Confessions

Question 1

Overview

Answer 1

Three fedearl constitutional challenges that can be brought to exclude a confession:

1. 14th Amend due process clause
2. sixth amendment right to counsel
3. Fifth Amendment Miranda Doctrine

Question 2

Excluding Confessions under Due Process

Answer 2

• Involuntariness, which means the confession is the product of police coercion that overbears the suspect’s will
• In GA, a confession alone, uncorroborated by other evidence, cannot justify a conviction

Question 3

Right to Counsel Under Sixth Amendment

Answer 3

• Express: An express constitutional guarantee
• Formally Charged: It attaches when the defendant is formally charged, not upon arrest
• Critical Stages: It applies at all criticals stages of the procesuction that take place after the filing of formal charges including araignment, probable cause hearings and police interrogation
• Offense Specific: it applies only to the crimes with which a defendant is formally charged. It provides no protection for uncounseled interrogation for other uncharged criminal activity
• Deliberately goaded: incriminating statements violate sixth if those statements are deliberately goaded and the defendant did not knowingly intelligently and voluntarily waive his right to an attorney

Question 4

Miranda Doctrine: Implied Rights

Answer 4

IMplied rights groundeed in the self-incrimination clause of the 5th Amednment

Question 5

Four core miranda warnings

Answer 5

1. Right to remain silent
2. anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law
3. the right to an attorney
4. if you cannot afford one, an attorney will be appointed for you

Question 6

When are miranda warning necessary?

Answer 6

Custody

Interrogation

Question 7

Custody

Answer 7

A two-part totality of the circumstances test used:

1. Whether a reasonable person would have felt that she was not a liberty to end the interrogation and leave AND
2. whether the environment presents the same inherently coercive pressures as the station house questioning at issue in Miranda

• Age and Custody: While inquiry is objective, should take account of a juvenile’s suspects age, where age is relevant and when the officer knew or should have been aware of a child’s age at the time of questioning

Question 8

Interrogation

Answer 8

Fifth amendment miranda doctrine defines interrogation as any conduct the police knew or should have known was likely to elicit an incriminating response

Remember–does not apply to incriminating statements made spontaneously since not product of interrogation

Question 9

Public Safety Exception

Answer 9

• if a suspect is subjected to custodial interrogation, Miranda applies with one excpetion:
• if cutodial interrogation prompted for public safety reasons, Miranda warning unnecessary and any incriminating statements are admissible.

Question 10

Communicating Miranda Rights

Answer 10

• Unless the public safety exception applies, a suspect’s incriminating testimonial repsonses obtained through custodial interrogation are admissible only if an officer:
  
  • reasonably conveys to the suspect his or her core Miranda rights AND
  • thereafter obtain a valid waiver of a suspect’s Miranda Rights to silence and counsel

Question 11

Two Core Requirements for a valid Miranda Waiver

Answer 11

1. Knowing and Intelligent. Suspect must understand:
   
   • the nature of hte rights AND
   • the consequences of abandoning them
2. Voluntary: Voluntary if it is not the product of police coercion

Question 12

Executing the waiver

Answer 12

Waiver need not be express. May be implied by a course of conduct that indicates desire to speak with interrogators

if you receive miranda warning and understand it, and continue to speak by uncoerced action, than you waive your miranda rights

Question 13

Burden of Proof on Miranda Waiver

Answer 13

Prosecutor bears the burden of proving a valid waiver by preponderance of the evidence

Question 14

Invoking the Right to remain silent

Answer 14

• must unambiguously invoke their right
• Once invoked, must scrupously honor that right
  
  • cannot badger a suspect
  • must wait a significant time before reinitiating question and must first obtain a valid miranda wiaver

Question 15

Invoking Right to counsel

Answer 15

• Must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable officer in the same situation would understand the statement
• ONce invoked, all interrogations must cease unless the suspect initates them
• Not offense-specific–means all topics prohibited
• Expires 14 days after a suspect is released from custody. Waiver after this period is valid provided it is knowing intelligent and voluntary

Question 16

Limitations on evidentiary exclusion as applied to miranda violations

Answer 16

1. incriminating statements obtained in violation of suspect’s Miranda rights are inadmissible in the prosecutors case in cheif but may be used to impeach the defendant’s testimony on cross but not the testimony of a 3p witness
2. Failure to give a suspect Miranda warnings does NOT require the suppression of the physical fruits of incriminating statements, provided the statements are voluntary.
3. If a statement is inadmissible due to a Miranda violation, subsequent incriminating statements made after obtaining a Miranda waiver are admissible, provided the initial, non- Mirandized statement was not obtained through the use of inherently coercive police tactics or methods offensive to due process.
4. testimonial evidence that should have been excluded as violative of Miranda was improperly admitted at trial and the defendant was convicted, is the court required to vacate the guilty verdict?
   It depends. The guilty verdict will stand if the government can
   prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that _the error was harmless
   because the defendant would have been convicted withou_t
   the tainted evidence.