Arizona v. Fulminante

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 not automatically 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 convicted on 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 jail for 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 said he 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, and Fulminante 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 to overturn the conviction. Later, however, the state court said that, based on previous U.S. Supreme Court rulings, the harmless error standard did not apply to a coerced confession. The Arizona Supreme Court overturned the verdict and 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.