Bond v. State

• Decision Date: 13 May 2014
• Docket Number: No. 45S03–1309–CR–597.,45S03–1309–CR–597.
• Citation: 9 N.E.3d 134
• Parties: McLynnerd BOND, Jr., Appellant (Defendant below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff below).
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

9 N.E.3d 134

McLynnerd BOND, Jr., Appellant (Defendant below),

v.STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff below).

No. 45S03–1309–CR–597.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

May 13, 2014.

Thomas W. Vanes, Merrillville, IN, Mark A. Bates, Crown Point, IN, Attorneys for Appellant.

Gregory F. Zoeller, Attorney General of Indiana, Ian A.T. McLean, Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, IN, Attorneys for Appellee.

On Petition to Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 45A03–1205–CR–212

DAVID, Justice.

Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear drenched communities....

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail (April 16, 1963). Dr. King's letter expressed, in measured optimism, a desire to see a country free of racial discrimination. Writing while in jail for protesting racism and segregation in Birmingham, Alabama, he also noted the “interrelatedness” of instances of racial inequity. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” he said. “Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” It is in service to this truth that we approach our opinion today.

In this case, a police detective interrogated an African–American murder suspect. We have long held that law enforcement officers conducting interrogations may use a range of tactics and techniques to persuade suspects to provide incriminating statements. And we understand that simple question-and-answer methods will not always be successful. But the flexibility afforded to law enforcement is still bound by state and federal constitutional protections.

Over the course of several hours the detective here employed a number of interrogation techniques to convince the suspect to admit his guilt. Most of these techniques were acceptable. But when he implied that the suspect's race precluded him from receiving a fair trial and an impartial jury, he went too far.

Facts and Procedural History

A detective from the Gary Police Department was investigating a cold case murder from 2007. During the course of an unrelated investigation in 2009, he received a tip that McLynnerd Bond, Jr. was responsible for the 2007 murder. On February 12, 2011, the detective learned that Bond was in custody at the Gary Police Department on outstanding county warrants. He brought Bond into an interrogation room to question him about the 2007 murder.

The detective read Bond his Miranda rights, which Bond waived.¹ For three hours, Bond consistently and adamantly denied being involved in the murder. The detective's interrogation approach was to convince Bond that the police knew he was guilty and the only thing Bond could do to mitigate this was to admit guilt. The detective implied he could help Bond achieve a better outcome if he confessed—hinted that he might get a lesser-included charge than murder—and that Bond could see his children and talk to his mother if he cooperated. And a little over two hours into the interrogation, the detective told Bond, who is African American,

[d]on't let twelve people who are from Schererville, Crown Point—white people, Hispanic people, other people that aren't from Gary, from your part of the hood—judge you. Because they're not gonna put people on there who are from your neck of the woods. You know that. They're not gonna be the ones to decide what happens to you. You know that. I know that. Everybody knows that. All they're gonna see is, oh, look at this, another young motherf* * * * * who didn't give a f* * *.

(Appellee's Ex. 1.) After three hours, most of which was spent tucked into a corner of the interrogation room with the detective almost directly in his face, Bond broke. He told the detective that he committed the 2007 murder.

On February 25, 2011, the State charged Bond with murder. He filed a motion to suppress his statement, claiming that it was involuntarily given in violation of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Article 1, § 14 of the Indiana Constitution. After a two-day hearing in which the detective and Bond both testified, the trial court denied Bond's motion. It noted, however, that “[t]he suggestion by the detective that the defendant could not receive a fair and impartial jury due to the location of the Courthouse causes great concern to the Court, and is strongly discouraged.” (App. at 6.) Bond sought an interlocutory appeal and the Court of Appeals accepted jurisdiction.

The Court of Appeals affirmed in an unpublished memorandum decision. Bond v. State, No. 45A03–1205–CR–212, 2013 WL 2404071 at *6 (Ind.Ct.App. May 31, 2013). The majority of the panel—like the trial court judge—“d[id] not approve of the comment” made by the detective and considered it “inappropriate,” but found that in viewing the interrogation in its entirety, it did not appear that the comment brought about Bond's confession. Id. at *4–5. Judge Kirsch dissented and would have reversed the denial of Bond's motion to suppress because of the detective's comment. Id. at *6 (Kirsch, J., dissenting). We granted transfer, thereby vacating the Court of Appeals decision. Bond v. State, 993 N.E.2d 1149 (Ind.2013) (table); Ind. Appellate Rule 58(A).

