§ 22.03 Due Process Clause: Remedies for Violation of the Right

• Jurisdiction: North Carolina

§ 22.03 Due Process Clause: Remedies for Violation of the Right

[A] Requirement of State Action (Official Overreaching)

According to Colorado v. Connelly, "[t]he most outrageous behavior by a private party seeking to secure evidence against a defendant does not make that evidence inadmissible under the Due Process Clause."⁷⁹ That is, in order to exclude a confession on due process grounds (or, presumably, to find a violation of the Due Process Clause in any civil action⁸⁰), there must be a "link between coercive activity of the State, on the one hand, and a resulting confession by a defendant, on the other."⁸¹

In Connelly, C, a person suffering from chronic schizophrenia, in a psychotic state, and responding to "command hallucinations" (he heard "the voice of God" order him to confess or commit suicide), approached a police officer on the street and confessed to a murder. The perplexed officer ascertained that C was not drunk or on drugs, but was told by C that he had been a patient in several mental hospitals. After the officer informed C of his constitutional rights, C answered questions about the crime.

According to expert testimony, C's mental condition at the time of his conversations with the police "interfered with [his] 'volitional abilities; that is, his ability to make free and rational choices'," including the decision whether to confess. C's confession, motivated as it was by perceived orders from God, was as involuntary — and potentially as untrustworthy — as a confession wrung from him by the police. Nonetheless, the Court concluded that "the 'involuntary confession' jurisprudence is entirely consistent with the settled law requiring some sort of 'state action' to support a [Due Process Clause] violation."

The Court indicated that the potential unreliability of C's confession was a matter that "the Constitution rightly leaves . . . to be resolved by state laws governing the admission of evidence." As Justice Stevens observed in his partial concurrence, "[t]he fact that the statements [made by C] were involuntary — just as the product of Lady Macbeth's nightmare was involuntary — does not mean that their use for whatever evidentiary value they may have is fundamentally unfair or a denial of due process." Thus, just as unreliability of a suspect's confession is not a necessary condition for excluding a statement,⁸² neither is it a sufficient basis.

The Connelly dissenters objected. They contended that "due process derives much of its meaning from a conception of fundamental fairness that emphasizes the right to make vital choices voluntarily." Although they conceded that police overreaching had been an element of every previous confession case, "it is also true that in every case [until now] the Court has made clear that ensuring that a confession is a product of free will is an independent concern."

[B] Standing to Raise an Involuntary Confession Claim

Suppose...