Prior to his trial for murder in a Kentucky court, petitioner
moved to suppress his confession. Following a hearing, the trial
court determined that the confession was voluntary, and denied the
motion. At trial, petitioner, who was 16 years old at the time of
his arrest, sought to introduce testimony describing the length of
the interrogation and the manner in which it was conducted. In
attempting to introduce such testimony, petitioner hoped to show
that the confession, which was the principal component of the
State's case, was unworthy of belief. The trial court ruled that
the testimony pertained solely to the issue of voluntariness, and
was therefore inadmissible. The jury returned a verdict of guilty.
The Kentucky Supreme Court affirmed, rejecting petitioner's claim
that the exclusion of the testimony violated his rights under the
Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments.
Held. The exclusion of the testimony about the
circumstances of his confession deprived petitioner of his
fundamental constitutional right -- whether under the Due Process
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment or under the Compulsory Process
or Confrontation Clauses of the Sixth Amendment -- to a fair
opportunity to present a defense. Evidence about the manner in
which a confession was secured, in addition to bearing on its
voluntariness, often bears on its credibility, a matter that is
exclusively for the jury to assess. The physical and psychological
environment that yielded a confession is not only relevant to the
legal question of voluntariness but can also be of substantial
relevance to the ultimate factual issue of the defendant's guilt or
innocence, especially in a case such as this, where there
apparently was no physical evidence to link petitioner to the
crime. Respondent's argument that any error was harmless, since the
excluded evidence came in through other witnesses, should be
directed in the first instance to the state court. Pp.
476 U. S.
687-692.
690
S.W.2d 753, reversed and remanded.
O'CONNOR, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
Page 476 U. S. 684
JUSTICE O'CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court.
Prior to his trial for murder, petitioner moved to suppress his
confession. The trial judge conducted a hearing, determined that
the confession was voluntary, and denied the motion. At trial,
petitioner sought to introduce testimony about the physical and
psychological environment in which the confession was obtained. His
objective in so doing was to suggest that the statement was
unworthy of belief. The trial court ruled that the testimony
pertained solely to the issue of voluntariness, and was therefore
inadmissible. The question presented is whether this ruling
deprived petitioner of his rights under the Sixth and Fourteenth
Amendments to the Federal Constitution.
I
On August 7, 1981, a clerk at the Keg Liquor Store in
Louisville, Kentucky, was shot to death, apparently during the
course of a robbery. A complete absence of identifying physical
evidence hampered the initial investigation of the crime. A week
later, however, the police arrested petitioner, then 16 years old,
for his suspected participation in an unrelated service station
holdup. According to police testimony at the suppression hearing,
"just out of the clear blue sky," petitioner began to confess to a
host of local crimes, including shooting a police officer, robbing
a hardware store, and robbing several individuals at a bowling
alley. App. 4. Their curiosity understandably aroused, the police
transferred petitioner to a juvenile detention center to continue
the interrogation. After initially denying any involvement in the
Keg Liquors shooting, petitioner eventually confessed to that crime
as well.
Subsequent to his indictment for murder, petitioner moved to
suppress the confession on the grounds that it had been
impermissibly coerced in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth
Page 476 U. S. 685
Amendments to the Federal Constitution. At the ensuing hearing,
he testified that he had been detained in a windowless room for a
protracted period of time, that he had been surrounded by as many
as six police officers during the interrogation, that he had
repeatedly requested and been denied permission to telephone his
mother, and that he had been badgered into making a false
confession. Several police officers offered a different version of
the relevant events. Concluding that there had been "no sweating or
coercion of the defendant" and "no overreaching" by the police, the
court denied the motion.
Id. at 21.
