Stephanie Theander's ex-husband was found stabbed to death, and his new girlfriend told the police that she though Theander was involved. Later in the morning, Theander attempted suicide by overdose. Police officers (who knew that Theander was a homicide suspect) assisted EMTs on that call. The semi-conscious Theander was taken to the hospital by ambulance. A cop rode with her, but she was so out of it that she probably didn't know that. She probably also didn't know that while she was at the hospital, the police ordered a SANE exam, disconnected the phone in her room, and had her admitted to the hospital under an alias (which eventually prevented her family and their lawyer from contacting her to tell her not to talk to the cops).
Theander didn't properly wake up until 11 at night. She was still being guarded by a uniformed officer at that time. When she finally woke up, had something to eat, and seemed coherent, plainclothes officers arrived to interrogate her. She was not given Miranda warnings, but the tone of the interrogation was polite and conversational with open-ended questions. One of the officers was about 12 inches from Theander the whole time, but that was only because she was speaking very quietly. During the interrogation, she admitted that she had let some guy named Rick into her ex's house (Rick was there to hurt Theander's ex, and in exchange Theander was going to sleep with Rick). She claimed that she didn't actually kill Theander, though.
Towards the end of the interview, she asked a couple of times to talk to a lawyer. The cops told her that she was welcome to do so, reminded her that she wasn't in custody, and kept on talking to her. They got a little more information about Rick, and then concluded the interview.
The next morning, one of Theander's family members told the police not to talk to her and that he was trying to hire a lawyer for her. This family member hadn't actually spoken with Theander about any of this. The cops went back to talk to Theander some more in the afternoon. Still no Miranda warnings, although they reminded her that she was not in custody. She asked for a lawyer a couple more times, and asked the police to leave her alone. After urging her to talk to them, they left her alone.
A week later, Theander was arrested for first degree murder and first degree burglary. The trial court suppressed her statements, finding them involuntarily made and finding that Miranda was violated. The prosecution appealed.
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Theander was not in custody. They contrasted this case with Effland v. People, a recent case where they held that a hospital-bed interrogation was custodial. Unlike Effland, in this case the police never restrained Theander, the interrogation was polite, the officers were in plain clothes, Theander was repeatedly told she wasn't in custody and that she could talk to a lawyer, etc. Also, Effland had repeatedly requested a lawyer and asked to terminate the encounter. Theander asked a couple of times, and her requests to be left alone were honored much more quickly. And some of the factors which the trial court relied on to show that Theander was in custody (like the disconnected phone and the cop riding in the ambulance) were things which Theander was not aware of and therefore they were irrelevant to custody analysis. After all, the important question for Miranda is whether a reasonable person would perceive... (you know the rest, right?). Circumstances that a person isn't aware of don't affect what they would perceive.
Next, the Court moved on to whether or not the statements were voluntary. Even if someone isn't in custody, or even if they are and they waive Miranda, their statements still can't be used against them if the statements are involuntary. The test for voluntariness is whether or not coercive conduct by the police played a significant role in inducing the statements. Specifically, the courts have to ask whether or not "the defendant's will has been overborne."
The decision gives a few examples from other cases of coercive conduct that renders statements involuntary: threatening to take the defendant's children; threatening immediate arrest, a high bond, and prison unless the defendant confessed; threatening charges against a family member; offering to try to get the defendant's boss to re-hire him if he confessed; offering to let the defendant see his girlfriend if he confessed. There's more in the decision, but the point is that we really aren't allowed to either bribe or browbeat people into confessing. It has to be said.
But in this case, the sort of mild psychological pressure that the cops used (things like asking Theander to give more info so they could tell her children that she was cooperating) wasn't coercive. And even if it was, it didn't play a significant role in getting Theander to incriminate herself. So her statements were not involuntary.
The suppression order was reversed, and the case sent back to the lower courts for more proceedings. Theander also argues that the police denied her access to counsel, but the Supreme Court didn't decide that question one way or the other.
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