Respondent was convicted in 1959 of murdering his wife. A
recorded statement, made in jail to an insurance agent in
connection with discussion of a policy on the life of respondent's
wife, was admitted into evidence at the trial. The California
Supreme Court affirmed the conviction, finding the statement
voluntary. Respondent later sought federal habeas corpus relief,
contending that the statement was involuntary. The District Court
granted relief on the ground that the trial court had excluded
relevant evidence on the issue of voluntariness, and thus "did not
reliably determine whether [the] confession was voluntary or
involuntary." The Court of Appeals affirmed.
Held: An applicant for federal habeas corpus relief is
not entitled to a new hearing on the voluntariness of a statement
introduced at his trial merely because he can point to shortcomings
in the state court procedure used to decide the voluntariness
issue, as he must also show (which respondent did not do in this
case) that his version of the events, if true, would require the
conclusion that the statement was involuntary. Pp.
400 U. S.
451-454.
412 F.2d 230, reversed.
STEWART, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which
BURGER, C.J., and DOUGLAS, HARLAN, BRENNAN, WHITE, MARSHALL, and
BLACKMUN, JJ., joined. BLACK, J., filed a concurring statement,
post, p.
400 U. S.
454.
Page 400 U. S. 447
MR. JUSTICE STEWART delivered the opinion of the Court.
In 1959, a jury in a California trial court found the respondent
guilty of murdering his wife by firing six bullets into her body at
close range. A key prosecution witness at the trial was Ray
Travers, an insurance agent. Two days after the respondent's wife
was killed, Travers visited the respondent in jail at the latter's
request, and the two conversed regarding an insurance policy on the
life of the decedent. During the course of this conversation, the
respondent told Travers his version of how his wife had been
killed, admitting that he had lain in wait for her with a gun, but
insisting that her shooting had been accidental. As he was leaving
the jail, Travers told the sheriff's officers about the
respondent's statement. They asked him if he would be willing to
have his next conversation with the respondent electronically
recorded, and, since he planned to return to get additional
information for the insurance company, he agreed. Later the same
day, Travers returned to the jail and had another conversation with
the respondent, in the course of which the respondent again gave
Travers substantially the same account of the circumstances of his
wife's death. This conversation was recorded. [
Footnote 1] Over the objection of defense counsel,
the recording of the second conversation was admitted in evidence
at the trial. Travers, in detailed testimony verified the
authenticity of the recording, and orally recounted the two
conversations he had had with the respondent. The accuracy of the
recording and of Travers' testimony was not questioned; indeed,
when the respondent took the stand, he gave substantially the same
account of how his wife had been killed that he had given to
Travers.
Page 400 U. S. 448
On appeal to the Supreme Court of California, the respondent
contended that the second conversation with Travers was an
involuntary confession, and that the record of the conversation and
Travers' supporting testimony had, therefore, been wrongly admitted
in evidence at the trial. The state appellate court unanimously
rejected this contention and affirmed the conviction.
People v.
Atchley, 53 Cal. 2d
160, 346 P.2d 764. Proceeding upon the proposition that "any
statement by an accused relative to the offense charged is
inadmissible against him if made involuntarily," Justice Traynor's
opinion for the Supreme Court of California reasoned as
follows:
"Travers testified that no threats were made, that no
inducements were offered, and that, in an earlier conversation,
defendant had volunteered substantially the same statements without
being asked. Defendant at no time contradicted this testimony or
suggested that any of his recorded statements were untrue.
Moreover, the recorded conversation demonstrates that Travers
referred to the insurance policy to explain why he was asking
questions, and not as an inducement for any particular answers. The
trial court listened to the tape in chambers before ruling on its
admissibility. There is therefore no merit in defendant's
contention that the recording was admitted without a proper showing
that his statements were made voluntarily."
"Defendant also contends that the recording was obtained by such
fraud that its use as evidence was inconsistent with due process.
He relies primarily on
Leyra v. Denno, 347 U. S.
556. . . . Although there was a similar deception in the
present case, there was no comparable mental coercion. The
deception itself does not render defendant's statements
Page 400 U. S. 449
inadmissible, for it was not of a type reasonably likely to
procure an untrue statement. . . ."
"While cross-examining Travers as to the voluntariness of
defendant's recorded statements, defense counsel attempted to ask
whether defendant had complained to Travers of not being permitted
by the police, despite numerous requests, to talk to a lawyer. The
trial court sustained an objection to this question and explained
to the jury that the answer would have no bearing on the question
of voluntariness. Defendant correctly contends that this ruling was
erroneous, but fails to show that it was prejudicial. Although a
refusal to permit defendant to talk to counsel suggests an intent
to coerce, it seems highly improbable that either the trial judge
or the jury would have inferred coercion from such a refusal alone
in the light of the substantial and uncontradicted evidence that no
coercion occurred."
