556 U.S. 586 (2009)
In the early hours of January 7, 2004, after two days of no sleep and some drug use, Rhonda Theel and respondent Donnie Ray Ventris reached an ill-conceived agreement to confront Ernest Hicks in his home.1 The couple testified that the aim of the visit was simply to investigate rumors that Hicks abused children.2 The couple may have been inspired by the potential for financial gain: Theel had recently learned that Hicks carried large amounts of cash.3
One or both of the pair shot and killed Hicks with shots from a .38-caliber revolver, and the companions drove off in Hicks’s truck with approximately $300 of his money and his cell phone.4 On receiving a tip from two friends of the couple who had helped transport them to Hicks's home, officers arrested Ventris and Theel and charged them with murder and aggravated robbery.5 The State dropped the murder charge against Theel in exchange for her guilty plea to the robbery charge and her testimony identifying Ventris as the shooter.6
Prior to trial, officers planted an informant in Ventris’s holding cell, instructing him to keep his ear open and listen for incriminating statements.7 According to the informant, in response to his statement that Ventris appeared to have something more serious weighing in on his mind, Ventris divulged that he had shot this man in his head and in his chest and taken his keys, his wallet, about $350.00, and a vehicle.8
At trial, Ventris took the stand and blamed the robbery and shooting entirely on Theel.9 The government sought to call the informant to testify to Ventris’s prior contradictory statement.10 The State conceded that there was probably a violation of Ventris’s rights but argued that the statement was admissible for impeachment purposes.11 The trial court allowed the informant’s testimony, and the jury acquitted Ventris of felony murder and misdemeanor theft but returned a guilty verdict on the aggravated burglary and aggravated robbery counts.12
The Kansas Supreme Court reversed the conviction, holding that 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 testimony.13 Chief Justice McFarland dissented.14 The United States Supreme Court granted the State’s petition for certiorari.15
Whether a defendant’s incriminating statement to a jailhouse informant, concededly elicited in violation of Sixth Amendment strictures, is admissible at trial to impeach the defendant’s conflicting statement?16
The Sixth Amendment right to counsel is violated at the time of the uncounseled interrogation.17 Statements obtained in violation of Massiah are inadmissible in the prosecution's case in chief.18 They are admissible for impeachment because the interests safeguarded by exclusion are outweighed by the need to prevent perjury and to assure the integrity of the trial process.19
Yes. The statement was elicited by the informant planted by officers in Ventris's holding cell prior to trial in violation of the Sixth Amendment as conceded by the State.20 Ventris took the stand at trial and blamed the robbery and shooting entirely on Theel, contradicting the prior statement.21 Therefore the informant's testimony regarding the prior statement is admissible to impeach Ventris's testimony at trial.22
The informant’s testimony was admissible to challenge Ventris’s inconsistent testimony at trial.23
Related opinions on this issue
In his dissent, Justice Stevens argued that the Sixth Amendment is violated when the fruits of the State’s impermissible encounter with the represented defendant are used for impeachment.24 This violation occurs just as it is when the fruits are used in the prosecutor’s case in chief.25 He contended that the pretrial right to counsel is not merely prophylactic but a core right.26 The use of the illegally obtained evidence at trial compounded the violation, damaging the adversarial process which the Sixth Amendment was designed to protect.27
Stevens concluded that the Kansas Supreme Court's judgment should be affirmed because permitting the State to exploit its pretrial constitutional violation during the trial itself is improper.28