Case rule analysis and applications

Police Coercion: Age, Deception and 'Extrinsic' Considerations

The case of John Smith constitutes a significant challenge to the defense of the accused. The nature of his crime and his age, which is cited as being under 18, causes a dilemma in and of itself for the American legal system. When minors are convicted of first-degree murder, the nature of the punishment is often impacted by the age of the convicted. Depending on the scale or nature of the crime, and attendant to the perspective that an individual appears capable of being rehabilitated, age will often enter into the sentencing discussion and could soften the nature of the punishment.

To the case in point, John Smith is at least entitled to protection from the death penalty by virtue of being under the age of 18. However, beyond this protection, the degree to which his declarations of guilt may be characterized as inadmissible for reasons of police coercion is extremely limited by the details of the case. Such is to say that John Smith was largely responsible for acts of self-incrimination, with only a few mitigating factors worth considering as a counterpoint.

To consider the mitigating factors available to us first, it may be said that the age of the defendant alone made him especially vulnerable to psychological tactics of coercion. Under interrogation, evidence suggests that minors are particularly vulnerable to such tactics. So reports Moushey (2006) on behalf of the Innocence Institute of Point Park University, which investigates alleged wrongful convictions in the courts systems. Moushey indicates that the Institute "has sifted through hundreds of complaints and examined dozens of cases in Western Pennsylvania in which people claim to have falsely confessed under police pressure. Of the juveniles who had been wrongly convicted between 1989 and 2003, Dr. Gross found that 42% were convicted because of false confessions -- compared with only 13% of the adults." (Moushey, 1)

With respect to John Smith, it may be argued that his age made him especially susceptible to police tactics. The comment by the officer who provided Smith with a document indicating that he could be held up to capital punishment -- "I bet you want to talk now, huh!" -- implies two things in terms of providing defense for Smith: there is a clear deception intended here, as the officer makes an indirect connection between Smith's refusal to talk and his vulnerability to the death penalty, intentionally misleading Smith on this point, and; the officer appears here to be verbally undermining Smith's right to have an attorney present by drawing a false connection between a refusal to speak and the threat of the death penalty. Indeed, the other officer present seems to acknowledge that this is an inappropriate statement subsequent to Smith's having requested an attorney.

However, how we are to classify this with respect to police coercion is particularly unclear for a number of reasons. First, it must be acknowledged that in this instance, that was indeed the end of the inappropriate exchange with Smith having done nothing at this juncture to incriminate himself. We may deduce by his actions though that consequent to this inappropriate exchange, Smith was left with a sense of urgency to speak in order to defend himself against this falsely implied punishment. That said, it was of his own apparent volition that Smith volunteered information to the officer, who even asked to confirm before accepting this information that the accused was speaking of his own free will.

This is a significant problem for Smith's case, which is damaged by a 1986 Connecticut State Supreme Court decision defining a rather high standard for that which may be regarded as police coercion. Here, the decision would find that "the inquiry is not merely whether the defendant would have confessed 'but for" the police conduct, but rather whether the particular defendant's capacity to resist the police pressure was overborne. See State v. DeAngelis, 200 Conn. 224, 232-33 (1986) (coercive police conduct must overbear defendant's "will to resist and bring about confessions not freely self-determined" [internal quotation marks omitted]). If the police conduct is insufficient to overcome the defendant's capacity to resist but the defendant still elects to confess, due process is not offended." (Gideon, 1) In this case, the psychological impact of an act of deception by the officer would provoke a voluntary confession from Smith. It seems a far reach to make the argument that the defendant's will had been overborne in this case, given that even in the context of the exchange in which he was threatened, the other officer present confirmed his right to the presence of an attorney.

Moreover and most damning to Smith's defense is the fact that deception itself does not constitute such an act of overbearing of one's will. To subject the individual to intensive interrogation absent a requested attorney, to engage acts of physical abuse or to otherwise impose upon the defendant especially to the extent that a false confession is likely to have been elicited may be said to constitute police coercion. And further, in this case as we have discussed, the fact that Smith is a minor may constitute a lower standard in terms of defining that which may be classified as coercion.

However, referring once again to the opinion from the State v. DeAngelis 200 Conn. 224, 232-33 (1986), we find that deception itself is not an illegal act on the part of the officer and does not constitute a cause of the inadmissibility of evidence either. To the point, the opinion would note that "although we find no causal relationship between the defendant's confession and the police conduct under the facts of this case, we note that 'even where there is causal connection between police misconduct and a defendant's confession, it does not automatically follow that there has been a violation of the Due Process Clause. See, e.g., Frazier v. Cupp, [supra, 394 U.S. 731, 739].' Colorado v. Connelly, supra, 479 U.S. 164 n.2. For instance, in Frazier, even if the defendant would not have confessed but for the police statement about his associate's inculpatory remarks, the confession was not thereby rendered involuntary." (Gideon, 1) The conditions of Smith's case suggest in particular that such a precedent could be applied.

This is based on an explicit judiciary history arming police officers with the stated and defended right to use deception and lies as a method of interrogation or in the yielding of information. So would this be federally defined initially in the United States Supreme Court in 1969, which "ruled that the Police can lie to you in order to extract a confession, Frazier v. Cupp, 394 U.S. 731, 739 (1969). The only place an officer cannot lie is while testifying under oath in court, and criminal defense attorneys occasionally catch an officer lying, even on the witness stand. Police are only required to advise you of your Constitutional rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, if you are in custody and being interrogated about the offense for which you are being confined." (McKibben, 1)

This would significantly limit that which may be characterized as police coercion in the realm of psychological manipulation and trickery such as was clearly committed here. The fact that this clearly intimidated Smith probably doesn't qualify as an overwhelming force. But there may be an exception of use to those charged with the difficult task of seeing Smith's confession ruled as inadmissible. That is to say that the semantic nature of this threat -- which was a fundamental and borderline explicit distortion of the legal rights of the accused -- may make it 'extrinsic' to the case. According to DiPietro (1993) "trickery that introduces extrinsic considerations is far more likely to invalidate a confession. For example, in Lynumn v. Illinois,(13) police told a female suspect that she was in jeopardy of losing welfare benefits and custody of her children, but offered to recommend leniency if she would confess. The court ruled that the police impaired her free choice by going beyond the evidence connecting her to the crime and introducing a completely extrinsic consideration in the form of an empty but plausible threat to take away something to which she and her children would otherwise be entitled." (DiPietro, 1)