Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 27, 1991 TAG: 9103270460
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/4 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
"It defies logic," said Sam Dash, a Georgetown University professor who has been both a prosecutor and a defense attorney. "A confession beaten out of someone or through psychological pressures . . . has historically always been excluded from trial."
The 5-4 Supreme Court decision Tuesday, written by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, said using coerced confessions may be "harmless error" and therefore would not automatically require a new trial if other evidence was sufficient to convict the defendant.
The decision doesn't welcome coerced confessions into court, but admission of such a confession into evidence previously was cause to overturn a conviction, no matter what other evidence existed.
At the same time, the justices upheld rulings requiring a new trial for Oreste Fulminante of Arizona, who was charged with killing his 11-year-old stepdaughter. The court found that in Fulminante's case, the use of his coerced confession could not be ruled harmless and therefore he was entitled to a new trial.
The Justice Department, which filed a brief and gave oral arguments on the case, hailed the court's decision on the coerced confession issue.
"We're pleased that the Supreme Court agreed with our submission that trial errors should not automatically lead to a reversal of a conviction even when the error is the admission of an involuntary confession," a department official said.
But critics said the power of a confession to sway a jury cannot be underestimated.
"There is no way to really ever assess the impact of a confession on a jury," said Jeffrey Weiner, president-elect of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. "There's no way to say that it did not impact them and the conviction was based on other evidence, except in the rarest of cases."
Dash, who served as chief counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee in the 1970s, noted that the decision reverses years of judicial precedent.
"I think it's a very dangerous view by the court," Dash said.
"Almost every court that has ever considered coerced confessions has indicated a confession can never be harmless no matter how much other evidence there is because a jury is bound to put a great deal of weight on the confession," he said.
Rehnquist's decision, Dash said, is "very wrong and it defies logic to ever say that in a criminal trial a confession is a harmless error. That's a contradiction in terms."
Weiner, who practices law in Miami, said he viewed the decision as one "that will give comfort to police officers because they no longer need to be scrupulously certain that their actions result in confessions which are not coerced."
"It may be another example of police gaining more power, citizens losing another right that may never be restored," Weiner said.
"This isn't a rule that assists people that may be guilty. This is a rule that harms everyone because coerced confessions are not reliable confessions in most instances."
Several police organizations filed a joint friend-of-the-court brief urging the high court to make the decision it did on coerced confessions.
by CNB