U.S. Supreme Court Reverses 3rd Circuit Over Federal Agents' Delay Tactics

4-7-2009 Washington DC:

A sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declared that federal agents cannot use unreasonable delay tactics to secure confessions.

Reversing the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the justices voted 5-4 in holding that even a "voluntary" confession obtained by federal authorities may be deemed inadmissible if more than six hours elapse between an arrest and a suspect's first court appearance.

The high court's decision in Corley v. United States was a victory for Assistant Federal Defender David L. McColgin in his first Supreme Court argument.

Writing for the majority, Justice David H. Souter found that lengthy delays before a suspect sees a judge can give the government too much leverage over someone who has been arrested.

"Federal agents would be free to question suspects for extended periods before bringing them out in the open, and we have always known what custodial secrecy leads to," Souter wrote in an opinion joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Anthony Kennedy.

(Posted by eAdvocate)

McColgin represented Johnnie Corley, who was arrested on suspicion of robbing a credit union in Norristown, Pa. The FBI agents who arrested him did not take him to court for his initial appearance for nearly 30 hours, during which time they elicited a confession.

In his appeals, Corley argued that the agents violated a federal statute that prohibits police from persisting in questioning a suspect with the goal of securing a confession if doing so would result in an unreasonable delay in taking the suspect for his initial court appearance.

The lower courts had sharply split on the issue. Some held that §3501 of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 was designed to completely overturn two Supreme Court rulings -- the 1943 ruling in McNabb v. United States and the 1957 ruling in Mallory v. United States -- with a rule that said a voluntary confession would always be admissible.

But other courts held that the statute merely modified the so-called McNabb-Mallory rule and still allowed for court review of potentially unfair delay tactics used to secure confessions.

Now the Supreme Court has sided with the latter camp and held that the McNabb-Mallory rule has been modified but remains in effect and must be strictly enforced.

"If the confession occurred before presentment and beyond six hours ... the court must decide whether delaying that long was unreasonable or unnecessary under the McNabb-Mallory cases, and if it was, the confession is to be suppressed," Souter wrote.

In McNabb and Mallory, the Supreme Court held that when federal officers violated an arrested person's "presentment right" by unnecessarily delaying in taking him before a magistrate, the remedy is that confessions elicited from the arrested person before presentment must be suppressed.

Congress set out to change the McNabb-Mallory rule by providing in §3501 that a confession "shall not be inadmissible solely because of delay."

But what proved most vexing to the courts was the final section of the statute, which laid out additional conditions, including that the confession was made "within six hours immediately following ... arrest or other detention."

When the 3rd Circuit heard Corley's appeal, the three-judge panel was split, with two judges saying they would follow the decisions of the 1st, 6th, 8th and 10th circuits, and a dissenting judge saying she would have followed the 2nd, 9th and District of Columbia circuits.

Judge Thomas L. Ambro concluded for the majority that the final section of the law "merely instructs trial courts that the inherently coercive effect of a lengthy delay in presentment is not sufficient, standing alone, to render a confession involuntary" where the delay is less than six hours.

But in dissent, Judge Dolores K. Sloviter said Ambro's analysis effectively rendered the final section of the statute moot.

"If a confession only had to be voluntary to be admissible despite the delay in presentation to a magistrate judge, there would be no reason for ... Section 3501(c)," Sloviter wrote.

Now Souter has sided with Sloviter, finding that the 3rd Circuit majority's reading of the statute was flawed because it would render the final section superfluous.

Souter rejected the Justice Department's argument that the first section of the statute unambiguously states that voluntary confessions are admissible and entirely eliminated the McNabb-Mallory rule.

Instead, Souter found that McColgin "has the better argument" when he urged the court to hold that the final section of the statute effectively modified the McNabb-Mallory rule by making it inapplicable to confessions given within the six hours, but keeping the rule alive when the delay in interrogation goes beyond six hours.

"The fundamental problem with the government's reading of Section 3501 is that it renders Section 3501(c) nonsensical and superfluous," Souter wrote.

In dissent, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. found that there was "nothing ambiguous" about the first section of the law which states that voluntary confessions are admissible.

"Although we normally presume that Congress 'means in a statute what it says there,' ... the court today concludes that §3501(a) does not mean what it says and that a voluntary confession may be suppressed under the McNabb-Mallory rule," Alito wrote in an opinion joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. ..News Source.. by Shannon P. Duffy, The Legal Intelligencer