Court Opinion

ID: 9571865
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:35:54.609134+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:31:06.893898
License: Public Domain

Justice EXUM
dissenting.
The majority’s summarization of the facts, while generally adequate, does omit some critical details about defendant’s 8 April 1981 interrogation and the events which preceded it. Before 8 April defendant had taken a polygraph, the results of which do not appear in the record. On two separate days, March 26 and 27, several different officers interrogated him for a total of six and three-quarters hours. Officer Mack, the principal interrogator during this period, told defendant bloodstains had been found on his pants and tracks from his tennis shoes were found in the victim’s house — neither of which was true.
On 8 April Detective Williams, who was in charge of the investigation, picked defendant up about 5:30 or 6 p.m. and asked him to come to the police station for more questioning. Defendant agreed. Williams did not arrest defendant, but he was taken to an interrogation room in the Investigative Division of the police station.
Before Williams had picked up defendant he had made special arrangements with Detective Parker to aid in the interrogation if necessary. Although Parker was not assigned to the case he was asked to help because in Williams’ view, “He is a good interrogator. He comes across well. He knows how to use stuff and when I say ‘stuff I refer to theatrics and this kind of stuff, extremely well.”
Williams prepared, at Parker’s request, the bloody thumbprint on the knife which resembled the murder weapon and photographs of the prints showing various identification markings. Both Parker and Williams knew no prints or blood had been found on the knife.
*587After defendant was brought to the interrogation room by Williams he was told Officer Mack, the only black officer involved in the investigation, would be with him shortly. Mack knew defendant before this investigation because he had questioned defendant about an armed robbery and rape at a fast-food restaurant in 1979 and an attempted rape in 1977 or 1978.
Mack, accompanied by Detective Privette, first gave defendant his Miranda warnings, orally and with a written form. Mack began the interrogation by going over defendant’s previous statements and pointing out discrepancies. The doctored knife was in the room so defendant could see it and at some point Mack asked defendant how he would explain his fingerprints on the knife, even though Mack knew defendant’s fingerprints were not on the knife. Mack acknowledged that he encouraged defendant to believe the doctored knife was the murder weapon, and that if defendant “had seen the knife previous to us presenting it to him, I’m sure he would have been frightened by it.”
During this interrogation of defendant the officers introduced the specter of the death penalty. Mack told defendant the maximum penalty for a capital case was death. Mack testified:
I made the statement to Mr. Jackson that if after he was convicted of the death penalty, or if after he received the death penalty in the State of North Carolina, if after, and if he did go to the gas chamber, nobody, after the pill was dropped in the bucket of water, would rush in to save his life.
On redirect-examination Mack more fully set forth what he told defendant about the death penalty:
I had been talking with Mr. Jackson about this incident and I explained to Mr. Jackson that in North Carolina . . . whether or not he got the death penalty depended on the circumstances under which the crime was committed. I went on to explain to Mr. Jackson that if there were extenuating circumstances, that if he waited until he went into the gas chamber and they dropped the pill in the bucket nobody would rush in to take his statement at that time.
According to Privette, Mack “explained what the death penalty was as far as maximum, minimum, second degree,” and Privette *588was “pretty sure” he explained parole possibilities. Privette testified:
I recall, seems like that Detective Mack said something to the effect that if you did kill the girl and you done it by accident, or it wasn’t premeditated, or it happened at a rational moment, irrational moment or something to that effect, that the judge and jury should know that, what was going through your mind at the time, not that you premeditated, set there with a knife and went through the house and stabbed her without some other circumstance besides premeditation. I remember that was explained to him.
He said if he felt sorry that he did kill the girl, where it was in court or whatever, and he felt like shedding tears, something like that in effect, or before a judge or jury, do so; something to that effect. He didn’t tell him to get up and shed tears, Mr. Bass, just to let the jury feel sorry for him, no, if that’s what you asked; but he did say something about shedding tears. I believe that’s the way you put it.
Q. This conversation concerning the jury and shedding of tears was a means of giving the defendant some hope, would that be fair?
