THE STATE v. LEVERETTE
S24A0984
Supreme Court of Georgia
320 Ga. 806
COLVIN, Justice.
FINAL COPY
The State appeals from the trial court‘s order granting Jaylen Leverette‘s motion to suppress incriminating statements he made during an audio-recorded, custodial interview. The trial court excluded Leverette‘s statements under
1. On February 25, 2019, a Sumter County grand jury returned an eight-count indictment against Leverette, Patrick Etheridge,
On September 15, 2023, Leverette filed a pretrial motion to suppress custodial statements he had made to a GBI agent on August 9, 2018. In the motion, Leverette argued that the statements were inadmissible under
During a Jackson-Denno1 hearing on November 21, 2023, the audio recording of Leverette‘s custodial interview was admitted into evidence. During the first hour and 19 minutes of the interview, which was conducted by GBI Agent Clint Karsten, Leverette waived
Major Ralph Stuart entered the room an hour and 20 minutes into the interview and spoke with Leverette for approximately 11 minutes before leaving. The audio recording of that 11-minute period, which was the focus of Leverette‘s motion to suppress, showed the following. Major Stuart told Leverette that they could track the location of Leverette‘s phone within three feet of where he was. He then told Leverette three times that officers did not believe that Leverette had fired the bullet that killed the bystander, saying: “Y‘all haven‘t been accused . . . of firing the shots that killed a man. I think you need to understand that. Okay? That‘s not why we‘re here“; “Nobody thinks for one minute that car that the shots was fired from killed an innocent person, and I want to make that clear“;
Major Stuart then told Leverette that the agents already knew what the truth was, and that “[n]ot telling the truth of what actually happened is going to cause you a lot more trouble than telling the truth.” Major Stuart asked Leverette, “Do you want to tell this agent the truth or do you want to go ahead . . . with what you got? ‘Cause what you got is going to drown you.” Then, Major Stuart said Leverette‘s friends and his phone were going to “give [him] up,” told Leverette that they “already kn[e]w what car [he] was in,” and asked Leverette if he had ever been in Etheridge‘s car before.
Major Stuart went on to discuss how telling the truth would make Leverette feel and the potential impact on his reputation. He said: “That little bad feeling you‘ve got in your stomach right now, it can get a lot better just as soon as you tell that man the truth,” or “it‘s fixing to get a lot worse“; “Now you can get rid of that little uneasy feeling in your stomach right now and tell him what he
Shortly after, Major Stuart informed Leverette that his friends had already given him up, and that Leverette‘s phone was going to verify what they said. Major Stuart further said that Leverette had made a big mistake by lying, and that the agent was giving him a chance to “take it back.” Major Stuart then told Leverette, “We want to hold the man accountable that fired the round, not nobody in the car. [Hale, Sr., has] been held accountable, him and his son. . . . That‘s what we‘re here for.” Major Stuart asked Leverette if he “want[ed] to tell [the agent] the truth about being in the car.” And he emphasized again that they did not believe Leverette had shot the bystander, saying, “We know that nobody in the car even shot the innocent bystander, much less you.”
Major Stuart also made several statements indicating that
After Major Stuart left the interview room, Agent Karsten stated, “We don‘t think people in the car shot the person that died.” And Leverette then made several incriminating statements to Agent Karsten, admitting that he and Etheridge were present for the shooting, that there was an exchange of gunfire, and that Leverette had fired a gun toward the house from the passenger seat of the vehicle.
The trial court granted Leverette‘s motion to suppress his statements under
[Major] Stuart made several statements to Leverette that he and Eth[e]ridge were not accused of firing the shots that killed the victim and that he could “make things worse” by not speaking up about being at the scene. . . . [Major] Stuart told Leverette he could “walk out that door” feeling better about the situation if he admitted his involvement. Finally, [Major] Stuart made several statements to the defendant that the occupants of the car were not facing responsibility for the shooting. For example, [Major] Stuart stated we “want to hold the man accountable that fired the round . . . not nobody in the car.”
(Emphasis in original.) According to the trial court, these statements constituted “assurances” that Leverette “would not be charged with offenses holding him ‘responsible’ for the fatal shooting.” And the court found that these assurances persuaded Leverette to admit his involvement in the shooting. The State timely appealed.
2. On appeal, the State contends that the trial court erred in
Georgia law provides that, “[t]o make a confession admissible, it shall have been made voluntarily, without being induced by another by the slightest hope of benefit or remotest fear of injury.”