53 Cal. 2d at 170-171, 346 P.2d at 769-770.
This Court granted certiorari. [
Footnote 2] After hearing argument, we disposed of the
case as follows:
"After hearing oral argument and fully examining the record, we
conclude that the totality of circumstances as the record makes
them manifest did not warrant bringing the case here. Accordingly,
the writ is dismissed. [
Footnote
3]"
In 1967, the respondent initiated the present habeas corpus
proceeding in the United States District Court for the Northern
District of California. He contended that decisions of this Court
rendered subsequent to his direct appeal had established that the
recording of his conversation with Travers had been
unconstitutionally
Page 400 U. S. 450
introduced into evidence, and that he was accordingly entitled
to a new trial. It was asserted that his statements were
involuntary under the criteria stated in
Johnson v. New
Jersey, 384 U. S. 719,
because he had been denied access to a lawyer and because he had
not been advised of his right to remain silent; and that, in any
event, the procedures used to determine the voluntariness of these
statements were constitutionally inadequate under the criteria
stated in
Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.
S. 368. The District Court, although making clear that
it was not "presently able to say that the confession was
involuntary," nonetheless concluded that the respondent was
entitled to relief because the state trial court had "excluded
relevant and perhaps crucial evidence on the issue of whether the
confession was voluntary," and thus "did not reliably determine
whether Atchley's confession was voluntary or involuntary." 300 F.
Supp. 68, 71, 72. The excluded evidence that the District Court
thought "relevant and perhaps crucial" had to do with what the
police had said to Travers before the recorded interview, whether
the respondent had been trying to obtain a lawyer, whether Travers
had deceived the respondent about his motives and feigned sympathy,
whether the respondent knew that the conversation was being
recorded, and, finally, with the respondent's intellectual and
educational qualifications. Because inquiry into these matters had
been restricted, the federal court held that the wrong standard of
voluntariness had been applied in the state trial proceeding.
Accordingly, the District Court ruled that the respondent was
entitled to a new hearing in the state courts on the issue of
voluntariness and, in the event that the statements should be found
involuntary, to a new trial. The Court of Appeals [
Footnote 4] affirmed on the
Page 400 U. S. 451
opinion of the District Court, Judge Barnes dissenting, and we
granted certiorari. [
Footnote
5]
In
Jackson, the Court held that to commit he
determination of the voluntariness of a confession solely to the
same jury that decided guilt was inconsistent with the
constitutional requirement that the procedures used to determine
voluntariness be reliable. Concern for the reliability of the
procedures utilized to decide the voluntariness issue was also
reflected in
Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.
S. 293, where it was held that a state trial court's
resolution of a disputed issue of historical fact could not be
dispositive in a later federal habeas corpus proceeding unless the
petitioner had had a "full and fair hearing" on that issue in the
trial court. [
Footnote 6]
But those decisions did not establish that an applicant for
federal habeas corpus is entitled to a new hearing on the
voluntariness issue in either the federal or state courts, merely
because he can point to shortcomings in the procedures used to
decide the issue of voluntariness in the state courts. Our
decisions make clear that he must also show that his version of
events, if true, would require the conclusion that his confession
was involuntary. Thus, in
Townsend v. Sain, supra, we did
not reach the question whether a hearing was required until we had
determined, as a threshold matter, that the application for habeas
corpus alleged facts which, if true, would establish that the
petitioner had been deprived of constitutional rights by the use of
an involuntary confession. 372 U.S. at
372 U. S. 309.
We said that
"the Federal District Court could not conclude that the state
trial judge admitted the confession because he disbelieved the
evidence which would show that it was involuntary."
Id.,
Page 400 U. S. 452
at
372 U. S. 321.
And in
Jackson v. Denno, supra, we did not jump from the
premise that the procedures used to determine voluntariness were
inadequate to the conclusion that the petitioner was entitled to a
new hearing. Instead, we pointed out:
"This is not a case where the facts concerning the circumstances
surrounding the confession are undisputed and the task is only to
judge the voluntariness of the confession based upon the clearly
established facts and in accordance with proper constitutional
standards. Here, there are substantial facts in dispute. . . .
Whether Jackson is entitled to relief depends upon how these facts
are resolved, for, if the State is to be believed, we cannot say
that Jackson's confession was involuntary, whereas, if Jackson's
version of the facts is accepted, the confession was involuntary,
and inadmissible."
378 U.S. at
378 U. S.
391-392.