A. Hope for what?
Q. Hope for himself, his future, his life?
A. If it meant let him feel better, that’s the way I took it, I guess that’s what Gerald meant by telling him that. No, I don’t think that was the occasion, Mr. Bass.
Q. It gave him hope to avoid the death penalty?
A. It might would have, I don’t know.
Mack told defendant “that he had friends in that room at that time,” when the only people in the room were the officers and defendant. Mack also asked defendant how he could be so calm in the interview room. Mack talked with him about lying to the officers in the interview room. At some point near the end of the interrogation he told defendant he thought he was lying. Mack also admitted telling defendant, “James, we have a witness who saw *589you running out of that house on Cox Avenue,” even though he knew there was no such witness. Mack further admitted telling defendant “that the jurors were people just like him and me; that they were sensitive to his disposition in court; that if he acted more less a macho man, many people would be turned off by that and I told him that he could learn to use the emotions of people even in a situation like this.” Mack responded to the following question in the manner set forth:
Q. You talked about working on emotions, emotions to a jury, and this type of interview on your part was intended to work on his emotions, is that correct?
A. This part of the interview was, I guess you could say that.
Mack testified he told defendant he thought his girlfriend was pregnant. He told defendant he thought “he was not capable of making any babies.” He informed defendant “that if indeed his girlfriend was pregnant, if he were convicted of the offense which we were talking about, that in all probablility it would be unlikely that he would be the one to raise his child.”
Both Mack and Privette acknowledged they told defendant they believed he was guilty of the crime. Privette said he told defendant it was “very easy to tell he was lying about it .... I told him it would be best if he would just tell the truth in the long run.” Privette recalled Mack telling defendant, “If he would tell the truth about the incident that it would certainly come out in court that he cooperated.”
After Mack and Privette finished questioning defendant at 10 p.m. Officer Parker took over. When Officer Parker went in to interrogate defendant he had two photographs, a cassette tape recorder and two cups of ice water. Parker told defendant it was his “job to examine the physical evidence and go over the physical evidence that would be presented to the court by officers involved in the investigation.” He said he “was not directly involved in the investigation,” but he wanted to go over the available physical evidence with defendant. Parker related how the FBI had used a laser beam to obtain defendant’s fingerprint from the murder weapon. He then showed defendant the photographs and explained the identification markings. Parker testified:
*590I said [to defendant] it is evident we have your fingerprints. I said you can go into court and say they’re not your fingerprints and I can go into court and be my job to prove that they are your fingerprints. I said now if you have a logical reason for having your fingerprints on the murder weapon, then you can tell me and I can relay it to the court as to why your fingerprints were on that weapon.
Parker asked defendant if he had lied to Mack. Defendant said he had, so Parker left about 10:20 p.m. and Mack reentered. During this session defendant admitted touching the knife but denied killing the victim.
At 11:15 p.m. Mack left and Parker came back in, bringing coffee for defendant and himself. Parker reviewed the evidence for defendant:
I told him that we had a murder weapon; that it was evident that we had his fingerprints. I told him that we had his fingerprints on a knife sharpener which was found inside the residence where the homicide took place. I told him that we had a fingerprint on a wooden post on the front porch that was his fingerprint; and I asked him if he saw the composite sketch that was put in the newspapers and he replied that he did. I asked him how he thought we got the composite sketch. He said he did not know. I said we have a female eyewitness that saw you coming out the door carrying the knife in your hand. I said now this is the evidence that we are going to present to the court. I said you can go into court and say no, it’s not me, or we can go into court and say it is.
Parker also testified that during the final part of the discussion he told defendant that “he would go into court and plead not guilty and if he did that then the other officers would probably go into court and testify that he was a black man out here viciously raping and killing white women and I did not feel that that was the case, and if he wanted to tell me his side of it that I would listen to him.” Finally, Parker told defendant he believed he had committed the murder.
After Parker told defendant he would listen to him defendant said, “[Ojkay, I’ll tell you I did it.” Parker proceeded to have *591defendant write his confession. He began writing about 11:55 p.m., approximately six hours after the questioning began.
