’s confession is strong. However, it is my equally strong belief that the inexcusable behavior of the State’s law enforcement officials falls squarely within the state and federal constitutional prohibitions against the use of methods that extract a confession by “implied promises, however slight, nor by the exertion of any improper influence.” (Emphasis added.) 168 U.S. at 542-43, 18 S.Ct. at 187. The implied promises in the instant case were not slight, in my opinion.
There remains the question of whether the taint of the Ohio statement that was concluded after 7:00 a.m. in Columbus, had dissipated by the time the Knoxville interrogation began at 6:00 p.m. on the same day. If it had, the Knoxville statement was properly admitted. If not, its admission was clearly reversible error.
Defendant waived an extradition hearing in Ohio and Officers Winston and Ailor drove him to Knoxville. During the drive of seven to eight hours, defendant’s hands *289were handcuffed in front of him. According to Winston there was very little conversation about the offense during the drive, except that defendant mentioned something about his relationship with Reverend Thomas and a few other “casual minor things.” They arrived in Knoxville about 5:30 p.m. and the interrogation that was admitted at trial began about 6:00 p.m.
In State v. Painter, 614 S.W.2d 86 (Tenn.Crim.App.1981), our Court of Criminal Appeals addressed the issue of whether an inadmissible first confession tainted defendant’s second confession and rendered it inadmissible. That court cited the early case of Deathridge v. State, 33 Tenn. 75 (Tenn.1853). There the defendant was induced to confess at three separate places to which he was taken after his arrest for arson. The court concluded that defendant’s first confession was “under the belief that he was to be used as a witness against his accomplices, and thereby escape any punishment for the crime. This, in itself, is a fatal objection to the confession.” Id. at 79. With respect to the subsequent confessions the court said:
“We may observe, in the next place, that any confession thereafter made, under the same influences, is liable to the same objection; and it will be presumed that the same influences continued, until the contrary be made to appear. The onus, in this respect, rests upon the state.”
Id. at 80.
Deathridge was followed by Strady v. State, 45 Tenn. 300 (Tenn.1868) where the admissibility of confessions subsequent to a coerced statement was treated as follows:
Now, the rule of law in such cases, is that, although the original confessions may have been obtained by improper means, yet, subsequent confessions of the same or of like facts, may be admitted, if the Court believe, from the length of time intervening, or from proper warning of the consequences of confessions, or from other circumstances, that the delusive hopes or fears, under the influence of which the original confessions were obtained, were entirely repelled. In the absence of such circumstances, the influence of the motives proved to have been offered, will be presumed to continue and to have produced the confessions, unless the contrary is shown by clear evidence; and the confessions will, therefore, be rejected: 1 Greenleaf’s Ev., sec. 694.
Id. at 309-10.
The United States Supreme Court in addressing this issue in United States v. Bayer, 331 U.S. 532, 67 S.Ct. 1394, 91 L.Ed. 1654 (1947), made the following, often quoted observation:
“Of course, after an accused has once let the cat out of the bag by confessing, no matter what the inducement, he is never thereafter free of the psychological and practical disadvantages of having confessed. He can never get the cat back in the bag. The secret is out for good. In such a sense, a later confession always may be looked upon as fruit of the first. But this Court has never gone so far as to hold that making a confession under circumstances which preclude its use, perpetually disables the confessor from making a usable one after those conditions have been removed.”
331 U.S. at 541-42, 67 S.Ct. at 1398.
The federal cases apply substantially the same rule to be gleaned from Deathridge and Strady, with emphasis upon the devastating effect of defendant’s having “let the cat out of the bag” and interrogators entering “the fray of the subsequent interrogation armed with the earlier admission of guilt.” See Gilpin v. United States, 415 F.2d 638 (5th Cir.1969); Harney v. United States, 407 F.2d 586 (5th Cir.1969).
The Knoxville interrogation, conducted by the same two officers, was so closely connected with the Ohio interrogation that it may be described as a mere continuation. Nothing occurred during the automobile trip to make even a slight start in the process of entirely dispelling the mental coercion and implied promises by which Winston and Ailor got the “cat out of the bag” in Ohio.
*290In Gilpin the interval between the first and second interrogation of four days was held insufficient to dispell the coercive effect of the first interrogation. I would find that the illegal influences that tainted the Ohio interrogation had not been dispelled when the Knoxville interrogation was conducted and that the defendant’s incriminating responses were therefore improperly influenced and inadmissible. In spite of the fact that, excluding the Knoxville interrogation, substantial evidence of defendant’s guilt was presented at trial, I cannot say that the erroneous admission of that incriminating statement was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. It was therefore, in my opinion, reversible error for which defendant should be granted a new trial.

. The manuals are cited in Miranda footnotes eight and nine at 384 U.S. 448, 449, 86 S.Ct. 1614.