Interrogations-and-Confessions-Handbook

The American Law on Confessions 289
him to confess. 23 The Supreme Court of Colorado affirmed the decision, holding
that ‘the absence of police coercion or duress does not foreclose a finding
of involuntariness. One’s capacity for rational judgement and free choice may
be overborne as much by certain forms of severe mental illness as by external
pressure’. 24
The US Supreme Court reversed the judgment, holding that because there
was no police impropriety, neither Connolly’s confession nor his waiver of his
Miranda rights was involuntary within the meaning of the Due Process Clause
or the Fifth Amendment. Nevertheless, two of the justices dissented, pointing
out that Connelly had been denied ‘his fundamental right to make a vital choice
with a sane mind, involving a determination that the State could deprive him
of liberty or even life’, and that ‘a most basic sense of justice is affronted by
the spectacle of incarcerating a human being upon the basis of a statement he
made while insane’. 25
Hourihan (1995) provides an appraisal of the effects of Connelly. In Hourihan’s
view,
Concerns for reliability and preservation of ‘free will’ fell by the wayside as, in the
interests of administrative ease and consistency, courts were removed from the
business of looking into a defendant’s mind in order to determine the voluntariness
of his or her confession (p. 1503).
The implications for suspects suffering from mental illness and learning disability
(the term mental retardation is used in the USA) are far reaching and
serious. At the most basic level, without police impropriety, as legally defined
and construed, no psychologically vulnerable suspect could make an involuntary
confession. This is clearly a very unsatisfactory situation since psychological
vulnerabilities, as will be seen in later chapters of this book, are sometimes
crucial in producing unreliable confessions with or without police coercion.
As an example of the dangers and unfairness involved following Connelly,
Hourihan describes in detail the case of Earl Washington, arguing that the
case raises serious questions about whether the Fifth and 14th Amendment
protections are sufficient to prevent a miscarriage of justice in cases of mentally
retarded defendants (Hourihan, 1995; White, 1997).
Earl Washington was a mentally retarded man who was convicted and sentenced
to death for murder and rape. He recanted his confession and appealed
on the grounds that he had not voluntarily confessed or waived his Miranda
rights knowingly or intelligently. The Virginia Supreme Court supported the
decision of the trial judge and ruled that Washington had made knowing and
intelligent waivers and that his admissions were obtained voluntarily. The evidence
produced to support the view that Washington had properly waived his
Miranda rights related to his giving ‘yes, sir’ responses when asked if he knew
he was waiving his constitutional rights.
23 Colorado v. Connelly, 479 US at 162.
24 Colorado v. Connelly, 479 US at 162.
25 Colorado v. Connelly, 479 US 157, 174 (1986) (Brennan, J., dissenting) (citing Blackburn v.
Alabama, 361 US 199 (1960).