All of the foregoing testimony was elicited from the officers themselves. Defendant’s testimony is generally consistent with the officers’.
Defendant testified he was twenty-two years old and had attended the tenth grade at Broughton High School. Although defendant had been questioned by Officer Mack about other, more serious, offenses, he only had been convicted of possession of stolen property, breaking and entering and simple assault and had served thirteen months in prison. He was released on parole in September 1980.
Defendant admitted that he gave the officers the wrong tennis shoes and pants but the correct shirt when asked for them on 26 March. He also acknowledged the officers advised him of his rights at the start of every interrogation. But this “street-wise” defendant, as the trial court and the majority characterize him, never asked for an attorney, never refused to answer questions, and agreed to take a polygraph test. The officers stated defendant never asked for food or drink, although he accepted coffee and water when it was offered. The officers also testified defendant never asked to leave; defendant testified he tried to leave a few times but Officers Williams and Mack stopped him. He said he was not told he could leave when he wanted to.
His testimony about what was said and done differed from the officers primarily in the following significant respects. Defendant testified that he was scared and frightened during the interrogation but he tried to appear calm because he did not want the officers to know he was frightened.
During his first interrogation by Detective Beasley on 26 March Beasley threatened defendant with his fist and called him a “f_murderer.” Beasley denied any show of physical force but did admit he told defendant several times he believed defendant had killed the girl although he denied using the exact phrase defendant recalled.
Defendant said the officers told him the only way he could keep from going to death row was by making a statement. He also testified Officer Privette suggested to him during the second *592session with Mack and Privette on 8 April that he say he met the victim in Pullen Park. Defendant said Mack told him his state-appointed attorney would not care whether he won or lost his case because the attorney would be paid irrespective. Parker told him there was a warrant waiting for him when he walked out the room if he did not make a statement to help himself in front of the jury. Mack also told him they would not accept a plea bargain if he did not make a statement. Defendant said Parker told him he had witnesses on tape who saw him leave the victim’s house. Finally, in an unusual twist, defendant testified he did not recall Parker’s statement about officers testifying that he was viciously raping white women, which Parker had already admitted he made.
From the acts and declarations of the interrogating officers as revealed by their own testimony, it should be clear that the majority’s categorical conclusion that no promises or threats were made to defendant is simply wrong. The conclusion seems to be based either on the proposition that promises or threats must be express rather that implied, inferred or suggested, or on the proposition that the trial court’s finding that none were made is binding on this Court. Neither proposition is true. “[WJhether the conduct and language of the investigating officers amounted to such threats or promises or influenced the defendant by hope and fear as to render the subsequent confession involuntary is a question of law . . . reviewable on appeal.” State v. Rook, 304 N.C. 201, 216, 283 S.E. 2d 732, 742 (1981), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 1038 (1982); accord, State v. Pruitt, 286 N.C. 442, 212 S.E. 2d 92 (1975). Threats may be inferred from statements tending to provoke fright and promises may be implied from statements suggesting some hope. State v. Pruitt, supra; State v. Fox, 274 N.C. 277, 163 S.E. 2d 492 (1968). Pruitt and Fox and the cases they cite make it abundantly clear that if the language and conduct of interrogating officers suggests or implies some hope as a consequence of confessing or if it tends to provoke fright as a consequence of not confessing, the resulting confession is involuntary and inadmissible as a matter of law. These cases and Rook also make it clear that whether the language and conduct have these effects is a question of law determinable after review of all the circumstances surrounding the confession. Indeed, the inadmissibility of this con*593fession is dictated by the principles set out in and the holdings of Pruitt and Fox.
State v. Pruitt, supra, an opinion for a unanimous Court by Justice, now Chief Justice, Branch, accurately summarizes our law governing admissibility of confessions and carefully applies that law to facts similar to those at bar resulting in the exclusion of the Pruitt confession. Indeed, when the proper legal principles are applied, the facts before us are more compelling for exclusion than those in Pruitt.
