holding that an investigatory inter- view was clearly non-custodial and that the confession was voluntary when the interview took place in the suspect’s mother’s home, the suspect freely consented to answer the officers’ questions, and the suspect was at liberty to terminate the discussion at any time
How later courts described this case
- holding that an investigatory inter- view was clearly non-custodial and that the confession was voluntary when the interview took place in the suspect’s mother’s home, the suspect freely consented to answer the officers’ questions, and the suspect was at liberty to terminate the discussion at any time
- ruling officer's statement " '[i]f you're not coming clean ... you can do five years,' " was "simply not an implied promise of non-prosecution" and did not suggest that if defendant "did 'come clean' he would not face jail time" (internal quotation marks omitted)
- recognizing that a law “enforcement officer may 21 properly tell the truth to the accused,” and that “[t]ruthful statements about [the defendant’s] predicament are not the type of ‘coercion’ that threatens to render a statement involuntary.”
- recognizing that a law “enforcement officer may properly tell the truth to the accused,” and that “[t]ruthful statements about [the defendant’s] 12 predicament are not the type of ‘coercion’ that threatens to render a statement involuntary.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
K.K. HALL, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I join Judge Mumaghan’s dissent. I write separately only to emphasize that, in my view, the trooper’s “come clean or you’ll get five years” threat/promise was plainly false. Braxton had no obligation to say a single word to the authorities, let alone to “come clean,” and he could not have been punished for it had he silently shown his inquisitors to the door.