Court Opinion

ID: 9799609
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 07:23:03.95915+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:04.771592
License: Public Domain

GOULD, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the judgment:
I concur in the judgment reached by the majority that the confession given by Preston was involuntary under the totality of the circumstances. For me, the case does not need elaborate analysis: The United States Supreme Court has said that involuntary confessions are not admissible, and that we consider the totality of the circumstances in assessing voluntariness. See Dickerson v. United States, 530 U.S. 428, 434, 120 S.Ct. 2326, 147 L.Ed.2d 405 (2000). Preston’s confession was involuntary primarily because of the confluence of three factors: Preston’s intellectual disability, the strongly inculpatory nature of the officers’ either-or questioning, and the officers’ false promises that what Preston said would be kept private. Together, these factors were sufficient to overbear the will of Preston and make his confession involuntary.
First and foremost, Preston had extremely limited mental capacity. He was led to agree with strong, affirmative statements made by authority figures, with less consideration and without the independent will that could be exercised by a person of average or superior intelligence. I do not think every person of below average intelligence necessarily gets a pass from being subjected to such interrogation tactics, but there are limits and here the IQ of Preston is at a level where his intellectual disability is part of the total circumstances pertinent to voluntariness. Second, we should recognize a grave danger that a person with such limited mental capacity would view critical either:or questions as defining the universe of what was possible. Such either-or and leading questions suggesting culpability normally are permissible in police interrogations, but here we can see how they affected the voluntariness of Preston’s confession. Third, the officers told Preston that they would not tell anyone what Preston said, and described Preston’s confession as an apology letter to the alleged victim. These severely misleading statements, at least where addressed to a person of such limited intelligence, could be expected to overbear the will of the suspect. Weighed together, these factors lead to an involuntary confession when considered in total circumstances.