Petitioner
State of Arizona
Respondent
Orestes C. Fulminante
Petitioner's Claim
That the Arizona Supreme Court had erred in awarding Fulminante a new trial for murder.
Chief Lawyer for Petitioner
Barbara M. Jarrett
Chief Lawyer for Respondent
Stephen R. Collins
Justices for the Court
Anthony M. Kennedy, Sandra Day O'Connor, William H. Rehnquist (writing for the Court), Antonin Scalia, David H. Souter
Justices Dissenting
Harry A. Blackmun, Thurgood Marshall, John Paul Stevens, Byron R. White
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
26 March 1991
Decision
Affirmed the lower court's decision to grant a new trial, on the basis that the state used an inadmissible, coerced confession to convict Fulminante.
Significance
Although in this instance the Court disallowed a coerced confession, it opened the door for permitting such confessions in the future, ruling they no longer were exempt from "harmless error" analysis. In principle, the Court's ruling meant that the introduction into evidence of a coerced confession did notautomatically taint an entire trial and void a conviction, if there was enough other evidence to justify a guilty verdict.
When Orestes Fulminante entered a New York federal prison, he faced greater danger than the typical convict might. Although Fulminante had been convictedon a firearms charge, rumors circulated that he had killed his 11 year-old stepdaughter while living in Arizona. Child murderers and molesters are often targeted for violent attacks by other inmates, but Fulminante found a friend who offered to help protect him--if Fulminate told the truth about his stepdaughter's death. Fulminante's subsequent confession and conviction for murder are the heart of Arizona v. Fulminante.
Fulminante's new friend was Anthony Sarivola, a former police officer in jailfor extortion. But Sarivola was also an FBI informant pretending to be an organized crime figure. Under instructions from the FBI, Sarivola urged Fulminante to confess. If Fulminante told the truth about the murder, Sarivola saidhe would protect him from the other inmates. Fulminante agreed, describing how he took his stepdaughter, Jeneane Hunt, to an isolated stretch of Arizona desert. There, he sexually assaulted the girl, choked her, then shot her two times in the head. Based on this confession and another one Fulminante gave later to Sarivola's fiancee, the state of Arizona arrested Fulminante for first-degree murder.
Before his trial, Fulminante asked the court to exclude his confessions, saying they were involuntary or coerced, and thus not admissible evidence. Sarivola had said he would help Fulminante only if he confessed to the murder, andFulminante never would have told his friend's fiancee about the murder if Sarivola had not been his protector. The trial court, however, ruled the confessions were voluntary and allowable in court. On 19 December 1985, Fulminante was found guilty and later sentenced to death.
Fulminante appealed the verdict, still arguing his confessions were coerced and not admissible under the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Arizona Supreme Court ruled that the confessions were coerced,but that their admission was a "harmless error" and not sufficient reason tooverturn the conviction. Later, however, the state court said that, based onprevious U.S. Supreme Court rulings, the harmless error standard did not apply to a coerced confession. The Arizona Supreme Court overturned the verdictand ordered a new trial for Fulminante, without use of the confession. The state of Arizona then appealed that verdict to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Harmless Error and the Supreme Court
Under the harmless error analysis, the Supreme Court had said that a trial procedure could be flawed, or some evidence could be illegally obtained, and aguilty verdict could still stand, if the mistake was merely a harmless errorthat did not outweigh all the other evidence of the case. But in a 1967 case,Chapman v. California, the Supreme Court had ruled that admission ofa coerced confession was never a harmless error; any time a coerced confession led to a guilty verdict, the verdict had to be overturned.
In Arizona v. Fulminante, the Court voted 5-4 to uphold the Arizona court's decision: Fulminante would get a new trial and the confession would notbe allowed. But in a verdict Linda Greenhouse of The New York Times called "unusually convoluted," the decision was broken into four parts, with justices shifting from the majority to the minority and back again. In the most stunning part of the verdict, the Court, agreeing with a brief presented bythe Bush Administration, overturned the precedent set in Chapman. Now, the Court ruled, a coerced confession could be allowed as a harmless errorunder some circumstances.
Writing for the majority on that point, Chief Justice Rehnquist said, "The admission of an involuntary confession . . . is similar in both degree and kindto the erroneous admission of other types of evidence." If other evidence separate from the confession was strong enough to convict a defendant, the verdict should stand. For Rehnquist, only "structural defects," such as a biasedjudge or a defendant's lack of adequate legal defense, were absolutely excluded from the harmless error analysis.
Justice White strongly disagreed with Rehnquist, and in a rarity for the Supreme Court, White read his dissent in the courtroom. A coerced confession, hewrote, is "fundamentally different from other types of erroneously admitted evidence to which the rule [of harmless error] has been applied." White was dismayed that the Court was ignoring the precedents on coerced confessions. "Permitting a coerced confession to be part of the evidence on which a jury is free to base its verdict of guilty is inconsistent with the thesis that ours is not an inquisitorial system" of criminal justice.
New Direction?