The reason for this approach is obvious. Unless the result of
the habeas corpus proceeding turns on disputed issues of historical
fact, a rehearing on the issue of the involuntariness of a
defendant's incriminating statement would be an exercise in
futility, since the applicant for federal habeas would not be
entitled to relief even if his allegations of historical fact
should be found to be true. Yet the District Court in this case
quite evidently failed to make the threshold determination that the
respondent would be entitled to relief if his allegations were
believed. Rather, the court, disavowing any present ability to say
whether the respondent's statement was involuntary, said only that
"the trial court could have more competently determined whether
[the respondent's] will was overborne" had the circumstances
surrounding the statement been more fully explored. 300 F. Supp. at
72.
The respondent's trial took place several years before the
decisions of the Court in
Escobedo v.
Illinois, 378
Page 400 U. S. 453
U.S. 478, and
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.
S. 436, and those decisions have not been given
retroactive effect.
Johnson v. New Jersey, 384 U.
S. 719. The admissibility of the respondent's statement
as a constitutional matter was governed, therefore, by the
contemporary case law elaborating the due process standard of
voluntariness. The question was whether the will of the defendant
had been overborne so that the statement was not his free and
voluntary act, and that question was to be resolved in light of the
totality of the circumstances.
See, e.g., Davis v. North
Carolina, 384 U. S. 737;
Haynes v. Washington, 373 U. S. 503,
373 U. S.
513-516;
Spano v. New York, 360 U.
S. 315,
360 U. S. 323;
Ashcraft v. Tennessee, 322 U. S. 143,
322 U. S.
147-148.
There is no reason to infer that the Supreme Court of California
did not apply the correct constitutional criteria in reviewing the
issue, and the court quite clearly assumed the truth of the
respondent's version of the historical facts still in dispute, in
holding that his statement was not involuntary.
The respondent contended that his confession was involuntary
because he had been denied a lawyer, because he had not been
advised of his right to remain silent, because he had thought he
was giving Travers information that Travers needed to obtain the
insurance money, because he had thought that what he told Travers
would be held in confidence, because he had not known that his
conversation with Travers was being recorded, and because he was
lower than average in intelligence and educational attainments. Of
these six assertedly coercive factors, three went only to the
weight to be given other evidence of actual coercion. Low
intelligence, denial of the right to counsel, and failure to advise
of the right to remain silent were not, in themselves, coercive.
Rather, they were relevant only in establishing a setting in which
actual coercion might have been exerted to overcome
Page 400 U. S. 454
the will of the suspect.
See Darwin v. Connecticut,
391 U. S. 346;
Greenwald v. Wisconsin, 390 U. S. 519;
Davis v. North Carolina, supra. The circumstance that the
conversation was recorded without the respondent's knowledge did
not tend to show either actual coercion or a potentially coercive
setting. The factual issue whether the respondent thought his
statements to Travers would be held in confidence was resolved in
the trial court. Travers testified that he advised the respondent
that what he said would have to be reported to the insurance
company, and that the respondent knew it would be a matter of
record. This testimony was not contradicted, and there was no
reason for the California Supreme Court to disturb the finding,
implicit in the trial record, that the respondent had had no reason
to believe that Travers would not repeat what he had been told.
See Townsend v. Sain, 372 U. S. 293,
372 U. S. 314.
The remaining contention was that the respondent's statement was
improperly induced by the suggestion that Travers needed the
information in order to obtain insurance money for Atchley's
children and stepchildren. The California Supreme Court properly
found that
"the recorded conversation demonstrates that Travers referred to
the insurance policy to explain why he was asking questions, and
not as an inducement for any particular answers."
It is clear that the California courts gave full consideration
to the issue of the voluntariness of the respondent's statement,
and that they applied correct standards of constitutional law in
upholding its admission in evidence. Accordingly, the District
Court was in error in requiring a new trial of claims that were
long ago fully, fairly, and correctly determined in the courts of
California.
The judgment is reversed.
MR. JUSTICE BLACK concurs in the judgment and substantially all
of the opinion.
[
Footnote 1]
No charges had been filed against the respondent at the time of
these conversations.
Cf. Massiah v. United States,
377 U. S. 201.
[
Footnote 2]
362 U.S. 987
[
Footnote 3]
366 U. S. 207.
[
Footnote 4]
412 F.2d 230.
[
Footnote 5]
397 U.S. 905
[
Footnote 6]
Congress in 1966 amended 28 U.S.C. ยง 2254 (
see 1964
ed., Supp. V), so as substantially to codify most of the habeas
corpus criteria set out in
Townsend v. Sain.