Conference turris::womannotes-v3

>                       <<< Note 747.0 by MLTVAX::DUNNE >>>
>            -< Supreme Court Decision: Forced Confessions Are OK! >-

>    I read today that the Supreme Court has decided that cases can't
>    be dismissed if confessions on the part of the defendants were forced. 

The total ruling states that if the confession was falsely obtained(that 
doesn't always mean it was beaten out of them, although it often is :-( )
*BUT* there was enough evidence to convict without the confession the case 
wouldn't *AUTOMATICLY* get overturned. This has happened in cases where the
only impropriety was that the police failed to have the lawyer present when 
the confession was given, even though there were witnesses, a smoking knife
and a video tape or somesuch. 
There have been too many cases where the police used force and they(the 
police) should be held accountable, but the ruling has enough safe guards
in the form of "other evidence required". (I hope)
Amos
    

    re .0
    
    You said the vote was 8-1
    That would include some stauch, stauch civil libertarians including
    Thurgood Marshall and Brennan (he IS still on the court isn't he)
    
    (I'm surprised that Wizzer White opposed.)

  I believe the vote was 5-4 (with David Souter casting his vote with
  the majority).

  I think it stinks.  Now, police could reason that there's no harm in 
  beating a confession out of someone.  If the court throws it out, they'll
  just continue the prosecution on the basis of the other evidence.

  What was the behavior under the old law in such cases?  Did the defendent
  get another trial or was s/he declared innocent by reason of sloppy
  police work?  I think a new trial would be the right thing in the case
  Vic mentions (failing to have a lawyer present during the confession).

  JP

    5-4 eh!
    now THAT's much more interesting!
    
    Looks like that gets to be a liberal/conservative battle real quick.
    
    Well, the liberals have had THEIR day since c1954 (the Warren court).
    So, the Democrats ran the country from 32-68 and their appointees
    essentially ran the court from -say- early fifties to -say- now.
    The Republicans ran the country from 1968-now (except for Jimmy) and
    will probably be running the supreme court for the next coupla decades
    at least. (for better or worse).
    

	The SCotUS did *not* rule that forced confessions are OK.

	The ruling simply means that if a confession is found to be
	forced, it can be disregarded and the trial can proceed.

	I heard a lot about this on WBZ last night. As I understand it,
	a man was convicted of forcing his stepdaughter to beg for her 
	life, then raped then killed her. The man was placed in a cell
	with a cell mate who was really a police informant. This informant
	told the man about what happens to molesters in prison. The
	informant then offered to protect the man in prison if he told
	him what really happened. This confession, and a later confession
	to the informant's wife formed the basis of the conviction.

	There were actually 3 decisions of the SCotUS, all by 5-4 votes,
	each decision with a different Justice providing the deciding vote:

	First, is such a confession to be considered coerced? SCotUS ruled 
	yes, 5-4.

	Second, should such an error, be considered always too harmful to 
	permit a conviction? SCotUS ruled no, 5-4.

	Third, in this case, was this particular error too harmful to permit 
	a conviction. SCotUS ruled yes, 5-4.

	They didn't beat this guy into confessing. And as far as I can tell,
	all the ruling means is that if a coerced confession is entered into
	evidence, it is not enough grounds for a automatic mistrial. The
	jury gets told to disregard that evidence (happens all the time with
	other evidence) and the trial proceeds.

						Tom_K

The vote was 5-4 along "conservative"/"liberal" lines with Souter joining the
conservative majority.

The issue is whether a forced confession is so prejudicial that a new trial is
always needed. The precedent was that it was. That hearing a confession so
tainted a jury that it would be impossible for them to disregard it and give
the defendant a fair trial. A forced confession always caused a mistrial (along
with failure to appoint counsel, and one other error that I can't remember right
now.) There were only three such circumstances, and there was 50 years of
precedent behind them.

I claim that as bad as this particular decision is, what's worse is that it
shows that the court is willing, in some circumstances, to ignore precedent in
determining cases. Given that one of the strongest arguments for upholding
Roe v. Wade is precedent, this bodes ill for abortion rights.

I also have a very bad feeling about the upcoming makeup of the court. The
four "liberal" justices are all getting old. Very old in some cases. I just hope
they can hold out till we have a less conservative white house, but I'm  not
holding my breath. I have the sinking feeling that we are entering a very long
period of erosion of personal and civil rights by a "conservative" supreme
court. Very long period as in forty years.

