Agent's misrepresentations about possible sentence rendered statements involuntary

United States v. Young, ___F.3d___, 2020 WL 3729290 (No. 18-622, 10th Cir. July 7, 2020) (a WIN: confession involuntary despite Miranda warning) Short Version: FBI Agent misrepresented the sentence Young faced, promised leniency including access to the judge. Despite Miranda warnings, and an invocation in previous interview with State law enforcement, Tenth found these misrepresentations and promises so coercive they rendered Mr. Young’s confession involuntary. Voluntariness is a totality of the circumstances calculation; importantly, Court views the coercive nature of statements from defendant’s point of view. The Court also looks to the personal characteristics of defendant to determine susceptibility to coercion. No one factor is dispositive. Long Version: In an interview with local agents, Mr. Young admitted that a small amount of meth (c. 4 grams) found the morning of his arrest was his, but denied that a much larger quantity (c. 90 grams) found later that day was. He then invoked right to remain silent/withdrew consent to speak. FBI Special Agent Brown questioned Mr. Young later and told Mr. Young he had spoken to the judge, and that Mr. Young faced either a five-year or a ten-year charge. Mr. Young was taken aback by federal was on Mr. Young’s side and that each truthful response by Mr. Young would “tick time” off the sentence. (Sadly, the Agent did not give a conversion rate for truthful answers to time off.) Mr. Young had some prior experience with the criminal justice system but was not the Federal system. Turns out, neither five-year nor ten-year possible sentence was accurate; depending on how charged (simple possession or possession with intent) and criminal history, sentence could be anywhere from maximum of 1 year to maximum of 40 years. The Court was not happy with this – acknowledges that cops are not required to tell a suspect of penalties but “if he misrepresents these penalties, then that deception affects our evaluation of the voluntariness of any resulting statements.” The Tenth then put in an interesting parenthetical: Clanton, 129 F.3d at 1158 (“[C]ourts are much less likely to tolerate misrepresentations of law.”). Nor did the Court appreciate Agent Brown’s assertions that Mr. Young could “buy down the amount of time” or “every time you answer a question truthfully, it ticks time off that record.” Again, the Court was pretty blunt, “But that is not the way the federal system works.” Last, but definitely not least, the Court was not happy with Agent Brown’s purported access to a federal judge calling it a “particularly troubling false promise of access to the federal judiciary.” The District court found these promises of leniency and misrepresentations coercive but ultimately did not think they rendered Mr. Young’s statement involuntary. The District court relied upon Mr. Young’s previous experience in the state criminal system, previous invocation of silence, and not giving consent to search his phone. (Yay! Mr. Young listened to one of his lawyer’s at some point.) The Tenth discounted this, pointing out that the Federal system is different and Mr. Young was “visibly shocked” at the federal charges. The panel felt this meant Mr. Young could not “withstand the coercion created by Agent Brown’s legal misrepresentations and promises of leniency.” Thus, his statement was involuntary.