During 1990, one of the Court's most liberal members, William J. Brennan, Jr., retired. President George Bush filled his seat with the more conservative David H. Souter. Souter joined Rehnquist in overturning the harmless error analysis for coerced confessions. Some legal experts believed the Arizona verdict would have been different if Brennan had still been on the Court. Said onelawyer, Joseph L. Rauh, "I bet Bill Brennan is sick this morning."
Observers split in their opinions on the verdict. Some lawyers strongly attacked it, saying it might make police more likely to use threats or violence against a suspect to force a confession. But others said the verdict would havelittle effect, since coerced confessions are rare.
Related Cases
The Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is a unit of the Department of Justice responsible for investigating federal crimes. Its purview consists of allareas of law not otherwise assigned to federal agencies--for example, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). Though it does not prosecute crimes, it providesassistance to federal, state, and local agencies engaged in prosecution.
In 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt called for the development of a specialinvestigative unit within the Justice Department. The following year, Attorney General George W. Wickersham established the Bureau of Investigation, later named the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1935. During World War I and afterward, the FBI was involved in a wave of investigations regarding subversive activities. The bureau became more prominent during Prohibition, when it faced prominent gangsters, bootleggers, and other criminals. In 1924, J. EdgarHoover became FBI director, a position he would hold for 48 years. Under histenure, the bureau concerned itself with civil rights activities and operations of organized crime. In the years since, the FBI has been involved in a number of investigative areas, including background checks, counterintelligence, and white-collar crime.
Sources
West's Encyclopedia of American Law. St. Paul, MN: West Group, 1998.
States and the Death Penalty
As of 1998, the following states had no provision for the death penalty: Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. The District of Columbia also did not practice capital punishment.
Of the 38 states that practice the death penalty, 36 provide for automatic review of the death sentence, regardless of the wishes of the defendant. The only exceptions are Arkansas, which simply lacks provisions for automatic review, and South Carolina, in which the defendant may waive sentence review if heor she is deemed competent by the court. Additionally, federal death-penaltyprocedures do not provide for automatic review after a sentence of death hasbeen passed down.
Usually the highest appellate court in the state conducts the automatic review. Kentucky authorizes waiver of appeal on the defendant's part. In both Mississippi and Wyoming respectively, the defendant's right to waive automatic review and appeal remained open to question as of the end of 1995. Also, rulesregarding automatic review of both the conviction and the sentence (as opposed to just one or the other) vary, with Idaho, Indiana, Oklahoma, and Tennessee requiring review only of the sentence.
Sources
U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Capital Punishment 1996. Washington, DC: U.S. Government, 1997.
State of Arizona
Respondent
Orestes C. Fulminante
Petitioner's Claim
That the Arizona Supreme Court had erred in awarding Fulminante a new trial for murder.
Chief Lawyer for Petitioner
Barbara M. Jarrett
Chief Lawyer for Respondent
Stephen R. Collins
Justices for the Court
Anthony M. Kennedy, Sandra Day O'Connor, William H. Rehnquist (writing for the Court), Antonin Scalia, David H. Souter
Justices Dissenting
Harry A. Blackmun, Thurgood Marshall, John Paul Stevens, Byron R. White
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
26 March 1991
Decision
Affirmed the lower court's decision to grant a new trial, on the basis that the state used an inadmissible, coerced confession to convict Fulminante.
Significance
Although in this instance the Court disallowed a coerced confession, it opened the door for permitting such confessions in the future, ruling they no longer were exempt from "harmless error" analysis. In principle, the Court's ruling meant that the introduction into evidence of a coerced confession did notautomatically taint an entire trial and void a conviction, if there was enough other evidence to justify a guilty verdict.
When Orestes Fulminante entered a New York federal prison, he faced greater danger than the typical convict might. Although Fulminante had been convictedon a firearms charge, rumors circulated that he had killed his 11 year-old stepdaughter while living in Arizona. Child murderers and molesters are often targeted for violent attacks by other inmates, but Fulminante found a friend who offered to help protect him--if Fulminate told the truth about his stepdaughter's death. Fulminante's subsequent confession and conviction for murder are the heart of Arizona v. Fulminante.
Fulminante's new friend was Anthony Sarivola, a former police officer in jailfor extortion. But Sarivola was also an FBI informant pretending to be an organized crime figure. Under instructions from the FBI, Sarivola urged Fulminante to confess. If Fulminante told the truth about the murder, Sarivola saidhe would protect him from the other inmates. Fulminante agreed, describing how he took his stepdaughter, Jeneane Hunt, to an isolated stretch of Arizona desert. There, he sexually assaulted the girl, choked her, then shot her two times in the head. Based on this confession and another one Fulminante gave later to Sarivola's fiancee, the state of Arizona arrested Fulminante for first-degree murder.
Before his trial, Fulminante asked the court to exclude his confessions, saying they were involuntary or coerced, and thus not admissible evidence. Sarivola had said he would help Fulminante only if he confessed to the murder, andFulminante never would have told his friend's fiancee about the murder if Sarivola had not been his protector. The trial court, however, ruled the confessions were voluntary and allowable in court. On 19 December 1985, Fulminante was found guilty and later sentenced to death.
