Use of ‘Woodshed Technique’ to Gain Confession Invalidated

The officer had admonished the three juvenile theft suspects much like a stern parent: tell the truth and you will be released, but if you lie, you will be arrested and taken to jail.

Two of the youths denied that they were thieves. But a third admitted that the three had stolen some property. The youth who told the truth was given only a citation and released. The two who lied were taken into custody and later admitted the theft and were charged with burglary and other offenses.

However, a state Court of Appeal ruled Friday that what might be permissible for parents was impermissible for police.

The three-judge panel held that the third youth’s confession was the involuntary result of a police threat--and could not be used as evidence in court against the two other juveniles.

“This case is illustrative of an oft-heard proposition: Confession is not only good for the soul (an old Scottish proverb) but it often gets the wrongdoer off the hook,” Appellate Justice Allison M. Rouse wrote for the court.

In the first appellate decision on the issue, the court held that provisions of the 1982 victims’ bill of rights initiative allowing the use of all “relevant evidence” did not nullify another law that permits a defendant to challenge the use of a confession improperly obtained from someone else.

The panel rejected prosecutors’ contentions that the officer’s statements to the youths were merely “exhortations” to tell the truth or face the consequences.

It was the officer’s “promise of leniency and not an exercise of ‘free will’ that prompted (the third youth) to confess,” said Rouse in an opinion joined by Appellate Justices Jerome A. Smith and John Benson.

Lawyer Praises Court

San Francisco attorney Paula Schmidt, one of the lawyers defending the two youths, praised the appellate court for being “willing to say that, despite the passage of Proposition 8, it still will not tolerate coercive conduct by police.”

Deputy state Atty. Gen. Ronald E. Niver said an appeal to the state Supreme Court is “a definite possibility.”

He noted that the new court, now under Chief Justice Malcolm M. Lucas, already has agreed to reconsider another ruling involving the initiative made by the court under former Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird that barred the use of improperly obtained statements to impeach a defendant’s testimony at trial.

The case before the appeal court arose in 1985 when Bruce Marovich, an 18-year veteran of the San Francisco Police Department, became suspicious of three juveniles he saw riding bicycles and peering into unattended vehicles in a parking lot at the Cow Palace during a concert by rock star Prince.

Later, Marovich spotted the three youngsters crossing a street balancing several large boxes on the handlebars of their bicycles. Marovich, along with other officers, stopped the youths, separated them, advised them of their rights and then separately told each that if they told the truth the worst they would get would be a citation--but if they lied, and the boxes turned out to be stolen, they would be arrested.

Two boys, identified by the court as Tommy C. and Clyde K., told conflicting stories about obtaining the boxes from “a man.” The third boy, Raymond, was warned again that he could go to jail. “Forget that,” he finally told the officers. “I can’t go back to jail.” He said the boxes, containing coat racks, had been taken from a nearby warehouse.

True to his word, Officer Marovich gave Raymond a citation and turned him loose. Tommy and Clyde then offered to tell the truth in return for a citation--but were told that it was too late and were taken into custody.

The two boys were acquitted of the charges of burglary and petty theft but found guilty of receiving stolen property. As juveniles, they were placed on probation and ordered to attend school regularly, perform community service and pay fines.

But attorneys for Tommy and Clyde appealed the ruling, contending that all the evidence against them had been the product of an involuntary confession obtained through the coercion of Raymond. In a 19-page opinion, the Court of Appeal agreed, saying that the juvenile court’s orders declaring the two boys wards of the court and placing them on probation must be reversed.

Rouse said the officer’s tactic recalled the “woodshed technique,” where a father would admonish a child to “tell the truth, or else. . . . “

Could Be ‘Child Abuse’

“In today’s world,” Rouse noted wryly, “such conduct would undoubtedly lead to a charge of child abuse.”

The court went on to find that while the 1982 initiative known as Proposition 8 had allowed the use of “relevant evidence” in juvenile proceedings, the measure had expressly excluded from its scope existing rules of evidence that would continue to bar admission of coerced confessions.

The panel said that the rights of due process asserted by the two boys required the exclusion of the coerced confession of the third youth “and all tainted fruits thereof.”