Criminal Justice: Rule Selection and Interpretation - Case Study Example

?Criminal Justice: “No Free Lunch Issue The issue specified for the first questions is: Whether or not Chuck’s ment, “I was just the lookout man,” falls under the protection of the Fifth Amendment. The crux of the issue lies in the possibility that Chuck was put in a situation by police officers that forced him to admit participation in a crime, contrary to the guarantees by the Fifth Amendment. As a result of his statement that he was the lookout man for a drug operation, he was arrested subsequently and charged with conspirancy to distribute heroin. Rule selection and interpretation The provision to be applied in this issue is the Fifth Amendment, the relevant aspect of which deals with the constitutional right of any individual to the due process of law, as well as to be free from being compelled to be a witness or otherwise provide incriminating evidence against himself. To ‘plead the Fifth’ means to invoke the protections of the Fifth Amendment, which in this case would pertain to the protection of witnesses against being forced to yield testimony that may be self-incriminating. The protection is built into the Miranda1 rights which include the right to remain silent. Anything the accused says of his own volition could possibly be used as evidence against him in court. Under the Miranda ruling, the following safeguards must be observed: 1. If a person in custody is to be subjected to interrogation, he must first be informed in clear and unequivocal terms that he has the right to remain silent and the right to counsel, which will be provided him if he cannot afford one. 2. An express waiver of any rights must be made by the defendant; a waiver cannot be assumed or implied from his silence to ask for counsel. Jurisprudence provides helpful insight into the case, specifically Miranda v Arizona (1966) and Oregon v Mathiason, (1977). These shall provide the case law governing interpretation of the facts in light of the issue. Application of the rule to the facts of the case According to the facts of the case, San Francisco Police Officer Cheever was investigating the drug syndicate, VG, and learned that one of its members, Hardluck Chuck, had a falling out with it. Cheever located Chuck and offered to buy him lunch. When Chuck agreed, Cheever brought him to an abandoned warehouse where he left Chuck with Police Officer Friendly. Cheever left Chuck with Friendly to get the meal; during that time Chuck asked if he could leave, and Officer Friendly said he was free to go but if he left they could not buy him lunch. Cheever returned with the food, put it on the table, and told Chuck to tell them about VG first. Chuck fell silent, at which time Cheever and Friendly conversed about how many kids overdose on heroin. Chuck responded: “Okay, but I want you to know I was just the lookout man.” Chuck then provided information on VG. Afterwards, Chuck was arrested and charged with conspiracy to distribute heroin. The first defense that may be raised in this case is that Chuck had not been read his rights as required pursuant to the Miranda doctrine, as described in the prior section. It must be noted, however, that there was no need to read Chuck his rights, as he was not a suspect under custodial interrogation at the time he made the statement. Chuck had not been arrested, nor was he being asked to admit culpability in anything. His questioning was as a potential informant, as the interest of Cheever was to find out about VG’s activities. Only after Chuck issued his statement did he become a suspect and was therefore arrested, during which time he would have been read his right to keep silent and to counsel. The second defense is that Chuck’s statement may not be used against him because it would violate his right against self-incrimination. The fact that Chuck’s statement was self-incriminating, however, does not make it inadmissible on this basis, because he was not forced to make any such admission. Chuck was not even asked about his participation in any crime; he was asked to divulge to the officers what he knew about VG. “Volunteered statements of any kind are not barred by the Fifth Amendment and their admissibility is not affected by our holding today.”2 Where the statement is made freely and voluntarily, it should therefore be admitted into evidence. Defense may also argue the presence of compulsion, because the questioning was conducted in an intimidating environment (i.e., an abandoned warehouse). The Miranda ruling established rules of police procedure that must be observed prior to conducting a custodial interrogation. “By custodial interrogation, we mean questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way.”3 Noncustodial situations are not converted to one where Miranda applies merely because the questioning took place in a ‘coercive environment’ – despite the absence of a formal arrest or restraint on freedom of movement. Any interview of a suspect is bound to have some coercive aspects simply because the person asking the questions is a police officer.4 ‘Police officers are not required to administer Miranda warnings to be imposed simply because the questioning takes place in the station house, or because the questioned person is one whom the police suspect. Miranda warnings are required only where there has been such a restriction on a person’s freedom as to render him ‘in custody.’ It was that sort of coercive environment to which Miranda by its terms was made applicable, and to which it is limited.’5 The matter of coercion shall be further discussed in the next issue. The Miranda doctrine was issued by the Court in order to provide a procedural guide to ensure due process, to ascertain that the customer is informed of his rights before he may be subjected to custodial interrogation, and to prevent abusive exercise of power by the authorities against an individual whose liberty of movement has already been curtailed. Miranda was never meant, however, to impose restraints upon the just and proper use of police investigative powers, and in the absence of intimidation or coercion, a person’s freely issued statement may be used against him in a court of law. Conclusion The statement made by Chuck that he “was just the lookout man” is a self-incriminating statement because it affirmed his culpable involvement in a criminal act. However, it does not fall under the protection of the Fifth Amendment, because there is nothing in the law that prohibits the admissibility into evidence of a confession