In this episode we re-argue the Supreme Court case Colorado v. Connelly.
A man walked up to a police officer who was minding his own business and announced that he wished to confess to a murder. The police repeatedly informed him of his rights, and he insisted upon making his statement. It turned out this man was experiencing acute symptoms of mental illness.
The question before the court: did taking FC’s statements and using them as evidence against him violate the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment?
References
Barrowcliff, A.L., & Haddock, G. (2010). Factors affecting compliance and resistance to auditory command hallucinations: Perceptions of a clinical population. Journal of Mental Health, 19(6), 542-552.
Braham, L.G., Trower, P., & Birchwood, M. (2004). Acting on command hallucinations and dangerous behavior: A critique of the major findings in the last decade. Clinical Psychology Review, 24, 513-528. DOI: 10.1016/j.cpr.2004.04.002
Colorado v. Connelly, 479 U.S. 157 (1986).
Colorado v. Connelly (n.d.). Oyez. Retrieved January 12, 2025 from https://www.oyez.org/cases/1986/85-660
Gehring, M.E. (1988). Colorado v. Connelly: The demise of free will as an independent basis for finding a confession involuntary. Villanova Law Review, 33, 895-923. [https://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2615&context=vlr]
Harkins, D. (2012). Revisiting Colorado v. Connelly: The problem of false confessions in the twenty-first century. Southern Illinois University Law Journal, 37, 319-336. [https://law.siu.edu/_common/documents/law-journal/articles-2013/winter-2013/3-harkins-article.pdf]
Melton, G.B., Petrila, J. Poythress, N.G., Slobogin, C., Otto, R.K., Mossman, D., & Condie, L.O. (2018). Psychological evaluations for the courts: A handbook for mental health professionals and lawyers (4th ed.). Guilford.
Pizzi, W.T. (2009). Colorado v. Connelly: What really happened. Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, 7, 377-389. [https://scholar.law.colorado.edu/faculty-articles/268/]
Rogers, R., Nussbaum, D., & Gillis, R. (1988). Command hallucinations and criminality: A clinical quandary. Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law, 16(3), 251-258.