Caseflicks

Supreme Court of the United States • 1972

Lego v. Twomey

404 U.S. 477 | 92 S. Ct. 619 | 30 L. Ed. 2d 618 | 1972 U.S. LEXIS 100

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Takeaway

In short, this case holds that the Constitution requires proof by at least a preponderance of the evidence—not beyond a reasonable doubt—that a challenged confession was voluntary, and it does not require the jury to revisit that admissibility decision.

Background

Lego was convicted of armed robbery in Illinois after the prosecution introduced a confession he made while in police custody. Before trial, Lego moved to suppress the confession, claiming that officers had beaten him and that his statement was coerced. He introduced a photograph, taken the day after his arrest, showing a swollen and bloodied face. The police chief and four officers denied beating or threatening him. After a hearing outside the jury’s presence, the trial judge credited the officers and admitted the confession.

Illinois followed the “orthodox rule”: the judge alone decided whether a confession was voluntary and admissible, while the jury decided guilt. The jury received the ordinary instruction that the prosecution had to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, but it was not instructed to make its own voluntariness finding. Illinois courts affirmed Lego’s conviction, and the federal district court denied his habeas petition. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. Lego argued that the Constitution required the prosecution to prove voluntariness beyond a reasonable doubt and, alternatively, required the jury to reconsider voluntariness after the judge admitted the confession.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether the Due Process Clause and In re Winship require the prosecution to prove a challenged confession voluntary beyond a reasonable doubt before it may be admitted at trial.

Holding

No. The Constitution requires the prosecution to prove voluntariness at least by a preponderance of the evidence, not beyond a reasonable doubt.

Reasoning

Jackson v. Denno requires a defendant to receive a reliable and clear-cut determination that a challenged confession was voluntary before it is used at trial. But Jackson did not prescribe a heightened burden of proof, and the Court understood the required hearing to entail, at minimum, a reliable preponderance determination by the judge or other designated factfinder.

Winship requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to establish the charged crime. Voluntariness of a confession is not an element of armed robbery, and a suppression hearing does not decide guilt or innocence. Therefore, using a preponderance standard to decide admissibility does not dilute the jury’s duty to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

The rule excluding coerced confessions does not primarily rest on a concern that coerced confessions are unreliable. Even a truthful confession must be excluded if it was compelled, because coercion itself violates the constitutional privilege against compelled self-incrimination. Jackson was designed to protect that independent right, not to improve the accuracy of jury verdicts.

The Court also declined to impose a beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard simply because exclusionary rules protect important constitutional values. Longstanding practice had not shown that federal rights were inadequately protected when admissibility was decided under a preponderance standard. Raising the burden would exclude additional truthful, probative evidence without a demonstrated corresponding benefit in protecting constitutional rights or deterring police misconduct.

States remain free to adopt a more demanding standard under their own law. The federal constitutional floor, however, is that the prosecution must establish voluntariness by at least a preponderance of the evidence.

Issue #2

Whether the Constitution requires the jury to make an independent determination of voluntariness after the trial judge has ruled the confession admissible.

Holding

No. A judge’s pretrial or out-of-jury determination of voluntariness satisfies the Constitution; the jury need not decide the issue again.

Reasoning

Lego’s argument conflicted with the premise of Jackson v. Denno. Jackson required a reliable and distinct determination of voluntariness because a jury deciding guilt may be unable to disregard the apparent truth and probative force of a confession when evaluating whether it was coerced.

Jackson did not cast doubt on the orthodox procedure under which the judge alone makes the final admissibility ruling. Admissibility of evidence is ordinarily a question for the court, and the Constitution does not require a defendant to receive a second determination of the same coercion claim from the guilt-phase jury.

The Sixth Amendment jury-trial right, made applicable to the States in Duncan v. Louisiana, did not alter the normal allocation of responsibility between judge and jury. It guarantees a jury determination of guilt, not a jury ruling on every constitutional objection to the admission of evidence.

Dissents

Justice Brennan

Reasoning

Justice Brennan dissented, arguing that the Fifth Amendment privilege against compelled self-incrimination forbids the use of a confession unless it was the product of a rational intellect and free will. Because a conviction based even partly on an involuntary confession cannot stand, the procedures for deciding voluntariness must provide strong protection against the risk that compelled statements will be admitted.

A Jackson hearing commonly turns on a credibility contest between the defendant’s account of coercion and officers’ denials. In that setting, the burden of persuasion can determine the result. A preponderance standard necessarily permits admission of some confessions that would be excluded if the prosecution had to eliminate reasonable doubt about voluntariness.

The same value judgment supporting the reasonable-doubt standard for criminal guilt applies here. Society accepts the risk that some guilty defendants will go free rather than risk convicting an innocent person; likewise, it should accept exclusion of some voluntary confessions rather than risk using a confession obtained through compulsion.

The relevant constitutional concern is not principally whether a higher burden would better deter police misconduct. It is whether the defendant’s own words were produced by free choice. Because compelled self-condemnation is fundamentally incompatible with the Fifth Amendment and the moral integrity of the criminal process, the prosecution should have to prove voluntariness beyond a reasonable doubt.