Involuntary Statements

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

Does it matter that a statement is involuntary?

What’s so wrong about an involuntary statement? And why should courts suppress them under the voluntariness doctrine? Involuntary “confessions” are unreliable products of police imagination, and generally end the government’s search for the truth. If a false, involuntary statement of the person accused is excluded from evidence, a defense attorney can help his client win.

“Tell me what I want to hear, so we can move forward.”

How reliable is information under torture? And will the torture victim say whatever she thinks the torturer wants to hear? Will he say anything to make it stop. And will he say anything “to move forward?”

Laws concerning involuntary statements go back to ancient Rome. And American common law, comes from British common law; which in turn came from Roman common law. Further, Roman law had even older predecessors, including the laws of ancient Athens, Macedonia and Greece.

That’s about as common as law gets. So today, in Minnesota, the law remains. And involuntary statements are still unreliable and inadmissible in a trial. As often with the Common Law, Minnesota Statutes partially encode voluntariness law.

Voluntariness vs. Miranda

Compared to Miranda: First , let’s compare voluntariness with the more recent development of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (US Supreme Court 1966). The Miranda rights case stands for two things.

1. Defendant’s answers to police questions in custody are inadmissible, unless police inform of rights to attorney and silence.
2. And if the accused waived rights, that he understood the rights, and waiver was voluntary.

So a defense attorney can ask a court to suppress a statement police get in violation of Miranda.

But the voluntariness of a confession is a separate issue from the Miranda issue. Today we hear more about the Miranda warning. And most learn about Miranda from movies and television. This, thanks to pop culture mentions of the 1966 case.

But voluntariness law is more powerful than Miranda, with its ancient roots in the laws of humans. So humans have long known that an involuntary statement is unreliable.

The key differences between the two:

	Public Policy:	Remedy:
Miranda	Deter police misconduct	Exclusionary Rule
Voluntariness	Reliability (Truth)	Complete Suppression

Whose burden to prove voluntariness?

The government has the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant talked or confessed voluntarily.

What is an involuntary statement?

“A confession is not voluntary if the actions of the police, combined with the circumstances, are so coercive and intimidating that the defendant is unable to make a free-will decision. The actions of police need not be threats or deliberate intimidation to be coercive.”

M.A.K., 667 NW2d 467 (Minn. Court of Appeals 2003)

So, an inculpatory statement is only admissible if given voluntarily. See, Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U.S. 278 (US Supreme Court 1936); State v. Biron, 123 NW2d 392 (Minn. Supreme Court 1963).

We cannot trust an involuntary statement to be reliable.

Totality of Circumstances: involuntary statements

To determine if a statement was voluntary, the court considers the totality of the relevant circumstances. And this includes factors such as defendant characteristics:

• age,
• maturity,
• intelligence,
• education,
• experience, and
• ability to comprehend.

Police must not extract a confession by threats or obtain one via direct or implicit promises. Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1 (US Supreme Court 1964); Bram v. United States, 168 U.S. 532 (US Supreme Court 1897).

From the Defendant’s Point-of-View: The court determines the confession’s voluntariness by the defendant’s state of mind at the time.

So the court reviews the facts surrounding the confession, to determine how the defendant responded to these circumstances. And it decides whether the confession should then be found involuntary. See, Culombe v. Connecticut, 367 U.S. 568, 603 (US Supreme Court 1961).

What remedy for involuntary statements?

Common Law — “Cannot Be Given in Evidence.” Minn. Stat. § 634.03 requires that a court suppress an involuntary statement, for all purposes, including impeachment at trial.

Minn. Stat. § 634.03 titled “Confession, inadmissible when,” codifies the common law going back thousands of years. So this common law is more fundamental and predates constitutional law. And it continues today. It provides:

“A confession of the defendant shall not be sufficient to warrant conviction without evidence that the offense charged has been committed; nor can it be given in evidence against the defendant whether made in the course of judicial proceedings or to a private person, when made under the influence of fear produced by threats.”

Minn. Stat. § 634.03

Under the law and this statute, the involuntary statement cannot be used for any purpose, even impeachment.