Pruitt had confessed to entering the residence of neighbors and friends, the Donlins, at approximately 4 a.m. The residence was occupied by Mrs. Donlin (Chris) and the Donlins’ two children, Patricia, aged 7, and Jeremiah, aged 4. During a quarrel with Chris defendant said he choked her and beat her with the stock of a rifle. He then choked the children, set the house on fire and left. Other evidence in the case tended to show that the children were burned to death but that Chris Donlin died from “trauma to the head.” In addition to Pruitt’s confession, the state offered evidence tending to link him to the crimes of arson and murder: Defendant at the scene of the fire was asked whether people were still inside the residence. He replied, “She’s in there on the couch. She’s been raped and cut open and they’ve set her house on fire.” 286 N.C. at 443, 212 S.E. 2d at 94. A search of Pruitt’s residence revealed army fatigues in the closet of a rear bedroom with bloodstains on the jacket and pants.-Further, in a conversation with a bailiff in district court defendant was told that he could not get his clothes because his house had burned down. Defendant replied, “No, that house belonged to the woman that I killed.” Id. at 446, 212 S.E. 2d at 95.
The principal question in Pruitt was the admissibility of his confession. On voir dire at trial to determine its admissibility only the state offered evidence. This evidence tended to show that Pruitt was taken to the sheriffs interrogation room where he was questioned for 15 to 20 minutes by Lt. Smith, Sgt. Conerly, and Officer Martin. He was given full Miranda [v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966)] warnings and waived in writing his right to counsel and his right to remain silent. This written waiver also contained statements by Pruitt that no one had made promises or threats to him to get him to make a statement and that his statement was *594given voluntarily of his own free will. 286 N.C. 450, 212 S.E. 2d at 98. Sgt. Conerly testified that after defendant signed a waiver the officers told him about the bloody fatigues, the discrepancies in his previous statements, and that there were “too many holes in his story.” They told him that in their opinion “he had done it,” that he was lying and that “it would be better for him to just go ahead and get it off his chest.” Conerly said, “Ipossibly told him that he would be making it harder on himself by not making a statement,” and that he did tell Pruitt “that it would simply be harder on him if he didn’t go ahead and cooperate." Id. at 451-52, 212 S.E. 2d at 98-99 (emphasis original). After voir dire the trial judge found that no threats or promises were made to Pruitt and that his statement was voluntarily and knowingly made without inducement or coercion.
This Court reversed and concluded that Pruitt’s confession was inadmissible. The Court carefully outlined the law governing admissibility of confessions when Miranda warnings have been given as follows: The question for decision is whether the confession was “voluntarily and understandingly made. The answer to this question must be found from a consideration of the entire record.” Id. at 454, 212 S.E. 2d at 100. Confessions made under the “influence of hope or fear and implanted in defendant’s mind by the acts and statements of” the officers interrogating him are involuntary and inadmissible. Id. at 455, 212 S.E. 2d at 100. Whether the conduct and language of the interrogating officers amount to promises or threats so as to make the confession involuntary is a question of law fully reviewable on appeal. Id. at 454, 212 S.E. 2d at 100.
The Court in Pruitt then reviewed the holdings of our leading confession cases. In State v. Roberts, 12 N.C. 259 (1827), a confession was held inadmissible as being involuntary when the accused was told that since he was in custody any confession he would make could not be used against him at trial and that it would be to his credit to confess. In State v. Whitfield, 70 N.C. 356 (1874), the accused, a Negro, was confronted by his white employer who told the accused that a hog had been stolen and said, “I believe you’re guilty; if you are, you had better say so; if you are not, you had better say that.” Id. at 356. Defendant’s immediate confession to the theft was held to be involuntary and inadmissible. In State v. Stevenson, 212 N.C. 648, 194 S.E. 81 (1937), *595defendant was told by an officer, “There is no use you beginning to tell a lie to me this morning, I have already got too much evidence to convict you.” Id. at 649, 194 S.E. at 81. Defendant confessed and the Court on appeal concluded that the confession was involuntary and inadmissible. Id. at 650, 194 S.E. at 82. The Court in Pruitt then reviewed cases in which interrogating officers had told defendants that it would be “easier” or “lighter” on them if they confessed; that it would “be better for him in court if he told the truth”; that the officers would be able to testify that defendants “cooperated if they aided the State in its case”; and that the officers “would try to help defendant.” In each of these cases confessions made subsequent to such overtures were held involuntary and inadmissible. 286 N.C. at 457-58, 212 S.E. 2d at 102. The Court in Pruitt carefully noted that admonitions to an accused “to tell the truth, standing alone, do not render a confession inadmissible.” 286 N.C. at 458, 212 S.E. 2d at 102. But suggestions that it would be better for defendant in court, or easier on him, or that the officers could help him if he confessed, render confessions involuntary and inadmissible.