The case proceeded to trial. In his opening statement, the
prosecutor stressed that the Commonwealth's case rested almost
entirely on petitioner's confession and on the statement of his
uncle, who had told the police that he was also present during the
holdup and murder. Tr. 10-14. In response, defense counsel outlined
what would prove to be the principal avenue of defense advanced at
trial -- that, for a number of reasons, the story petitioner had
told the police should not be believed. The confession was rife
with inconsistencies, counsel argued. For example, petitioner had
told the police that the crime was committed during daylight hours
and that he had stolen a sum of money from the cash register. In
fact, counsel told the jury, the evidence would show that the crime
occurred at 10:40 p.m., and that no money at all was missing from
the store. Beyond these inconsistencies, counsel suggested, "[t]he
very circumstances surrounding the giving of the [confession] are
enough to cast doubt on its credibility."
Id. at 16. In
particular, she continued, evidence bearing on the length of the
interrogation and the manner in which it was conducted would show
that the statement was unworthy of belief.
In response to defense counsel's opening statement, and before
any evidence was presented to the jury, the prosecutor moved
in
limine to prevent the defense from introducing any testimony
bearing on the circumstances under which the
Page 476 U. S. 686
confession was obtained. Such testimony bore only on the
"voluntariness" of the confession, the prosecutor urged, a "legal
matter" that had already been resolved by the court in its earlier
ruling. App. 27. Defense counsel responded that she had no
intention of relitigating the issue of voluntariness, but was
seeking only to demonstrate that the circumstances of the
confession "cas[t] doubt on its validity and its credibility."
Ibid. Rejecting this reasoning, the court granted the
prosecutor's motion. Although the precise contours of the ruling
are somewhat ambiguous, the court expressly held that the defense
could inquire into the inconsistencies contained in the confession,
but would not be permitted to "develop in front of the jury" any
evidence about the duration of the interrogation or the individuals
who were in attendance.
Id. at 28.
After registering a continuing objection, petitioner invoked a
Kentucky procedure under which he was permitted to develop a record
of the evidence he would have put before the jury were it not for
the court's evidentiary ruling. That evidence included testimony
from two police officers about the size and other physical
characteristics of the interrogation room, the length of the
interview, and various other details about the taking of the
confession.
Id. at 45-53.
The jury returned a verdict of guilty, and petitioner was
sentenced to 40 years in prison. The sole issue in the ensuing
appeal to the Kentucky Supreme Court was whether the exclusion of
testimony about the circumstances of the confession violated
petitioner's rights under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to
the Federal Constitution. Over one dissent, the court rejected the
claim and affirmed the conviction and sentence.
690
S.W.2d 753 (1985). The excluded testimony "related solely to
voluntariness," the court reasoned.
Id. at 754. Although
evidence bearing on the credibility of the confession would have
been admissible, under established Kentucky procedure, a trial
court's pretrial voluntariness determination is conclusive, and may
not be
Page 476 U. S. 687
relitigated at trial. Because the proposed testimony about the
circumstances of petitioner's confession pertained only to the
voluntariness question, the court held, there was no error in
keeping that testimony from the jury.
Because the reasoning of the Kentucky Supreme Court is directly
at odds with language in several of this Court's opinions,
see,
e.g., Lego v. Twomey, 404 U. S. 477,
404 U. S.
485-486 (1972), and because it conflicts with the
decisions of every other state court to have confronted the issue,
see, e.g., Beaver v. State, 455
So. 2d 253, 256 (Ala.Crim.App.1984);
Palmes v.
State, 397 So. 2d
648, 653 (Fla.1981), we granted the petition for certiorari.
474 U.S. 1019 (1985). We now reverse and remand.
II
The holding below rests on the apparent assumption that evidence
bearing on the voluntariness of a confession and evidence bearing
on its credibility fall in conceptually distinct and mutually
exclusive categories. Once a confession has been found voluntary,
the Supreme Court of Kentucky believed, the evidence that supported
that finding may not be presented to the jury for any other
purpose. This analysis finds no support in our cases, is premised
on a misconception about the role of confessions in a criminal
trial, and, under the circumstances of this case, contributed to an
evidentiary ruling that deprived petitioner of his fundamental
constitutional right to a fair opportunity to present a defense.
California v. Trombetta, 467 U. S. 479,
467 U. S. 485
(1984).