The common law, from ancient times, and Constitutional law limiting confessions, recognize that involuntary confessions are unreliable. Even where corroboration exists for involuntary confessions, courts have suppressed them. And this reduces the general evil of allowing involuntary confessions (general deterrence). Moreover, it reduces the systemic risk of false confessions.

And Minn. Stat. § 634.03 also includes the current version of Minnesota’s corpus delicti statute, in relevant part, “A confession of the defendant shall not be sufficient to warrant conviction without evidence that the offense charged has been committed . . . .” Minn. Stat. § 634.03. In State v. Holl, 966 N.W.2d 803, 814 (Minn. Supreme Court 2021), the Minnesota Supreme Court interpreted the statute as “requir[ing] the State to present evidence independent of a confession that reasonably tends to prove that the specific crime charged in the complaint actually occurred.” The corpus delicti rule “seeks to ensure the State has established the occurrence of a crime before introducing the statements or confessions of the accused to demonstrate that the accused committed the crime.” Id. And it “discourages coercively acquired confessions and requires that admissions and confessions from defendants are reliable.”

No “custody” requirement

Custody status does not matter. And unlike Miranda cases, it makes no difference whether the defendant was “in custody.”

No “state actor” requirement

Also unlike Miranda, we do not need “state action” for application of this common law rule. Because, its purpose is not to deter police misconduct. Rather, its historic purpose is to improve reliability of verdicts, by excluding involuntary statements.

Juveniles & Involuntary Statements

Age and experience are among the factors that can make a statement involuntary. And another factor that can make a statement involuntary is deception, for example when a police investigator lies to a person claiming to have conclusive evidence of their guilt.

A 2024 Minnesota Statute partially addresses this specific problem in an effort to offer some protection for the innocent from the evils of involuntary confessions. Minnesota Statutes § 634.025 CONFESSION BY A JUVENILE; INADMISSIBLE WHEN DECEPTION IS USED:

(a) Any admission, confession, or statement, whether written or oral, made by a person under 18 years of age during a custodial interrogation by a law enforcement agency official or their agent, is presumed to have been made involuntarily and is inadmissible in any proceeding if, during the interrogation, a law enforcement agency official or that person’s agent:

(1) communicated information that an official or agent conducting or participating in the interrogation knew to be false if that information was about the existence or nature of evidence that a reasonable person would find to be material in assessing any suspected or alleged criminal conduct by the individual being interrogated; or

(2) communicated statements regarding leniency that the official or agent was not authorized to make.

Minnesota Statutes § 634.025

The quoted language of Minnesota Statutes § 634.025 (a) sounds good. But in the very next paragraph, in Minnesota Statutes § 634.025 (b), they create exceptions that may entirely swallow the rule. It says that a statement presumed involuntary after police lies or false promises, may be overcome if the state proves it was “voluntary, reliable, and not induced by any act described in paragraph (a),” or “prior to the first instance in which one of the acts described in paragraph (a) occurs,” or “if the evidence would have been discovered through independent lawful means or if knowledge of the evidence was acquired through an independent source.” Minn. Stat. § 634.025 (b).

Questions? Call Defense Attorney Thomas Gallagher, 612 333-1500

Your Criminal Lawyer: So if the prosecutor has your involuntary statement, what can you do? Alert your criminal defense attorney. And your criminal lawyer can look at the facts, and develop a pretrial motion to suppress the involuntary statements.

And the judge will hear the motion at the Contested Omnibus Hearing. So, if she agrees with your lawyer, she’ll completely suppress the involuntary statement. Then, the prosecutor won’t be able to use it at trial, or for any purpose.

Minnesota Criminal Lawyer Thomas Gallagher‘s three decades experience suppressing involuntary confessions could help you.

And his peers consider Attorney Gallagher an expert. In fact, Thomas Gallagher teaches Continuing Legal Education classes on confessions law to police officers, judges and other lawyers.

You deserve the best defense. So, call Minnesota Defense Attorney Thomas Gallagher about your case. You are welcome to call him about your case, retainer, or questions.

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