Applying these cases and principles to the facts before it, the Court in Pruitt concluded as follows:
In instant case the interrogation of defendant by three police officers took place in a police-dominated atmosphere. Against this background the officers repeatedly told defendant that they knew that he had committed the crime and that his story had too many holes in it; that he was ‘lying’ and that they did not want to ‘fool around.’ Under these circumstances one can infer that the language used by the officers tended to provoke fright. This language was then tempered by statements that the officers considered defendant the type of person ‘that such a thing would prey heavily upon’ and that he would be ‘relieved to get it off his chest.’ This somewhat flattering language was capped by the statement that ‘it would simply be harder on him if he didn’t go ahead and cooperate.’ Certainly the latter statement would imply a suggestion of hope that things would be better for defendant if he would cooperate, i.e., confess.
286 N.C. at 458, 212 S.E. 2d at 102.
*596In State v. Fox, supra, 274 N.C. 277, 163 S.E. 2d 492, interrogating officers told the accused “that he would be a lot better off in court if he would tell them the truth about what happened. . . . [H]e would probably be charged with accessory to murder.” In addition the officers showed defendant certain incriminating evidence “to let him know that they ‘knew what had happened’ and asked him ‘if he wanted to give a confession.’ ” Defendant said that if he confessed, one of his accomplices would kill him. The officer said he would protect the accused from his accomplice “if he would just tell the truth about it.” Id. at 284, 163 S.E. 2d at 497. Defendant confessed. This Court, speaking through Justice, later Chief Justice, Sharp, concluded that the confession was inadmissible because it was involuntary. The Court reviewed the applicable law as follows:
When an investigating officer ‘offers some suggestion of hope or fear ... to one suspected of crime and thereby induces a statement in the nature of a confession, the decisions are at one in adjudging such statement to be involuntary in law, and hence incompetent as evidence. . . . (Citations omitted.) State v. Biggs, 224 N.C. 23, 26-27, 29 S.E. 2d 121, 123. Whether conduct on the part of investigating officers amounts to a threat or promise which will render a subsequent confession involuntary and incompetent is a question of law, and the decision of the trial judge is reviewable upon appeal. State v. Biggs, supra.
Where the officers merely ask for the truth and hold out no hope of a lighter punishment a defendant’s confession is not rendered involuntary by their request for ‘nothing but the truth.’ State v. Thomas, 241 N.C. 337, 85 S.E. 2d 300; State v. Thompson, 227 N.C. 19, 40 S.E. 2d 620; 23 C.J.S., Criminal Law § 817(8) (1961). In State v. Dishman, 249 N.C. 759, 107 S.E 2d 750, the officers told defendant that ‘it would be better if he would go ahead and tell (them) what had happened.’ Nothing else was said. The court’s conclusion that the defendant’s confession was voluntary was upheld. In State v. Fuqua, 269 N.C. 223, 152 S.E. 2d 68, however, the officer testified that he told the defendant ‘if he wanted to talk to me then I would be able to testify that he talked to me and *597was cooperative.’ We held that “[t]his statement by a person in authority was a promise which gave defendant a hope for lighter punishment”; that therefore the defendant’s confession was involuntary and incompetent as a matter of law. Id. at 228, 152 S.E. 2d at 72.