Fulminante appealed the verdict, still arguing his confessions were coerced and not admissible under the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Arizona Supreme Court ruled that the confessions were coerced,but that their admission was a "harmless error" and not sufficient reason tooverturn the conviction. Later, however, the state court said that, based onprevious U.S. Supreme Court rulings, the harmless error standard did not apply to a coerced confession. The Arizona Supreme Court overturned the verdictand ordered a new trial for Fulminante, without use of the confession. The state of Arizona then appealed that verdict to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Harmless Error and the Supreme Court
Under the harmless error analysis, the Supreme Court had said that a trial procedure could be flawed, or some evidence could be illegally obtained, and aguilty verdict could still stand, if the mistake was merely a harmless errorthat did not outweigh all the other evidence of the case. But in a 1967 case,Chapman v. California, the Supreme Court had ruled that admission ofa coerced confession was never a harmless error; any time a coerced confession led to a guilty verdict, the verdict had to be overturned.
In Arizona v. Fulminante, the Court voted 5-4 to uphold the Arizona court's decision: Fulminante would get a new trial and the confession would notbe allowed. But in a verdict Linda Greenhouse of The New York Times called "unusually convoluted," the decision was broken into four parts, with justices shifting from the majority to the minority and back again. In the most stunning part of the verdict, the Court, agreeing with a brief presented bythe Bush Administration, overturned the precedent set in Chapman. Now, the Court ruled, a coerced confession could be allowed as a harmless errorunder some circumstances.
Writing for the majority on that point, Chief Justice Rehnquist said, "The admission of an involuntary confession . . . is similar in both degree and kindto the erroneous admission of other types of evidence." If other evidence separate from the confession was strong enough to convict a defendant, the verdict should stand. For Rehnquist, only "structural defects," such as a biasedjudge or a defendant's lack of adequate legal defense, were absolutely excluded from the harmless error analysis.
Justice White strongly disagreed with Rehnquist, and in a rarity for the Supreme Court, White read his dissent in the courtroom. A coerced confession, hewrote, is "fundamentally different from other types of erroneously admitted evidence to which the rule [of harmless error] has been applied." White was dismayed that the Court was ignoring the precedents on coerced confessions. "Permitting a coerced confession to be part of the evidence on which a jury is free to base its verdict of guilty is inconsistent with the thesis that ours is not an inquisitorial system" of criminal justice.
New Direction?
During 1990, one of the Court's most liberal members, William J. Brennan, Jr., retired. President George Bush filled his seat with the more conservative David H. Souter. Souter joined Rehnquist in overturning the harmless error analysis for coerced confessions. Some legal experts believed the Arizona verdict would have been different if Brennan had still been on the Court. Said onelawyer, Joseph L. Rauh, "I bet Bill Brennan is sick this morning."
Observers split in their opinions on the verdict. Some lawyers strongly attacked it, saying it might make police more likely to use threats or violence against a suspect to force a confession. But others said the verdict would havelittle effect, since coerced confessions are rare.
Related Cases
- Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18 (1967).
The Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is a unit of the Department of Justice responsible for investigating federal crimes. Its purview consists of allareas of law not otherwise assigned to federal agencies--for example, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). Though it does not prosecute crimes, it providesassistance to federal, state, and local agencies engaged in prosecution.
In 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt called for the development of a specialinvestigative unit within the Justice Department. The following year, Attorney General George W. Wickersham established the Bureau of Investigation, later named the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1935. During World War I and afterward, the FBI was involved in a wave of investigations regarding subversive activities. The bureau became more prominent during Prohibition, when it faced prominent gangsters, bootleggers, and other criminals. In 1924, J. EdgarHoover became FBI director, a position he would hold for 48 years. Under histenure, the bureau concerned itself with civil rights activities and operations of organized crime. In the years since, the FBI has been involved in a number of investigative areas, including background checks, counterintelligence, and white-collar crime.
Sources
West's Encyclopedia of American Law. St. Paul, MN: West Group, 1998.
States and the Death Penalty
As of 1998, the following states had no provision for the death penalty: Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. The District of Columbia also did not practice capital punishment.
Of the 38 states that practice the death penalty, 36 provide for automatic review of the death sentence, regardless of the wishes of the defendant. The only exceptions are Arkansas, which simply lacks provisions for automatic review, and South Carolina, in which the defendant may waive sentence review if heor she is deemed competent by the court. Additionally, federal death-penaltyprocedures do not provide for automatic review after a sentence of death hasbeen passed down.
Usually the highest appellate court in the state conducts the automatic review. Kentucky authorizes waiver of appeal on the defendant's part. In both Mississippi and Wyoming respectively, the defendant's right to waive automatic review and appeal remained open to question as of the end of 1995. Also, rulesregarding automatic review of both the conviction and the sentence (as opposed to just one or the other) vary, with Idaho, Indiana, Oklahoma, and Tennessee requiring review only of the sentence.
Sources
U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Capital Punishment 1996. Washington, DC: U.S. Government, 1997.
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