Standard of Review

When a defendant challenges the voluntariness of his or her confession under the U.S. Constitution, the State must prove the statement was voluntarily given by a preponderance of the evidence.²Pruitt v. State, 834 N.E.2d 90, 114 (Ind.2005). We examine the totality of the circumstances as presented by the record, and are guided by several factors including police coercion; the length, location, and continuity of the interrogation; and the defendant's maturity, education, physical condition, and mental health. Miller v. State, 770 N.E.2d 763, 767–68 (Ind.2002). “The critical inquiry is whether the defendant's statements were induced by violence, threats, promises or other improper influence.” Ringo v. State, 736 N.E.2d 1209, 1212–13 (Ind.2000).

Discussion

[T]he Fourteenth Amendment forbids the use of involuntary confessions not only because of the probable unreliability of confessions that are obtained in a manner deemed coercive, but also because of the “strongly felt attitude of our society that important human values are sacrificed where an agency of the government, in the course of securing a conviction, wrings a confession out of an accused against his will.”

Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 385–86, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 12 L.Ed.2d 908 (1964) (quoting Blackburn v. Alabama, 361 U.S. 199, 206–07, 80 S.Ct. 274, 4 L.Ed.2d 242 (1960)). Additionally, there is a “deep-rooted feelingthat the police must obey the law while enforcing the law; that in the end life and liberty can be as much endangered from illegal methods used to convict those thought to be criminals as from the actual criminals themselves.” Id. at 386, 84 S.Ct. 1774 (quoting Spano v. New York, 360 U.S. 315, 320–21, 79 S.Ct. 1202, 3 L.Ed.2d 1265 (1959)).

We agree with the Court of Appeals that the detective's statements implying that a confession would aid Bond's case did not themselves render that confession involuntary. Bond, 2013 WL 2404071 at *4. On several occasions, the detective reinforced to Bond that he could not guarantee a particular outcome or make any specific promise of a result, but he wanted Bond to know that cooperation could be a factor in his case and could influence the detective to be supportive as the case progressed. This is neither a coercive police tactic nor an unexpected one, and we do not view it as having overcome Bond's free will.

We likewise agree that the detective's promises to put Bond in contact with his family if he confessed did not render that confession involuntary. See id. at *5. The detective did not threaten Bond's family with physical harm or legal jeopardy. And, in fact, he followed through with his promises and Bond was able to speak with his girlfriend and mother and see his children.

But with respect to the detective's statement that Bond might not receive a fair trial because of his race and the likely composition of a prospective jury, our sentiment goes beyond the trial court's “great concern” and the Court of Appeals majority's disapproval of it as being “inappropriate.” This is not a police tactic that we simply “do not condone” because it is deceptive. Instead, this was an intentional misrepresentation of rights ensconced in the very fabric of our nation's justice system—the rights to a fair trial and an impartial jury, and the right not to be judged by or for the color of your skin—carried out as leverage to convince a suspect in a criminal case that his only recourse was to forego his claim of innocence and confess. And like Judge Kirsch, we condemn it.

This country has waged a long and difficult campaign aimed at ensuring equal access to justice for all its citizens—a campaign whose courtroom aspect has been perhaps marked most visibly by the efforts to ban racial discrimination in jury selection after the enactment of the Fourteenth Amendment. See, e.g., Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303, 308, 25 L.Ed. 664 (1879) (state statute excluding non-white citizens from juries “is practically a brand upon [those citizens], affixed by the law, an assertion of their inferiority, and a stimulant to that race prejudice which is an impediment to securing to individuals of the race that equal justice which the law aims to secure to all others”), abrogated on other grounds by Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522, 95 S.Ct. 692, 42 L.Ed.2d 690 (1975); Thiel v. Southern Pac. Co., 328 U.S. 217, 227, 66 S.Ct. 984, 90 L.Ed. 1181 (1946) (“the color of a man's skin is unrelated to his fitness as a juror”); Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 86, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986) (“Purposeful racial discrimination in selection of the venire violates a defendant's right to equal protection because it denies him the protection that a trial by jury is intended to secure”) Such a...