Here, the implication of Officer Cunningham’s statement to McMahan was (1) if he told the truth about the entire matter it would be better for him in court and (2) he might be charged with a lesser offense. Clearly this statement constituted ‘a suggestion of hope’ which rendered his subsequent confessions involuntary.
274 N.C. at 292-93, 163 S.E. 2d at 502-03.
It is true that Pruitt and the defendant in Fox had been formally arrested at the time they confessed, while defendant here had not. This fact is insufficient to distinguish Pruitt and Fox. First, it was a fact not much relied on in either case. Rather, the Pruitt Court found it important that the interrogation “took place in a police dominated atmosphere,” 286 N.C. at 458, 212 S.E. 2d at 102, as did the interrogation of defendant here. The Court in Fox relied solely on the “suggestion^] of hope.” 274 N.C. at 293, 163 S.E. 2d at 503. Second, while Pruitt was questioned only for 15 or 20 minutes, and defendant in Fox for a similarly short time, defendant’s interrogation on 8 April continued for some six hours. Third, there are further facts here which were not present in Pruitt or Fox. The officers misrepresented the evidence available to them; impliedly threatened to make defendant’s crime appear worse than it was; and implied that if defendant cooperated by confessing to extenuating circumstances he might save himself from the gas chamber. These facts more than make up for the absence of a formal arrest of defendant. Finally, as I shall show below, defendant was in custody, if not under formal arrest, at the time he confessed.
In the case before us the officers admitted telling defendant, among other things: (1) The officers were his friends; (2) no one could help him after he was placed in the gas chamber; (3) if his girlfriend was bearing his child he would not be the one to raise it if he were convicted; (4) that if there were extenuating circumstances, defendant should “bring [them] to light” or otherwise risk suffering the death penalty; (5) defendant might avoid the *598death penalty by playing on the jurors’ emotions at trial; (6) the detectives would offer in court against him the evidence that defendant’s fingerprints were on the murder weapon and at various places at the crime scene [all of which was fabricated]; (7) if defendant pled not guilty the officers “would probably go into court and testify that he was a black man out there viciously raping and killing white women”; (8) they believed defendant committed the murder and accused him of lying and of killing the victim; and (9) if he told the truth “it would certainly come out in court that he cooperated.” Surely, “one can infer that the language used by the officers tended to provoke fright” and at least implied “a suggestion of hope that things would be better for defendant if he would cooperate, ie., confess” within the ambit of the language and holdings in Pruitt and Fox.
As the Court in Pruitt said, “The facts of this case disclose the commission of [a] brutal and revolting [crime]. Yet, we must apply well-recognized rules of law impartially to easy and hard cases alike lest we make bad law which will erode constitutional safeguards jealously guarded by this Court for nearly a century and a half.” 286 N.C. at 458-59, 212 S.E. 2d at 103. So it should be here. As we held the confession in Pruitt should have been suppressed, so we ought to hold here.
Two other cases decided by this Court reinforce the dictates of Pruitt and Fox:
In State v. Stephens, 300 N.C. 321, 266 S.E. 2d 588 (1980), in an opinion by Justice Huskins, the Court held: “If the totality of circumstances indicates that defendant was threatened, tricked, or cajoled into a waiver of his rights, his statements are rendered involuntary as a matter of law.” 300 N.C. at 327, 266 S.E. 2d at 592 (emphasis original). Both defendant Stephens and his counsel were present in the SBI office in Raleigh for the purpose of defendant’s taking a polygraph examination. An SBI agent advised defendant and counsel that counsel could not be present during the polygraph examination but that he could be present during the subsequent interrogation of defendant. The investigators, however, began interrogating defendant after they had given him the polygraph test without notifying his attorney who was waiting outside or defendant that the testing portion had been completed and his attorney could be admitted. Defend*599ant made an incriminating statement during the interrogation. The Court held that his statement was involuntary because “the totality of circumstances indicates that, in effect, defendant was tricked or cajoled into waiving his right to counsel and his privilege against self-incrimination. Absent a knowing and intelligent waiver of these rights, defendant’s statements cannot be considered to have been voluntarily made.” 300 N.C. at 327, 266 S.E. 2d at 592.