It is by now well established that
"certain interrogation techniques, either in isolation or as
applied to the unique characteristics of a particular suspect, are
so offensive to a civilized system of justice that they must be
condemned under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment."
Miller v. Fenton, 474 U. S. 104,
474 U. S. 109
(1985). To assure that the fruits of such techniques are never used
to secure a conviction, due process also requires
"that a jury [not] hear a confession unless and until the trial
judge [or some
Page 476 U. S. 688
other independent decisionmaker] has determined that it was
freely and voluntarily given."
Sims v. Georgia, 385 U. S. 538,
385 U. S.
543-544 (1967).
See generally Jackson v. Denno,
378 U. S. 368
(1964).
In laying down these rules, the Court has never questioned that
"evidence surrounding the making of a confession bears on its
credibility" as well as its voluntariness.
Id. at
378 U. S. 386,
n. 13. As the Court noted in
Jackson, because "questions
of credibility, whether of a witness or of a confession, are for
the jury," the requirement that the court make a pretrial
voluntariness determination does not undercut the defendant's
traditional prerogative to challenge the confession's reliability
during the course of the trial.
Ibid. To the same effect
was
Lego v. Twomey, supra, where the Court stated,
"Nothing in
Jackson [v. Denno] questioned the province
or capacity of juries to assess the truthfulness of confessions.
Nothing in that opinion took from the jury any evidence relating to
the accuracy or weight of confessions admitted into evidence. A
defendant has been as free since
Jackson as he was before
to familiarize a jury with circumstances that attend the taking of
his confession, including facts bearing upon its weight and
voluntariness."
Id. at
404 U. S.
485-486. Thus, as
Lego and
Jackson
make clear, to the extent the Court has addressed the question at
all, it has expressly assumed that evidence about the manner in
which a confession was secured will often be germane to its
probative weight, a matter that is exclusively for the jury to
assess.
The decisions in both
Jackson and
Lego, while
not framed in the language of constitutional command, reflect the
common-sense understanding that the circumstances surrounding the
taking of a confession can be highly relevant to two separate
inquiries, one legal and one factual. The manner in which a
statement was extracted is, of course, relevant to the purely legal
question of its voluntariness, a question most, but not all, States
assign to the trial judge alone to resolve.
Page 476 U. S. 689
See Jackson v. Denno, supra, at
378 U. S. 378.
But the physical and psychological environment that yielded the
confession can also be of substantial relevance to the ultimate
factual issue of the defendant's guilt or innocence. Confessions,
even those that have been found to be voluntary, are not conclusive
of guilt. And, as with any other part of the prosecutor's case, a
confession may be shown to be "insufficiently corroborated or
otherwise . . . unworthy of belief."
Lego v. Twomey,
supra, at
404 U. S.
485-486. Indeed, stripped of the power to describe to
the jury the circumstances that prompted his confession, the
defendant is effectively disabled from answering the one question
every rational juror needs answered: if the defendant is innocent,
why did he previously admit his guilt? Accordingly, regardless of
whether the defendant marshaled the same evidence earlier in
support of an unsuccessful motion to suppress, and entirely
independent of any question of voluntariness, a defendant's case
may stand or fall on his ability to convince the jury that the
manner in which the confession was obtained casts doubt on its
credibility.
This simple insight is reflected in a federal statute, 18 U.S.C.
§ 3501(a), the Federal Rules of Evidence, Fed.Rule Evid. 104(e),
and the statutory and decisional law of virtually every State in
the Nation.
See, e.g., Mont.Code Ann. § 46-13-301(5)
(1983);
Palmes v. State, supra, at 653. We recognize, of
course, that, under our federal system, even a consensus as broad
as this one is not inevitably congruent with the dictates of the
Constitution. We acknowledge also our traditional reluctance to
impose constitutional constraints on ordinary evidentiary rulings
by state trial courts. In any given criminal case, the trial judge
is called upon to make dozens, sometimes hundreds, of decisions
concerning the admissibility of evidence. As we reaffirmed earlier
this Term, the Constitution leaves to the judges who must make
these decisions "wide latitude" to exclude evidence that is
"repetitive, . . . only marginally relevant," or poses an undue
risk of
Page 476 U. S. 690
"harassment, prejudice, [or] confusion of the issues."
Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U. S. 673,
475 U. S. 679
(1986). Moreover, we have never questioned the power of States to
exclude evidence through the application of evidentiary rules that
themselves serve the interests of fairness and reliability -- even
if the defendant would prefer to see that evidence admitted.
Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U. S. 284,
410 U. S. 302
(1973). Nonetheless, without
"signal[ing] any diminution in the respect traditionally
accorded to the States in the establishment and implementation of
their own criminal trial rules and procedures,"
we have little trouble concluding, on the facts of this case,
that the blanket exclusion of the proffered testimony about the
circumstances of petitioner's confession deprived him of a fair
trial.
Id. at
410 U. S.
302-303.
Whether rooted directly in the Due Process Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment,
Chambers v. Mississippi, supra, or
in the Compulsory Process or Confrontation clauses of the Sixth
Amendment,
Washington v. Texas, 388 U. S.
14,
388 U. S. 23
(1967);
Davis v. Alaska, 415 U. S. 308
(1974), the Constitution guarantees criminal defendants "a
meaningful opportunity to present a complete defense."
California v. Trombetta, 467 U.S. at
467 U. S. 485;
cf. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.
S. 668,
466 U. S.
684-685 (1984) ("The Constitution guarantees a fair
trial through the Due Process Clauses, but it defines the basic
elements of a fair trial largely through the several provisions of
the Sixth Amendment"). We break no new ground in observing that an
essential component of procedural fairness is an opportunity to be
heard.
In re Oliver, 333 U. S. 257,
333 U. S. 273
(1948);
Grannis v. Ordean, 234 U.
S. 385,
234 U. S. 394
(1914). That opportunity would be an empty one if the State were
permitted to exclude competent, reliable evidence bearing on the
credibility of a confession when such evidence is central to the
defendant's claim of innocence. In the absence of any valid state
justification, exclusion of this kind of exculpatory evidence
deprives a defendant of the basic right to have the prosecutor's
case encounter and "survive the crucible
Page 476 U. S. 691
of meaningful adversarial testing."
United States v.
Cronic, 466 U. S. 648,
466 U. S. 656
(1984).
See also Washington v. Texas, supra, at
388 U. S.
22-23.
Under these principles, the Kentucky courts erred in foreclosing
petitioner's efforts to introduce testimony about the environment
in which the police secured his confession. As both
Lego
and
Jackson make clear, evidence about the manner in which
a confession was obtained is often highly relevant to its
reliability and credibility. Such evidence was especially relevant
in the rather peculiar circumstances of this case. Petitioner's
entire defense was that there was no physical evidence to link him
to the crime, and that, for a variety of reasons, his earlier
admission of guilt was not to be believed. To support that defense,
he sought to paint a picture of a young, uneducated boy who was
kept against his will in a small, windowless room for a protracted
period of time until he confessed to every unsolved crime in the
county, including the one for which he now stands convicted. We do
not, of course, pass on the strength or merits of that defense. We
do, however, think it plain that introducing evidence of the
physical circumstances that yielded the confession was all but
indispensable to any chance of its succeeding. Especially since
neither the Supreme Court of Kentucky in its opinion, nor
respondent in its argument to this Court, has advanced any rational
justification for the wholesale exclusion of this body of
potentially exculpatory evidence, the decision below must be
reversed.
Respondent contends that any error was harmless, since the very
evidence excluded by the trial court's ruling ultimately came in
through other witnesses. Petitioner concedes, and we agree, that
the erroneous ruling of the trial court is subject to harmless
error analysis. Tr. of Oral Arg 7;
cf. Delaware v. Van Arsdall,
supra. We believe, however, that respondent's harmless error
argument should be directed in the first instance to the state
court.
Page 476 U. S. 692
Accordingly, the judgment of the Supreme Court of Kentucky is
reversed, and the case is remanded for proceedings not inconsistent
with this opinion.
So ordered.