A court must consider “the totality of the circumstances” in determining whether the defendant‘s statement is admissible under
Here, the trial court erred in concluding that Major Stuart gave Leverette assurances that he would not be charged with murder if he spoke to law enforcement officers about the shooting and thus erred in concluding that Leverette‘s admissions were induced by a hope of benefit under
First, the trial court focused on comments made by Major Stuart that indicated Leverette would make things worse by not telling the truth. These comments included statements that: “Not telling the truth of what actually happened is going to cause you a lot more trouble than telling the truth“; “Do you want to tell this agent the truth or do you want to go ahead . . . with what you got? ‘Cause what you got is going to drown you“; “So you want to sit here and stick to this stupid story and make you look like a fool and get held more accountable for the lie you‘re telling now than the one we was asking you about“; and “your story makes you look like you guilty of something.” But “[i]t is well established that interview tactics such as telling the [defendant] that he could ‘help himself’ by telling the truth do not violate
Third, the trial court focused on comments by Major Stuart suggesting that the occupants of the car were not responsible for firing the bullet that struck and killed the victim. In particular, the trial court highlighted Major Stuart‘s statement that “[w]e want to hold the man accountable that fired the round, not nobody in the car.” But “[a]gain, context matters.” Peacock, 314 Ga. at 722 (4).
Here, as recounted above, Major Stuart repeatedly encouraged Leverette to tell the truth about being in Etheridge‘s car by downplaying both Leverette‘s moral culpability for the victim‘s
These five statements, each of which was made within minutes of, and either before or after, Major Stuart‘s “accountability”
The dissenting opinion‘s conclusion that Leverette was offered an impermissible hope of benefit finds no support in our precedent. An investigator‘s comments constitute an impermissible hope of benefit under
Under our precedent, Major Stuart‘s comment about not “want[ing]” to hold anyone in the car “accountable” clearly falls on the permissible side of the divide between statements that qualify as a hope of benefit under the statute and those that do not. See, e.g., Currier v. State, 294 Ga. 392, 399-400 (3) (754 SE2d 17) (2014) (no improper hope of benefit where a sheriff told the defendant, who was later charged with felony murder, that “he would be in less trouble for concealing [a] body” than for murder, that “no one was going to come after [the defendant] for getting rid of a dead body he found in his home,” and that “the most [the defendant] could be charged with would be disposing of a body” if he told the sheriff what
Because the trial court erred in excluding Leverette‘s statements under
Judgment vacated and case remanded. All the Justices concur,
except Boggs, C. J., Peterson, P. J., and Warren and Pinson, JJ., who dissent.LAGRUA, Justice, concurring.
I join the majority’s holding that Leverette’s statements to law enforcement were not induced in violation of
As early as 1879, this Court recognized a distinction between confessions and admissions. See Dumas v. State, 63 Ga. 600, 603 (1879) (granting new trial where defendant admitted being present at the crime’s commission, but denied guilt, such that a jury instruction on confessions was improper). We have reiterated that distinction consistently and on numerous occasions since then. See e.g., Covington v. State of Ga., 79 Ga. 687, 690 (7 SE 153) (1887) (distinguishing confessions from admissions); Owens v. State, 120 Ga. 296, 298 (48 SE 21) (1904) (same); Clarke v. State, 165 Ga. 326, 331 (140 SE 889) (1927) (same); Turner v. State, 203 Ga. 770, 771 (2)-(3) (48 SE2d 522) (1948) (same); Vergara v. State, 283 Ga. 175, 177 (1) (657 SE2d 863) (2008) (same), overruled on other grounds by Clark v. State, 315 Ga. 423, 434-435 (3) (b) (883 SE2d 317) (2023); Thomas v. State, 308 Ga. 26, 30 (2) (b) (838 SE2d 801) (2020) (same). Our General Assembly has also long recognized the difference in these two terms of art. See
So, what’s the difference? We summed it up well in Walsh v. State: “An admission differs from a confession in that a confession acknowledges all of the essential elements of the crime.” 269 Ga. 427, 429-430 (1) (499 SE2d 332) (1998).5 Put simply, in a confession, “the entire criminal act is confessed.” Clarke, 165 Ga. at 331 (citing Owens, 120 Ga. at 298). Admissions, on the other hand — which we have at times referred to as “mere incriminating statements” — do not acknowledge every essential element of the crime. Instead, these statements come up short of a true confession for one reason or another. See English v. State, 300 Ga. 471, 474 (2) (796 SE2d 258) (2017) (“[I]n an admission, only one or more facts entering into the
In the present case, Leverette’s statements do not amount to a confession to the crimes for which he was indicted because they do not acknowledge all the essential elements of aggravated assault.6 The State can only obtain a conviction at trial on this charge if it proves, among other elements, that Leverette assaulted another
