The Tennessee Supreme Court has decided that a sex abuse suspect’s confession made during a conversation with the victim’s mother and recorded by police was admissible at trial.
A nine-year-old child told her mother that Henry Floyd Sanders, her mother’s former live-in boyfriend, had sexually abused her. The mother agreed to cooperate with the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department by permitting them to monitor and record her conversation with Mr. Sanders regarding his conduct. During the recorded conversation that lasted almost two hours, the victim’s mother pressured Mr. Sanders by threatening to expose him if he did not tell her the truth. Mr. Sanders eventually admitted to sexually abusing his victim.
Before his trial, Mr. Sanders asked the Davidson County Criminal Court to exclude his recorded statements because his victim’s mother had been acting as an agent of the police and had forced him to confess against his will. The trial court decided that the statements were admissible, and a jury convicted Mr. Sanders of five counts of aggravated sexual battery and four counts of rape of a child. The trial court sentenced Mr. Sanders to 40 years in prison. Mr. Sanders appealed, and the Court of Criminal Appeals decided that Mr. Sanders’s statements were admissible and upheld his convictions.
In a unanimous opinion, the Supreme Court affirmed the lower courts’ decisions that Mr. Sanders’s statements were admissible. The Court stated that the federal and state constitutions provide no protection to a criminal suspect who voluntarily confesses to someone he believes to be a confidante. Because Mr. Sanders confessed to his victim’s mother of his own free will, his statements were admissible, despite the fact that the mother was cooperating with police. The Court then upheld his convictions and his 40-year sentence.
Read the State of Tennessee v. Henry Floyd Sanders opinion, authored by Justice William C. Koch, Jr.