Did *you* vote for Regan? Did *you* vote for Bush?

	-- Charles

    One thing police officers get pounded (figuratively) into their
    heads is Fruit of the Forbidden Tree is Forbidden.  If a search
    is illegal, or a confession is coerced, then any evidence that is
    obtained as a result of that search or confession is also inadmissible.
    Watching an entire case evaporate is a very salutory experience for
    a policeman.
    
    I agree that independantly-obtained evidence should not be disallowed,
    and could form the basis for a valid conviction, but in a lot of
    cases, everything depends from the confession, and that all goes.
    
    					Ann B.

    re .6 
    one should no more be surprised that a bi from San Francisco bemoans
    the latest ruling as the end of the liberal court 
    
    than one should be surprised if NRA 'types' applaud this latest development.

	Have to agree with Charles that things look bad for respecting 
	precedent. It was reported that in his dissent, Justice White
	(by no means a liberal) decried that precedent had been wiped
	out with out a word of reasoning.

					Tom_K

    and I thought that
    
    stare decisis was thought to be a conservative cornerstone, that might
    mitigate against some of the more neanderthal (:-) inclinations of the
    new majority

> and I thought that stare decisis was thought to be a conservative cornerstone,
> that might mitigate against some of the more neanderthal (:-) inclinations of
> the new majority

Indeed, and I find the court's recent legislation all the more disturbing since
strict constructionism is supposed to be a "conservative" trait. Hah. We'll see.

Oh Herb - there are many very conservative bi's and gays, even here in the bay
area. I'd appreciate it if you would avoid linking my sexuality and my politics,
no matter how respectfully, it is a particular hot button with me.

	-- Charles

[Header at end. Reprinted with permission.]

	Supreme Court: Coerced confessions do not bar convictions
                        By GREG HENDERSON
	WASHINGTON (UPI) -- The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a confession
coerced by police or others and admitted at trial does not automatically
bar a guilty verdict as long as other evidence is deemed sufficient to
convict a suspect.
	The court, in a 5-4 ruling that marked a major philosophical shift in
the rights of criminal suspects, said a confession that is illegally
obtained -- such as through the use of physical force or intimidation --
does not automatically disqualify prosecution and can be considered 
``harmless error'' that was incorrectly admitted at trial but does not
require overturning a conviction.
	The court for decades had held that a coerced confession disallowed a
conviction because it violated the due process clause of the 14th
Amendment.
	Tuesday's ruling, backed by Chief Justice William Rehnquist and all
four of the justices appointed to the court by Presidents Ronald Reagan
and George Bush, also reversed an exception to the ``harmless error''
rule adopted by the high court in 1967.
	In the so-called Chapman case that term, the court said there are
three situations so grievous to a defendant that they never can be
deemed ``harmless error'' and always require that a conviction to be
overturned: the court's failure to appoint an attorney, a biased judge,
or a coerced confession.
	Tuesday's ruling left only two exceptions to the rule.
	``The admission of an involuntary confession is a 'trial error,'
similar in both degree and kind to the erroneous admission of other
types of evidence,'' wrote Rehnquist, joined by justices Sandra Day
O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and David Souter.
	Justice Byron White, in a dissent joined by Justices Thurgood
Marshall, Harry Blackmun and John Paul Stevens, said the majority 
``without any justification ... overrules this vast body of precedent
without a word and in so doing dislodges one of the fundamental tenets
of our criminal justice system.''
	``A coerced confession is fundamentally different from other types of
erroneously admitted evidence to which the (harmless error) rule has
been applied,'' wrote White.
	The decision means that while a coerced confession in the past was
grounds for automatic dismissal of a conviction, an appeals court now
can decide on a case-by-case basis if other evidence was sufficient to
convict and allow the guilty verdict to stand.
	The rationale had been that it is virtually impossible for an appeals
court to gauge the impact of a confession on a jury, and so an illegally
obtained confession always required throwing out a conviction to protect
the rights of the accused.
	``Where, as here, a coerced confession constitutes a part of the
evidence before the jury and a general verdict is returned, no one can
say what credit and weight the jury gave to the confession,'' White
wrote, quoting from an earlier decision.
	``Permitting a coerced confession to be part of the evidence on which
a jury is free to base its verdict of guilty is inconsistent with the
thesis that ours is not an inquisitorial system of criminal justice,''
wrote White.
	Tuesday's surprise ruling came in a case involving Oreste Fulminante,
an Arizona man convicted of killing his stepdaughter after an FBI
informant in prison got him to confess the crime in return for
protection from other prisoners.
	Fulminante, who later also confessed to the FBI informant's fiancee,
claimed at appeal that the first confession was coerced and the second
was the ``fruit'' of the first. The Arizona Supreme Court ultimately
found that the first confession was coerced and therefore inadmissible
at trial, and required a new trial without the use of that confession.
	Ironically, the Supreme Court Tuesday -- while declaring that such a
conviction could at times be upheld -- ruled in this case that there was
not enough other evidence in this case to convict without the
confession.
	Five justices, White, Marshall, Blackmun, Stevens and Kennedy, thus
voted to reverse Fulminante's conviction.
	If Arizona decides to try him again, it must do so without use of his
prison confession.
 ------
 89-839 State of Arizona vs. Oreste C. Fulminante