of guilt voluntarily given. What the Fifth Amendment disallows is the compulsion exerted upon an individual to admit, against his will, his commission of a crime. In this case, inasmuch as the officers did not perform any act to forcibly elicit the statement. Furthermore, there was no procedural lapse in the fact that Chuck was not read his Miranda rights prior to his issuance of the self-incriminating statement, due to the fact that Chuck was not under arrest at the time, nor was he unduly restrained against his will. His interview was not a custodial interrogation, but an interview as an informant. Criminal Justice: “No Free Lunch” (2) Issue 2: The issue posited by the second question is: Whether or not the statement provided by Chuck, i.e. “I was just the lookout man,” was a coerced confession. The matter of coercion shall be verified from the circumstances attendant to the conversation among Chuck, Cheever and Friendly, whether such circumstances showed that Officers Cheever and Friendly exerted undue force or intimidation upon Chuck to cause him to issue the statement against his free volition. Rule selection and interpretation Under the Fifth Amendment, a coerced confession is inadmissible into evidence. Determining whether or not a confession is coerced or voluntary, however, is a matter of procedure for which reason relevant case law should be referred to in this issue. The court’s past rulings as to what constitutes coerced confession must be controlling on the basis of stare decisis. Application of the rules to the facts The facts of the case also pertain to the same facts as related in Issue 1. The pertinent details include the manner in which Chuck was held and the use of food (knowing Chuck to have not eaten in days) as factors showing coercion. In this case, coercion might be argued by the defense from the fact that Chuck had been brought to a secluded place, guarded by Officer Friendly, and therefore might have been intimidated to confess. It may also have been argued that Chuck had been psychologically pressured to confess because of the lure of food to a man who had not eaten in several days. While case law provides that coercion may involve subtle psychological pressure rather than overt signs of physical aggression, not all manner of mental compulsion is necessarily coercion. The presence of a “substantial element of coercive police conduct”6 must be established, since the Fifth Amendment privilege does not concern itself with “moral and psychological pressures to confess emanating from sources other than official coercion.”7 “[A] defendant’s mental condition, by itself and apart from its relation to official coercion, [does not justify disposing] of the inquiry into constitutional ‘voluntariness’… Some sort of ‘state action’ [is required] to support a claim of violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment…[There must exist an] essential link between coercive activity of the State, on the one hand, and a resulting confession by a defendant, on the other.”8 Firstly, the fact that Chuck was led to a secluded place the main entrance to which was locked, and that Friendly sat at the entrance to the room’s door, are not sufficiently severe as to be adjudged coercive. When Chuck asked to leave several times, Friendly did not stop him and even informed him that he may leave freely, but merely reminded him that if he leaves early, he cannot be fed, which is just a logical statement. Besides, the main entrance though locked by Cheever may be opened by Friendly from the inside. The fact that the main entrance was locked is also reasonable because Chuck, witnessing against the VG, should be protected against the syndicate, for which some level of secrecy is involved. Therefore, there is nothing inconsistent in the situation with the fact that Cheever and Friendly needed utmost discretion in gaining information from an informant. Second, in this case, there is no connection between Chuck’s statement that he acted as lookout, and the actions of the officers towards him. Nor is the statement coercive that if he does not answer their questions, they could not buy food for him. This is because the officers were asking Chuck not to admit to any felony, but to inform them about the VG. There was no indication that they were interrogating him as a suspect, but were questioning him on his knowledge about the VG. He was not a suspect, but an informer, and the food was to entice him to talk about VG, not to admit to any wrongdoing. This case is very similar to Rhode Island vs. Innis, where officers were conversing with each other when the accused interrupted them to give an unsolicited incriminating statement. In this regard, the definition of an interrogation became the issue, because the Miranda rights apply during custodial interrogation. The Court held that: “[S]ince the police cannot be held accountable for the unforeseeable results of their words or actions, the definition of interrogation can extend only to words or actions on the part of police officers that they should have known were reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response.”9 In this present case: (1) The conversation between Cheever and Friendly included no express questioning of the respondent. (2) The conversation was nothing more than a dialogue between the two men, to which no response from the respondent was needed or invited. (3) It cannot be concluded that Cheever and Friendly knew that their conversation will most likely elicit a response from the respondent, much less one that was incriminatory. (4) There is no indication that the officers knew that their conversation about children overdosing on heroin would appeal to the respondent’s conscience and cause him to react. Thus, the event cannot be an interrogation within the contemplation of Miranda. Conclusion To the proposition that Chuck’s confession was coerce, the Court must rule in the negative. Chuck’s statement must be deemed voluntary and rendered without coercion, because the police officers did not perform any act that forced or intimidated Chuck into admitting what he did to aid the crime’s execution. Chuck was asked to tell them what he knew about the VG, which he could have done without implicating himself. That he admitted he stood as lookout was not intended nor prompted by the discussion between the officers. Chuck’s rights under the Miranda doctrine were not transgressed, and thus his admission to the officers of his role in the VG’s activities must be admitted into evidence against him. Read More