With respect to confessions, it has long been the rule that only voluntary confessions are admissible against a defendant at trial. See State v. Chulpayev, 296 Ga. 764, 780 (3) (b) (770 SE2d 808) (2015) (observing pre-founding common law rule that confessions “made under threats and promises” were inadmissible at trial). The first statutory iteration of the rule now codified at
Neither
Putting aside the lack of support in the text itself, I have doubts about our precedent supporting the extension of this rule to mere incriminating admissions. The most recent precedent directly on point is Vergara, where we expressly “reject[ed] the State’s
In Fletcher, for example, the opinion authored by then-Chief Justice Bleckley suggested that it was “the practice in this State” to exclude involuntary admissions in 1892 but then specifically noted a lack of “any direct adjudication upon the precise question” of whether the rule excluding involuntary confessions also applied to admissions. 90 Ga. at 469. The Fletcher Court then assumed without deciding that the rule applied to both types of statements for purposes of the case before it. See id. (“[b]ut grant[ing] that the same rule holds with respect to criminating admissions as with respect to confessions of guilt . . .“). Ultimately, that assumption did not bear on the holding in the case, which dealt with whether the trial court erred by allowing the jury to be present during a preliminary
Then there is Fuller, which, after distinguishing confessions from admissions, suggested that “the sounder view of the law touching the admissibility of such declarations on the part of one charged with crime is to exclude them, if not voluntarily made, upon the same principle as the defendant’s statement would be excluded if it amounted to a direct confession of guilt.” 109 Ga. at 811-812. Immediately thereafter, however, the Fuller Court stated that “it is not necessary to decide directly this question, or to undertake to reconcile authorities, or determine the weight of authority upon the subject” of whether admissions and confessions are treated the same for purposes of exclusion under the rule because, “under the facts of
Finally, the Turner Court held that the trial court erred by allowing a defendant’s incriminating statement to be admitted at trial because it was elicited by a sheriff’s suggestion that telling the truth would result in a lighter sentence. 203 Ga. at 770-771 (1), (2), and (3). The Turner Court did not itself conclude admissions were treated the same as confessions for purposes of exclusion but merely cited to Fuller, 109 Ga. 809, and Mill v. State, 3 Ga. App. 414 (60 SE 4) (1908), for the proposition that “the rule as to [a mere incriminating statement’s] admissibility is the same as that applied
As best I can tell, this Court has never fully examined when, and on what basis, the rule now codified at
To be clear, while it is an open question in my mind whether the rule now codified at
PETERSON, Presiding Justice, dissenting.
1. I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion because, even under our current interpretation of
In fact, that’s precisely how I (and the trial court) understand that statement. And Leverette’s incriminating statements followed Major Stuart’s statement such that they seem likely to have been induced by it, as the trial court also found. In response, the majority asserts that our understanding is unreasonable because Major Stuart’s “accountable” statement should be understood as simply another exhortation to tell the truth, because he had also told Leverette several times that Leverette should tell the truth. But
2. That said, I also take this opportunity to offer an additional observation about the statute at issue today. Our caselaw interpreting
We routinely claim that when “statutory text is clear and unambiguous, we attribute to the statute its plain meaning, and our search for statutory meaning is at an end.” Star Residential, LLC v. Hernandez, 311 Ga. 784, 785 (1) (860 SE2d 726) (2021) (quoting Deal v. Coleman, 294 Ga. 170, 173 (1) (a) (751 SE2d 337) (2013)). The statute we encounter today requires that for a confession to be admissible, it must “have been made voluntarily, without being
Over 150 years ago, the Georgia Code first incorporated a provision forbidding the admission of any confession that was “induced by another, by the slightest hope of benefit or remotest fear of injury.” See Ga. Code of 1860, § 3716.16 This evidentiary rule, as a
The Green Court emphasized that, although “it is difficult to draw a precise line between” admissible and inadmissible confessions, courts should “adhere closely to the plain” language of the statute. 88 Ga. at 518. As a result, confessions were generally excluded as involuntary if the defendant was advised that providing information would serve his or her self-interest, while confessions induced by exhortations to tell the truth were admissible, as they did not “tend to produce a false statement.” Wilson v. State, 19 Ga. App. 759, 765, 769 (92 SE 309) (1917) (noting the difference between the advice to “tell the truth,” which would not render a confession inadmissible, and a statement that “it will be better for [a defendant] to tell,” which would render a confession inadmissible because it would induce a party to offer a “confession, regardless of its truth or falsity“); see also McLemore v. State, 181 Ga. 462, 471 (182 SE 618) (1935) (“There is a material difference between a statement to a prisoner that it would be better for him to tell the truth, and one wherein he is told that it would be better for him to make a confession.” (emphasis in original)).