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Subject: LEAD: 	Supreme Court: Coerced confessions do not bar convictions
Keywords: supreme court, legal, civil rights, social issues,
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 91 13:12:38 EST
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    re .11
    point noted. Will do!

    Herb,
    
    Are you being intentionally offensive today?  I am afraid that I view
    your stereotyping of NRA members as an almost personal attack.  For
    what it is worth I am an NRA member, and also very upset about the
    current make up of the court.  I see this ruling as another attack on
    the Bill of Rights, and fear that this court may just send us back to
    the reproductive dark ages.
    
    
    Meg

    <are you being intentionally offensive>
    
    perhaps, i'm not aware of it.
    
    I'm sorry you consider it a personal attack. I'm telling you how I
    feel. I believe that these feelings -about discounting what special
    interest people have to say on *that* special interest- are wide
    spread, and distinctly human.
    

    furthermore, many 'discussions' involving conflicting 'special
    interests' are really based on profoundly differing value systems.
    I believe that if people spent more time trying to articulate and
    understand each other's value system (in particular, where conflicting
    priorities appear) and less time in polemics about why some 'inference'
    about the value system is right or wrong, we would be in much better
    shape.

    These are PROFOUNDLY held value systems that have VERY, VERY little to
    do with rigorous thinking/analysis. Typically -in my opinion- any
    attempt at reasoning is a postiori; I would characterize this
    'reasoning' as disingenuous except that I don't think most people are
    aware that we do it.
    
    In particular, 
    there is a certain value system (or subset of a value system associated
    with the 'right to life'
    similarly
    there is a certain value system (or subset of a value system) associated
    'freedom of choice'

    I think members of each group above characterize some values as HIGHER
    than other values. This is where the conflict happens as far as I can
    see.


    If I can oversimplify the arm vs disarm discussions a bit...

    i believe that most 'right to bear arms folks would say something like
    the gun deaths are a price that our society has to pay for the freedom
    we must retain to bear arms.

    I believe that most 'disarmers' would say something like disarming
    America is a small enough price to pay to improve the safety for all
    Americans.

    These are fundamental values it seems to me, that are totally incapable
    of being resolved. So instead people thrash about with arguments about
    whether gun control will or will not work. When what they are really
    feeling is something rather more like...
    
    a) I am SICK of the infringements on personal freedom or
    b) I am SICK of the bloodletting

    re: .7
    
    Ann,
    
    the fruit of the poison tree concept is being eroded too.  it has
    recently been discussed that if a police officer is acting in GOOD
    FAITH, never mind about probable cause (the tougher standard), then the
    evidence could be admitted into the case.
    
    i don't think that this has reached the court yet, but it mostt surely
    will before too long with the current climate of feeling that criminals
    get off on technicalities too much.  So much for protecting defendants
    right to a fair trial, innocent until proven guilty, etc.
    
    sue

	I don't think it is so much an erosion in protecting a defendants
	right to a fair trial so much as a question of what determines
	a fair trial. 

	A trial should establish the facts of a case. Facts are facts
	regardless of how they are obtained, and relevant facts ought
	to be entered as evidence.

	I think it would be better to deter abuse by imposing severe
	punishments for police who obtain evidence through illegal means.


					Tom_K

Tom_K,
I do understand the concern about letting creeps off on technicalities.  But it
seems to me that the police have much power, and it is so easily abused -- the
taped beating in LA is a case in point, as is the one in NYC where the police
alleged that the suspect staved in his own skull -- that you and I need the
guarantees of protection against such abuse.  It is for this, partly, that we
fought a Revolution two centuries ago.

