Colorado Supreme Court People v. Ramadon 13SA22

Decision here.

   Colorado Springs PD was investigating a sex assualt, and Ramadan was one of the suspects.  Ramadan was born in Iraq, but after his family was killed (and after he acted as an interpreter and informant for the US military), he was brought to the US for his own safety.  That was years ago, now we fast forward to 2012.

   Ramadan is arrested on a warrant (related to this case), and brought to the station for a custodial interview.  He waived Miranda, and denied involvement in the assault.  His claim was that he found the victim outside and took her home, but at some point in the interrogation he admitted to being present in the apartment while his friends had sex with her after drugging her drink at a party.  He denied having any direct involvement in the rape, but eventually admitted that he took her home because his friends told him to since they would be recognized but he wouldn't.

   The detective's demeanor apparently changed as the interview went on, too.  Early on, he established rapport with Ramadan, but as the interrogation went on he became more and more accusatory.  Towards the end, he was suggesting that Ramadan would be deported to Iraq (where he would undoubtedly be killed) if he did not cooperate.

   The trial court suppressed the statements made after minute 42 of the taped interview.  The issue wasn't a Miranda violation, but rather that the statements from that point on were held to have been made involuntarily.  The question of voluntariness is whether or not coercive conduct on the part of the police played a significant role in inducing the statements.  "Coercive" meaning conduct that overbears the defendant's will.  The line falls well short of actual torture, and can include intimidation or other psychological manipulation.  Once the court has determined that some statements were coerced, they won't go to a whole lot of trouble to figure out which statements that followed were or were not the result of coercion.  Instead, they'll just suppress everything that followed the coercive conduct on the part of the police.  So don't be coercive.

   Some of the factors the courts can use to determine whether or not police conduct is coercive are the following:
(1) whether the defendant was in custody;
(2) whether the defendant was free to leave;
(3) whether the defendant was aware of the situation;
(4) whether the police read Miranda rights to the defendant;
(5) whether the defendant understood and waived Miranda rights;
(6) whether the defendant had an opportunity to confer with counsel or
anyone else prior to or during the interrogation;
(7) whether the statement was made during the interrogation or
volunteered later;
(8) whether the police threatened [the] defendant or promised anything
directly or impliedly;
(9) the method or style of the interrogation;
(10) the defendant's mental and physical condition just prior to the
interrogation;
(11) the length of the interrogation;
(12) the location of the interrogation; and
(13) the physical conditions of the location where the interrogation
occurred.

   Oddly, the statement by the detective that the trial court took issue with was "I'm not here to try and get you in trouble."  The trial court held that this implied a false promise of leniency...?  I dunno.  Fortunately, we don't really need to know what the trial court was thinking, because the Supreme Court has decided that they were wrong.

   On the other hand, the Supreme Court did take issue with some of the interrogation.  Given Ramadon's uniquely terrifying prospects when it came to deportation, the court ruled that threatening him with that was enough to overbear his will- especially after reminding him of everything that would go along with a trip home.  So even though the trial court set the bar for coercion too low, the Supreme Court still ruled that the statements made after minute 54 of the interview needed to be suppressed.

   This case was an interlocutory appeal, and was sent back to the trial court for further proceedings.