But more recently, this rule has changed, even though the statutory text has not. See, e.g., Fowler v. State, 246 Ga. 256, 258 (4) (271 SE2d 168) (1980) (holding that defendant’s admissions following officer’s statement of “something to the effect that it looked like [the defendant was] in a heap of trouble and it would behoove him if he shot straight with us” was admissible); Arline v. State, 264 Ga. 843, 843-844 (2) (452 SE2d 115) (1995) (holding that an incriminating statement was admissible even though the detective
Now, all this said, I am not at all sure that the statute is necessary these days. Federal law protects defendants from coerced confessions both through requiring Miranda18 warnings and through the application of the totality of the circumstances test for voluntariness under the Due Process Clause. If the statute does much more than those two federal protections already offer and thus excludes confessions made voluntarily and with full knowledge of the rights included within Miranda warnings, the statute (which, again, the General Assembly has never actually enacted) may do more than the General Assembly would like. And if it doesn’t do
This, however, is not the case in which to consider changing course. Even under our current precedent, the trial court did not err in excluding Leverette’s statement. I respectfully dissent.
I am authorized to state that Chief Justice Boggs, Justice Warren, and Justice Pinson join this dissent.
Murder. Sumter Superior Court. Before Judge Sizemore.
Lewis R. Lamb, District Attorney; Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, Beth A. Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Meghan H. Hill, Clint C. Malcolm, Senior Assistant Attorneys General, for appellant.
Eric L. Gay; Shingler & McMillan, Douglas R. McMillan, for appellee.
Notes
As explained above, Fuller expressly pointed out that it was not “decid[ing] directly this question” of whether the rule applied to both confessions and admissions. 109 Ga. at 812. Mill, for its part, was a one-sentence decision from the Court of Appeals — which does not bind us in the first instance — stating only that “[i]nculpatory admissions, as well as plenary confessions, in order to be admissible against the defendant must be voluntary, and not induced by ‘the slightest hope of benefit or the remotest fear of injury.‘” 3 Ga. App. at 414. Mill’s support for that statement was drawn from Johnson v. State, 1 Ga. App. 129 (57 SE 934) (1907), which applied the rule applicable to confessions to the admissions made in that case. However, I see little precedential value in Johnson’s reasoning, since the Court of Appeals found that the rule applied despite observing that the statements were not “admitted . . . as a confession, or as evidence of inculpatory admissions that might tend to show the defendant’s guilt[,]” and in light of outside circumstances which the opinion suggests may have influenced its outcome. See id. at 131-132 (“In arriving at the conclusion in this case that these statements are not admissible, we have been influenced not only by the language itself, but by the situation presented by the evidence, — the dominating power and influence of the white man who had arrested, as he states, on mere suspicion without a warrant, a negro, and unlawfully searched him, his wife, and his house, and was taking him to jail.“). It is further worth observing that this Court has never cited to Johnson, and the Court of Appeals has only done so on a handful of occasions, with the most recent instance being more than a half-century ago. See Bryant v. State, 132 Ga. App. 186 (207 SE2d 671) (1974).
It seems to me that the best way to make sense of our caselaw is that the applicable standard has two parts: one objective and one subjective. First, courts determine whether the State made statements that objectively could be viewed by a reasonable defendant as offering an impermissible hope of benefit (or threatened injury), considering all the relevant circumstances. See, e.g., Mitchell v. State, 314 Ga. 566, 573 (2) (a) (878 SE2d 208) (2022) (concluding after “[r]eviewing the exchange as a whole” that the record supported the trial court’s conclusion that “no person in [the defendant’s] position would have believed that the interviewing detective was making a credible death threat“); Rivers v. State, 296 Ga. 396, 400 (3) (768 SE2d 486) (2015), overruled on other grounds by State v. Lane, 308 Ga. 10, 17 (1) (838 SE2d 808) (2020) (noting that the “[a]ppellant’s personal belief . . . does not render his statements involuntary” under precursor to
Second, if a statement did offer a hope of benefit or threaten harm, a court must then determine whether that statement actually induced the defendant’s confession. See, e.g., Budhani v. State, 306 Ga. 315, 326 (2) (b) (830 SE2d 195) (2019) (reasoning that a statement is inadmissible under