Kansas v. Ventris

Supreme Court cases often consider a question "left open" in a previous case. Such is the situation here, which deals with the admissibility of a confession to a crime made by a defendant to a jailhouse snitch planted in his cell by the prosecutor's office, after the defendant's right to counsel (under the Sixth Amendment) had attached. In order to understand the case, let's first give the facts, the previous Supreme Court decision that nearly handles the question and the "question left open" by that earlier (1990) decision. In a word, the case comes down to the admissibility, for impeachment purposes, of an incriminatory statement made by defendant to a jailhouse snitch after he had counsel and without a knowing waiver of his rights to counsel. Note that the case does not have to do with the use of such a statement in the prosecutor's case in chief. All agree that such use is inadmissible. So we will be focusing on use of a statement for "impeachment" purposes--i.e., to "protect" the truth-telling and truth-seeking function of the court. Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, however, we need to look at the facts of this case.

Facts

Ventris was convicted by a Kansas jury of aggravated burglary and robbery for a Jan. 2004 robbery and killing of a man (Hicks) who was allegedly abusing Ventris' girlfriend's (Theel) children. Ventris' total prison sentence was 281 months. During the prosecution of the case, Theel entered an agreement with the State to testify against Ventris, and she pleaded guilty to a lesser crime. That makes her his ex-girl friend, don't you think? At trial, then, Theel testified that Ventris shot and killed the man after the two men argued. Ventris also testified, but he claimed that Theel shot the man. Surprise, surprise.

Well, the State had assumed that something like this might happen, and so they arranged to have a certain Johnnie Doser, a former cellmate of Ventris when the latter was awaiting trial, "listen" for any statements Ventris might make in the cell about the murder of the man. Thus, Doser was a plant, a snitch, a person working for the State just as much as any judge works for the State. According to Doser, Ventris implicated hismelf, claiming that the a robbery "went sour" and that he killed the man before robbing him of money. In exchange for this testimony, Doser was released from jail.

When Doser wanted to testify, Ventris' lawyers objected. Their objection centered on the fact that placing Doser in the cell for purposes of obtaining information from the defendant vioalted his Sixth Amendment right to trial. Actually, the State agreed with him. But, the State argued in rebuttal that the testimony of Doser was admissible to impeach Ventris' claim that he was innocent of the shooting. The trial court agreed with the State, Doser's testimony was permitted for impeachment purposes, and Ventris was convicted.

On Appeal, In Kansas

The KS Court of Appeals affirmed, saying that the question "left open" in Harvey (see below), regarding whether such a confession was admissible for impeachment purposes, was answered by a majority of jurisdictions in the affirmative. Yet, the KS Supreme Court reversed, with only one dissenter. The court concluded that Doser's testimony could not be admitted, even for impeachment purposes and even in the absence of any evidence that Ventris' statements were involuntary. Instead, the court held that the only consideration which was important is that the evidence was obtained in violation of another Supreme Court case (Massiah), which held: "Once a criminal prosecution has commenced, the defendant's statements made to an undercover informant surreptitiously acting as an agent for the State are not admissible at trial for any reason including the impeachment of the defendant's testiomony." (Italics added).

The "Question Left Open"

In 1990 the Supreme Court handed down the Harvey decision, which most observers feel is the important background decision to understand for this case. In that case (494 US 344 (1990)) a confession was signed in the presence of an officer (not a snitch) after a defendant, Harvey, who had asked for a lawyer, was told that "his lawyer was going to get a copy of the statement anyway" (as if the major purpose of lawyers was simply to file papers away). At trial, Harvey's testimony conflicted with what was contained in the statement he signed with the officer. That written testimony was allowed to come in a trial and Harvey was convicted of his crime (first-degree sexual assault). The conviction was reversed, however, because the appellate court held that the statement was inadmissible even for impeachment purposes because it was taken in violation of Harvey's Sixth Amendment right to counsel. The US Supreme Court ruled, however (in a 5-4 vote), that a statement to police in violation of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel may be used, not in the case in chief, but to impeach a defendant's testimony. The question "left open" was stated by Chief Justice Rehnquist in the Harvey case:

"we need not consider the admissibility for impeachment purposes of a voluntary statement obtained in the absence of a knowing and voluntary waiver of the right to counsel."

This is the situation in Ventris--where there was not a "knowing and voluntary waiver of the right to counsel"--because Ventris thought he was talking simply to a fellow inmate.

A Word on Philosophy

The philosophical debate behind the question of whether to allow the evidence in as impeachment evidence, rather than as evidence in a case in chief, was explained by the KS Supreme Court:

"From these cases, we have discerned two analytical approaches for resolving the issue. The first approach focuses on the court's truth-seeking function by denying the defendant an opportunity to commit perjury without contradiction. This approach ignores Henry and the requirement that defendants make a knowing and voluntary waiver of their Sixth Amendment right to counsel. The second approach requires a knowing and voluntary waiver of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. The knowing and voluntary waiver is not dependent upon whether the defendant will have an opportunity to commit perjury."

Thus, the "impeachment theory" (i.e., letting the snitch testimony in to impeach) allows testimony so as to protect the court against perjury. Yet, not allowing the evidence in at all would preserve, quite pure, the point that once a Sixth Amendment right to counsel has attached, then no evidence is admitted by way of confession unless it is given by a defendant after a knowing and voluntary waiver.

How Will the Court Rule?

The Court wil probably rule against the defendant here, but it will be a close vote (probably 5-4). I think, however, that allowing such testimony in as impeachment testimony functions almost identically to that evidence in a case in chief--which is the issue that the Sixth Amendment seeks to protect...

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