Court Opinion

ID: 9692988
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 16:15:17.32881+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:38.664999
License: Public Domain

HEFFERNAN, CHIEF JUSTICE
(concurring). I believe that Clappes’ and Osman’s confessions were involuntary. I write separately to voice my concern that the majority has incorrectly, or at least inconsis*246tently, articulated the test for voluntariness of a confession. See, majority opinion at pages 236, 245. In Wisconsin, the test for voluntariness of a confession has heretofore required a determination that the confession was voluntary under the totality of the circumstances. See, Turner v. State, 76 Wis. 2d 1, 18, 250 N.W.2d 706 (1977). This is to be determined by "a very careful balancing of the personal characteristics of the confessor with the pressures to which he was subjected in order to induce his statements.” State v. Wallace, 59 Wis. 2d 66, 81, 207 N.W.2d 855 (1973). Thus, the majority incorrectly states the test for voluntariness when it notes that voluntariness "depend[s] upon the presence or absence of actual coercive, or improper police practices...." Majority opinion at page 245.
I do not, however, conclude that a confession is necessarily inadmissible because the confession was not voluntary. What the majority attempts to say is that the confession was not coerced by police action. Hence, under Colorado v. Connelly, — U.S. — (December 10, 1986), it was admissible; but for this court or the United States Supreme Court to continue to use the term, "voluntary,” as a test for the admission of a confession is inappropriate if the test is police coercion simpliciter. The question of admissibility of a confession under our Goodchild proceeding (State ex rel. Goodchild v. Burke, 27 Wis. 2d 244, 133 N.W.2d 753 (1965)) will now be, by a showing, beyond a reasonable doubt, of the absence of state compulsion, rather than the proof of voluntariness. Voluntariness, however, continues to be an important factor to be raised at trial, because a confession that is "admissible” because not coerced or compelled by the state may *247nevertheless be so unreliable because involuntary that a jury could refuse to give it credence.
While I concur in the result, it is clear that in its terminology the majority, like the United States Supreme Court, if not confusing apples and oranges, is confusing oranges and tangerines. What the court should acknowledge is that the confession, though involuntary, is nevertheless admissible because police coercion did not contribute in any way to its "involuntariness.” Colorado v. Connelly, — U.S. —, concurring opinion of Stevens, J.
Under the majority’s opinion, voluntariness is no longer the touchstone of admissibility. Nevertheless, I am of the opinion that the state can take such inappropriate advantage of a situation, not of its own creation, that nonaction by the police could be deemed coercive. From the facts of record, I do not believe that situation is present here.