Corley v. United States

This will be the first case heard in the Obama Administration. It concerns what has been called the McNabb/Mallory exclusionary rule, relating to how quickly a defendant must be presented to a federal magistrate judge after being arrested on a federal crime. The circuits are split on the question of whether the relevant federal law, 18 USC sec. 3501(c) [quoted below] means that if a defendant is presented to the federal officer more than six hours after arrest, and if there is no "good reason" for the delay (i.e., transportation or availability problems), then all confessions extracted from the person in that time must be suppressed. Well, let's begin with the facts and the evolution of the relevant law.

Basic Facts

On June 16, 2003 the Norsco Federal Credit Union in Norristown, PA was robbed by three men. Corley was arrested at 8:00 a.m. on Sept. 17, 2003 after federal and state authorities identified him as a suspect in the robbery. He resisted arrest by fighting with an FBI agent. As a result, he was placed under federal arrest for assaulting a federal officer. He was taken to a local police station for processing. At 11:45 a.m. he was taken from the police station to a Philadelphia hospital for treatment for injuries suffered. He wasn't released until 3:20 p.m. He was then brought to the Philadelphia FBI office, arriving at 3:30. The FBI office is in the same building as the federal magistrate judges' courtoom. Thus, he could have been presented right away. But the agents wanted to interrogate him, and they did. After all, he beat up on one of their colleagues; thus, he doesn't get the royal lodge at the hotel.

At 5:07 p.m. Corley signed a waiver of rights form, and he then confessed to the crime shortly thereafter. He didn't put his confession in writing at the time, saying that he was tired. Thus, the interrogation resumed the next day at 10:30 a.m., when he signed his confession. Then, they promptly delivered him to the magistrate judge to be informed of his rights--at 1:30 p.m. This was 29 1/2 hours after his arrest.

You ask, well, what's the big deal? Well, the law is the big deal--as I will now show.

The Federal Law on Presenting an Arrested Person

The Supreme Court and federal law have long recognized a defendant's rights to prompt presentment to a judicial officer after arrest. In 1943, in McNabb (318 US 332 (1943)), the Court ruled that federal officers who held defendants in custody and interrogated them for several days in order to secure a confession before bringing them to a judicial officer had violated their rights. This decision was codified in 1946 in Fed. R. Crim. Proc. 5(a), requiring that federal officers take an arrested person before a judicial officer "without unnecessary delay."

But, of course, the two words "unnecessary delay" invite lots of reflection and interpretation. In Upshaw (335 US 410 (1948)), the Court held that delay in presentment for the purposes of securing a confession is "unnecessary delay" in violation of Rule 5(a). In Mallory (354 US 449 (1957)), the Court emphasized that the prohibition of "unnecessary delay" means that any delay in presentment "must not be of a nature to give opportunity for the extraction of a confession." In other words, if the primary reason you are not getting the defendant to the magistrate is because you want to secure a confession, well, you have violated the law.

After the Court's famous Miranda decision in 1966, Congress decided to try to put the Miranda rule together with the McNabb/Mallory exclusionary rule (a grouping by first letter, no doubt) in the same law. This was 18 USC sec. 3501, part of which is at issue here. The heart of this relatively long statute (too long to quote fully here) is as follows:

"(a) In any criminal prosecution … a confession … shall be admissible in evidence if it is voluntarily given.…

(b) The trial judge in determining the issue of voluntariness shall take into consideration all the circumstances surrounding the given confession ….

(c) In any criminal prosecution … a confession made … while such person was under arrest or other detention … shall not be inadmissible solely because of delay in bringing such person before a magistrate … if such confession is found by the trial judge to have been made voluntarily and if the weight to be given the confession is left to the jury and if such confession was made or given by such person within six hours immediately following his arrest or other detention: Provided, That the time limitation contained in this subsection shall not apply in any case in which the delay … beyond such six-hour period is found by the trial judge to be reasonable considering the means of transportation and the distance to be traveled to the nearest available such magistrate ….

Subsection (c) is the important one for our purposes. Whenever you see a "provided" in a federal law, it means there was fierce debate underlying the provision just above. The words before the "provided" seem to put the McNabb/Mallory rule in writing by specifying what delay is. It looks as if it gives the authorities a "six hour safe harbor" in doing whatever things they find reasonable before turning a person over to the magistrate. But the "provided" section then takes us to our case. We are beyond the six-hour period. It seems to suggest that the time limit isn't applicable if you go beyond the six hour period, as long as the delay is "reasonable." In this instance, for example, a hospital stay for an injured person or a delay because the person has to travel 10 hours to get to the nearest federal magistrate would apply. But what about an "unreasonable" delay? Is delay in presentment beyond six hours for the purpose of extracting a confession a violation of this law--or is it just good police business, as long as the person is presented as soon as is practicable after the police authories are "finished" with the guy?

I think the language of the law is clear enough--authorities get a six hour "free" window to do their work. Or, if there are reasonable delays, they get six hours of "free time" in addition to the delay. If the delay in presentment goes beyond the "reasonable delay" + "six hours," then it is prima facie unreasonable and all statements made in that time after the "RD" + "six hours" must be suppressed.

The split is between those circuits which hold that voluntariness is the sole criterion for admissibility, and unnecessary delay alone cannot be a basis for exclusion of statements, regardless of how long after the arrest the statements are made (1st, 6th, 8th, 10th) and those circuits which read the statute as I did above--that after your reasonable delay + six hours is exhausted, you as federal officials must present. Though I think the latter interpretation comports with the language of the statute (and the law was passed in a time where criminal defendants were given the most rights at any period in our history), I see this Court as trying to give a more cramped reading of the statute. Thus, they will probably affirm the 3rd Circuit, which held that Corley's confession should not be suppressed.

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