In State v. Anderson, 208 N.C. 771, 182 S.E. 643 (1935), defendant had confessed to the crime after being told by his interrogator that some of his accomplices had talked “and he might as well do likewise.” The interrogator also “told him it would be better for him to go ahead and tell it just like it was and he might as well go ahead and tell it because it was already told.” Id. at 780, 182 S.E. at 648-49. The truth was that defendant’s accomplices had not talked. This Court, in an opinion by former Chief Justice Stacy, concluded that defendant’s confession should not have been admitted against him because his interrogator’s statements rendered it involuntary. Id. at 783, 182 S.E. at 650.
Thus the majority wrongly adopts for this jurisdiction what it perceives to be the general rule in other jurisdictions that trickery, deception and false statements by police officers, while not commendable, do not standing alone render a confession involuntary, unless they are likely to produce an unreliable confession. Until today this has not been the law in North Carolina. Trickery in State v. Stephens, supra, and false statements in State v. Anderson, supra, were held to be sufficient in and of themselves to render the resulting confession involuntary.
Even the “general rule” which the majority now adopts has no application to this case. For here the officers utilized not only deception, false statements, and fabricated evidence, they also used threats and promises tending to suggest hope and provoke fear in the defendant. Even courts that apply the general rule recognize that deception coupled with such promises or threats render the confession involuntary. United States ex rel. Everett v. Murphy, 329 F. 2d 68, 70 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 377 U.S. 967 (1964); Lewis v. United States, 74 F. 2d 173, 177 (9th Cir. 1934); Commonwealth v. Meehan, 377 Mass. 552, 387 N.E. 2d 527, cert. granted, 444 U.S. 824 (1979), cert. dismissed as improvidently granted, 445 U.S. 39 (1980) (per curiam). See generally Annot., *600“Admissibility of Confession as Affected by its Inducement Through Artifice, Deception, Trickery, or Fraud,” 99 A.L.R. 2d 772 (1965), and Later Case Service.
Neither can it be seriously questioned that the officers’ implications of hope and provocations of fear coupled with misrepresentations of fact resulted in a confession of sorts from the defendant. The officers told defendant that: (1) they had enough evidence to convict him of first degree murder and they were prepared to introduce it into court against him; (2) first degree murder carried the death penalty unless there were extenuating circumstances; and (3) if there were extenuating circumstances it would be best for defendant to tell about them now since no one would hear about them after he entered the gas chamber. Defendant then “confessed” precisely along the lines the officers suggested would be in his best interest. He admitted the murder but said, incredibly, that the victim, a recently married woman, had invited him into her home and had invited him to have intimate sexual contact with her. When he proceeded to accept her invitations, she began to scream. Becoming frightened and in a state of panic, he killed her. Even the trial judge noted the improbability of the truthfulness of defendant’s confession. Indeed, it was because the trial judge concluded that defendant’s confession was not motivated by a desire to tell the truth that he ordered it suppressed.
Absent torture or other physical abuse, it would be difficult to conceive of interrogation tactics more likely to produce an untruthful, unreliable confession than the ones utilized in this case. Indeed, according to the findings of the trial judge they in fact produced such an untruthful confession. Therefore even under the general rule adopted by the majority, this confession should have been suppressed, as the trial court correctly ruled.
On the question of whether defendant was in custody, although not under formal arrest, at the time he confessed, the majority has enunciated the proper test, but has not correctly applied it to the facts. As the majority states, “The test to determine custody is whether a reasonable person in the suspect’s position would believe himself to be in custody or that his freedom of action was deprived in some significant manner.” The majority then states, “The evidence in this case clearly indicates that had *601the defendant chosen to get up and leave the detective offices at the time he gave his confession, rather than stay and make that confession, the officers would not have hindered his departure.” This statement may be true if considered from the standpoint of the officers who knew that, without a confession, they had no case against defendant. Viewed however from the standpoint of a reasonable person in defendant’s position, as the test of custody requires us to do, it is clear that defendant could not have believed he was free to go. For at the time he confessed he had been told the officers had rather overwhelming evidence of his guilt — more than enough to give them probable cause to arrest him. He had been told, albeit falsely, that his fingerprints were on the murder weapon, the victim’s knife sharpener and in other places in the deceased’s dwelling. He had also been told that a witness had seen him running from the dwelling carrying the knife. So confronted, a reasonable person in defendant’s position would have believed that he would not be allowed to leave. Thus defendant at the time of his confession was in custody. Had no Miranda warnings been given this defendant, I am satisfied this Court would have held the confessions inadmissible on that account. Yet the warnings are required only in custodial interrogations.