It was not for no-knock searches, RICO (whether against potsmokers or against
prolifers), zero-tolerance seizures, coerced confessions.

If the police abuse you, break your skull in 9 places, maybe leave you with
permanent disabilities, will it really suffice in your eyes that eventually
enough police will be punished for such actions that most will be much more
careful?

Justice is hard, and finding a just path to it is harder.  I do not want to
become a criminal to end crime, an oppressor to end oppression.

Sara

>If the police abuse you, break your skull in 9 places, maybe leave you with
>permanent disabilities, will it really suffice in your eyes that eventually
>enough police will be punished for such actions that most will be much more
>careful?

	Not being in that situation I don't know. But right now I'd say
	yes, provided that the punishment meted out to the police included
	abusing them, breaking their skull in 9 places, and maybe leaving
	them with permanent disabilities. I think that would deter future
	abuse.


>Justice is hard, and finding a just path to it is harder.

	Amen.

		Tom_K

Come on now, stop groaning...

Seriously, if we consider:

	Justice Byron White, in a dissent joined by Justices Thurgood
Marshall, Harry Blackmun and John Paul Stevens, said the majority 
``without any justification ... overrules this vast body of precedent
without a word and in so doing dislodges one of the fundamental tenets
of our criminal justice system.''

Now suppose that you are an attorney who wishes precedent to be ignored in order
to win the client's case.  Do you tell the jury that this is o.k. by citing
this ruling (precedent)?

If you're the opposing attorney, do you then suggest to the jury that it's
rediculous to argue for ignoring precedent by citing precedent?

In other words, how do you get this concept into play in the courtroom without
citing precedent?

IMO, this product of the rulings is a self-contained oxymoron.  Eeekkk!  It
makes my head hurt?

Barb

p.s. Is it true that the English system of law works on the presumption of
guilt?  How does that work out for people?

    it overrules existing precedent on this matter while at the same time
    establishing new law. 
    The new law is NOT that all precedent should be ignored, it is instead
    that precedent on THIS matter was wrong.

No arguments or words about precedent - that's what White was so upset about.

Just IGNORED precedent.  There is a difference, however subtle.

Barb

	Right, but it makes no attempt to explain *why* the previous
	precedent was wrong. Overruling precedent isn't always bad, 
	if precedent wasn't reversed, segregated schools would still
	be legal. But when a precedent is reversed, I'd think that 
	it would be nice to show the logic and legal reasoning used
	to reverse the precedent.

				Tom_K

    RE: .18
    
    >I don't think it is so much an erosion in protecting a defendant's
    >right to a fair trial so much as a question of what determines
    >a fair trial.
    
    Tom,
    
    I don't think it is so much an erosion in protecting a defendant's
    right to a fair trial OR a question of what determines a fair
    trial. I think it's a question of an erosion in the protection
    of a defendant's human right not to be coerced into endangering
    him or herself.
    
    >A trial should establish the facts of a case. Facts are facts
    >regardless of how they are obtained.
    
    I don't understand how facts are related to this subject at all.
    The Supreme Court ruled that coercion of defendants is "harmless." 
    I think that's a very serious erosion of a citizen's individual human
    right to freedom from injury by the government or its agents. 
    
    The U.S. Senate just ratified a U.N. Convention against Torture. Are
    the 5 Supreme Court justices trying to say they're for it? 
    
    Eileen

>    The Supreme Court ruled that coercion of defendants is "harmless." 

 No they did not. They ruled that the fact that a defendant's confession
was coerced was not in and of itself sufficient grounds for a new trial when
the body of evidence excluding the confession was sufficient to support a guilty
verdict on its own. That's more than a semantic difference.

    Re Note 747.21 by BATRI::MARCUS "This space left intentionally blank..." 

    > Is it true that the English system of law works on the presumption of
    > guilt?  

    No.

    That's the French system, je pense.  - Vick

    RE: .26
    
    See Charles' typed-in article in .12. This is also what I read.
    Thanks, Charles, for typing it in.
    
    Eileen
    

    See Charles' typed-in article in .12. This is also what I read.
    Thanks, Charles, for typing it in.

While I'd like to take credit for the wonderful typing job, in fact I just
copied it from my electronic news source - Clarinet. See the headers at the
end. If you read news you too can get Clarinet - it's the clari.* heirarchy.

Questions and comments about Clarinet should go in some other topic.

	-- Charles