No. 22-6649

Dee Walter Mitchell, Jr. v. Christian Pfeiffer, Warden

Lower Court: Ninth Circuit
Docketed: 2023-01-27
Status: Denied
Type: IFP
Response WaivedIFP
Tags: coerced-confession coerced-testimony due-process fifth-amendment fourteenth-amendment juvenile-interrogation juvenile-rights miranda-rights police-interrogation
Key Terms:
DueProcess
Latest Conference: 2023-02-24
Question Presented (AI Summary)

Where police interrogation of a juvenile murder suspect violates due process

Question Presented (OCR Extract)

QUESTIONS PRESENTED 1. Where police interrogators induce an unwilling 15-year-old murder suspect to incriminate another by (1) omitting to advise him of his Miranda rights, (2) interrogating him for hours in the middle of the night, (3) explaining who it is they want him to incriminate and suggesting to him a factual scenario they will accept, (4) threatening that if he does not cooperate, the other person will certainly incriminate him, and the police and the courts will accept that other person's statements, and the juvenile will have to spend the rest of his life in prison; whereas, if he does cooperate, his cooperation will show the court that he is worthy of rehabilitation instead of life imprisonment, have the juvenile suspect's statements been coerced and made unreliable, so that the use of his trial testimony against petitioner at his trial violated his Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment right to due process of law? 2. Where, following such coercion by the police, the prosecution enters into a written agreement with the juvenile that if he testifies against the person he has incriminated in his coerced statements, he will be allowed to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter with a guaranteed maximum of 13 years, instead of life imprisonment, and the juvenile testifies that he believes he must testify consistently with what he said in the coerced statements in order to keep the benefit of his agreement with the prosecution, is his testimony so unreliable that its admission in evidence violates the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment due process rights of the person incriminated by the testimony? . L

Docket Entries

2023-02-27
Petition DENIED.
2023-02-09
DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 2/24/2023.
2023-02-07
Waiver of right of respondent Christian Pfeiffer, Warden to respond filed.
2023-01-17
Petition for a writ of certiorari and motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis filed. (Response due February 27, 2023)

Attorneys

Christian Pfeiffer, Warden
David Andrew EldridgeCalifornia Department of Justice, Respondent
David Andrew EldridgeCalifornia Department of Justice, Respondent
Dee W. Mitchell
Dee Walter Mitchell — Petitioner
Dee Walter Mitchell — Petitioner