When Brandon Bilodeau was accused in January 2007 of stabbing a fellow state prison inmate, he was transferred out of the prison's psychiatric unit. For 2½ months, Bilodeau, who received medications for depression, hallucinations and mood disorders, was held 23 hours a day in solitary confinement.

The day after the stabbing, Bilodeau, then 29, refused to speak with detectives and asked for an attorney. Twice in the next week, he sent notes asking about the status of the investigation. One read, in part: "I don't know if I should seek outside counsel. Please let me know what is going on."

In mid-March, Bilodeau asked to speak with the investigating officers. They came to see him. In the next 15 minutes, Bilodeau waived his rights and confessed to assaulting the man, a bank robber, with a sharpened toothbrush.

He was later convicted and sentenced to serve 2½ to five years.

A question of whether Bilodeau made a truly voluntary confession in those 15 minutes has since divided the state Supreme Court. The court last week affirmed a lower court's finding that Bilodeau had understood his rights and nevertheless chose to confess. The majority opinion, signed by Justices Gary Hicks, Linda Dalianis and James Duggan, cited testimony by the investigators that Bilodeau was "lucid" and spoke "pretty articulate(ly)."

But in a vigorous dissent, Chief Justice John Broderick argued the state had not shown that Bilodeau, despite his mental illnesses and multiple medications, understood the full extent of his rights and the implications of confessing. Though the investigators knew Bilodeau was living in the prison's psychiatric unit at the time of the attack, each testified that he had not asked staff or prisoners about Bilodeau's diagnosis and medications. Broderick argued that this failure to consult medical staff meant the confession should not have been presented at trial, and he said he was skeptical about the length of the March interview.

"The State points to the fact that the interview with the defendant only lasted 15 minutes in support of its position that it was not coercive," Broderick wrote. "However, the brevity of the interview calls into question the true voluntary nature of the confession in this case where a mentally ill, medicated inmate who has spent over two months in solitary confinement is confronted by two police officers, without the presence of counsel and yet, in the span of just 15 minutes, engages in an allegedly adequate discourse over the waiver of his rights, is sufficiently presented with the charges against him and approves a written confession prepared by the police officers."

Voluntary confessions

Though the justices differed in their conclusions, they agreed on the relevant constitutional law: the necessity of allowing in court only voluntary confessions, said Charles Temple, a Franklin Pierce Law Center professor whose students represented Bilodeau at trial after failing to convince the court to throw out his confession.

Both opinions note that signing a waiver does not prove a person has confessed freely and knowingly. Each notes that investigators must take special care when there is reason to believe a person's mental or developmental state might make him vulnerable to coercion. They cite the case of a confession the state Supreme Court overturned after concluding that investigators had overcome the will of an 11-year-old boy of low-average intelligence by questioning him for more than two hours without a parent or lawyer.

But in the case of Bilodeau, the majority held that the state had shown sufficient evidence the prisoner knew he could refuse questioning and so chose to confess. The opinion cited several points of evidence indicating Bilodeau understood his rights.

The day after the stabbing, Bilodeau refused to speak with detectives, saying he wanted to consult an attorney but might talk to them in the future. When the investigators did finally speak with Bilodeau, it was at his request. He listened to the detectives read his rights and then signed a paper saying he understood them. (next page »)