Court Opinion

ID: 9785836
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 22:39:47.211068+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:08.539184
License: Public Domain

Johnson, J.:
dissenting: I respectfully dissent from the major-
ity’s determination that all of Sharp’s statements were the product of her free and independent will.
The majority emphasizes that we are to afford great deference to the district court’s factual findings. However, I do not discern that the facts are really in dispute; we know precisely what was said and how it was said. I can even accept the proffered reasons for why it was said; the overall tenor of the interrogation certainly suggests that Detective Wheeles truly believed that Sharp was a witness, rather than a suspect, and that his motive in making prom*107ises to Sharp was to obtain a true account of what had happened, rather than to coerce a confession. However, I do not believe that the detective’s subjective reasons for making promises should determine the legal effect of what was actually said to the defendant. We should look at the interrogation from the objective viewpoint of the defendant, i.e., would a reasonable person have been induced to make a statement by the detective’s promises or assurances.
Here, anyone in Sharp’s situation would have understood that the detective was promising that she was not going to jail “as long as [she'did] not do something dumb and jam [herself].” Conditional or not, a promise was clearly made. That promise was followed immediately with an example of how Sharp could help herself, i.e., by explaining that sh'e was scared when she did what she did. Then, the detective explicidy instructed Sharp on how to avoid jamming herself: “Just don’t tell me no if I ask you something.”
What subsequendy transpired must be viewed in that context. Sharp volunteered that she told Hollingsworth, “don’t kill him.” The detective then ’ offered the alternative statement, “don’t kill him here.” Consistent with the earlier suggestion that Sharp should follow the detective’s lead, she did not tell him “no,” but rather she accepted the proffered alternative. From the totality of the circumstances, I cannot find that the amended statement was the product of Sharp’s free and independent will.
Finally, I want to briefly address the majority’s declaration that “the purported promise about helping the children concerns a collateral benefit.” First, Sharp’s question about going to a battered women’s shelter indicates that she intended to accompany the children and would be a direct beneficiary of the promise to make such arrangements. More importantly, however, I simply do not accept the premise that a promise to take care of one’s homeless children is to be assessed as less inducive or coercive than a promise of leniency in charging the crime being investigated. For many, if not most, parents, a promise to provide safety for their children would be most compelling. I would not relegate it to a lesser class .of promises.