The majority seems to rely unduly on the trial judge’s finding that defendant was “street-wise” and having first made misrepresentations to the officers regarding his clothing, must have been aware that the officers were making similar misrepresentations to him. I concede the facts support the trial judge’s finding that defendant knew the officers were lying to him about the bloodstains found on his clothing and his tennis shoe tracks in the dwelling, since defendant acknowledged these were not the clothes he wore on the night in question. Even so, there is no evidence nor any finding by the trial court that defendant knew that evidence concerning his fingerprints and the witness who observed him was fabricated. Indeed, if defendant had known that this evidence was fabricated, the case for an involuntary confession is made even stronger. For defendant is then in the position of being told by the officers that they intend to use fabricated evidence in court to prove his guilt. This constitutes a threat of the very worst sort having a strong tendency to provoke the kind of fear which renders a subsequent confession involuntary. This is especially true when statements about the fabricated evidence *602are coupled with other statements indicating that if defendant confesses to certain extenuating circumstances, he might not get the death penalty. Defendant is placed in this position: If he confesses to a murder with extenuating circumstaces he may be spared the death penalty. If he refuses to confess the officers are prepared to offer fabricated evidence and to testify falsely that he, a black man, not only murdered but raped the white victim to insure both defendant’s conviction of first degree murder and his sentence to death.
Finally, even if, as the majority concludes, defendant’s confession is reliable under all the circumstances, the methods of interrogation utilized are so fundamentally unfair as to deny defendant due process of law under the rationales, if not the holdings, of a number of United States Supreme Court decisions, not the least of which in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966). See also, e.g., Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385 (1978); Davis v. North Carolina, 384 U.S. 737 (1966); Lynumn v. Illinois, 372 U.S. 528 (1963); Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293 (1963); Culombe v. Connecticut, 367 U.S. 568 (1961); Rogers v. Richmond, 365 U.S. 534 (1961); Blackburn v. Alabama, 361 U.S. 199 (1960); Spano v. New York, 360 U.S. 315 (1959). Miranda is significant because in it the Court adopted certain prophylactic rules which must be followed in every custodial interrogation. These rules were developed with the hope that they would preclude the kind of psychological coercion which the Miranda Court found to be widely practiced by police interrogators and of which the Court was highly critical. Many of the practices criticized by the Court were drawn from Inbau and Reid, Criminal Interrogation and Confessions (1962).1
*603I vote to affirm the trial court.
Chief Justice BRANCH and Justice FRYE join in this dissent.

. When Inbau and Reid prepared their first edition of this manual for police interrogators, Inbau was Director and Reid was a staff member of the Chicago Police Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory. At the time of the 1967 edition of this work, which was prepared largely as a response to Miranda, Inbau was a professor of law at Northwestern University and Reid a director of John E. Reid and Associates. I think it unfortunate that the trial court and the majority place such reliance on this book. Although the book has a section on the law governing the admissibility of confessions, the greater part of the book is nothing more than a police manual suggesting methods of interrogation. Neither the trial court nor the majority indicate upon which aspect of the book they rely. The truth is that the Supreme Court in Miranda was critical of some of the methods suggested by Inbau and Reid, 384 U.S.at 448-56, and Inbau and Reid are equally critical in their latest version of the Miranda decision, Inbau and Reid, Criminal Interrogation and Confessions, 1-3 (2d ed. 1967). We, of course, are bound by Miranda.