In the case Bramley v. State No. 80A05-0602-CR-74 Dec. 12, 2006 the Indiana Court of Appeals upheld the admissibility of the defendant's confession. In their opinion the court stated:

"The voluntariness of a statement is determined by examining the totality of the circumstances surrounding the interrogation. Clark, 808 N.E.2d at 1191. Relevant factors include the length, location, and continuity of the interrogation, and the maturity, education, physical condition, and mental health of the defendant. Id. In making its determination, the trial court weighs the evidence to ensure that a confession was not obtained "through inducement, violence, threats or other improper influences so as to overcome the free will of the accused." Ellis v. State, 707 N.E.2d 797, 801 (Ind.1999). A confession is inadmissible if it is obtained by promises of mitigation or immunity, but vague and indefinite statements by the police that it would be in a defendant's best interest if he cooperated do not render a subsequent confession inadmissible. Clark, 808 N.E.2d at 1191; Turpin v. State, 400 N.E.2d 1119, 1121 (Ind.1980) (holding that police officers' vague statements that they would "[see] what they could do" for the accused did not render the confession inadmissible). Where a promise of leniency stems from a defendant's specific request for leniency as a precondition for making a statement, the voluntariness of the statement is not induced by misconduct. Bivins v. State, 642 N.E.2d 928, 940-41 (Ind.1994).

Bramley directs us to three statements that the detectives made that he contends amount to promises of leniency and threats and render his confession involuntary. First, Bramley directs us to an analogy Detective Jowitt used while transporting him to the Hamilton Count Jail. Detective Jowitt told Bramley that there were three suspects and only one apple and that "[o]ne person generally gets to eat the whole apple." Appellant's App. p. 480. Detective Jowitt testified at trial that the apple in the analogy represented a plea deal a defendant could get if he cooperated with the police before the other suspects did. Tr. p. 75-77, 93-94.

Bramley next directs us a statement Detective Jowitt made during the interrogation:

And you don't want other people giving accounts of Michael Shane Bramley because you don't know what they're saying and you don't know ∑∑∑ like I said you don't know the spin that they're putting on it. The spin can be real important. Ok? ëCause that can be the difference between Michael Shane Bramley is ∑∑∑ a cold hearted ruthless, dangerous, psychopathic, you know yada, yada, yada, or just hey, something happened up there and it didn't really go down like it was supposed to and there was ∑∑∑ a problem or there was a mistake or there was an accident or it didn't happen quite the way it maybe appeared just by looking at the surface facts of it, okay?



*4 Appellant's App. p. 362-63.Finally, Bramley highlights statements that the detectives made that he claims implied that he would receive a lesser sentence if he testified that Moody's death was an accident. Typical examples of the detectives' statements are: "I sure wouldn't want to be put in the situation where someone else is putting stuff down on me that wasn't quite the way it happened," id. at 363, and "[the difference between intentional murder and an accident] is just different. Worse thing in the world [is intentional murder]," id . at 377. The detectives focused on the differences between an accidental and an intentional killing and emphasized the benefits that a suspect could reap if he tells his side of the story because the other suspects cannot adversely fill in the "gray parts" of the crime:

Detective Jowitt: You hear people getting X sentence for this and Y sentence for exactly the same thing and there can be huge differences and it's cause of the gray parts∑∑∑∑ It can make a huge difference∑∑∑∑ Could matter to the prosecutor [and it could matter to the court].FN5

FN5. Bramley claims that the phrase "and it could matter to the court" can be heard on the interrogation audiotape, State's Ex. 2, but that it was not transcribed in the interrogation record. The State does not dispute this claim.

Id. at 381, 389.

The heart of Bramley's argument is that he "took the apple but received no leniency." Appellant's Br. p. 18. After reviewing the record, we find that Bramley played the "prisoner's dilemma" FN6 game and lost. The classic dilemma is described as follows:

FN6. The term "prisoner's dilemma" is generally attributed to the Princeton Mathematics Professor and RAND Corporation consultant Albert Tucker. Tucker coined the term to describe the game created in 1950 by two other RAND Corporation consultants, Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher, and posed a challenge to traditional game theory. Russell L. Christopher, The Prosecutor's Dilemma: Bargains and Punishments, 72 Fordham L.Rev. 93, 168 n. 25 (2003).

Two prisoners, unable to confer with one another, must decide whether to take the prosecutor's offer: confess, inculpate the other, and serve a year in jail, or keep silent and serve five years. If the prisoners could make a (binding) bargain with each other, they would keep silent and both would go free. But they can't communicate, and each fears that the other will talk. So both confess.

Page v. United States, 884 F.2d 300, 301 (7th Cir.1989).

Here, there were two other suspects in Moody's murder and Detective Jowitt tried to explain to Bramley, by using the apple analogy and the "grey parts" comment, that the other two suspects could wrongly implicate Bramley if he did not tell the truth about his role in the crime. While Bramley may have lost the prisoner's dilemma game, Detective Jowitt's comments do not rise to the level of specific promises of leniency or threats that have previously been held to render a confession involuntary. See 2 Wayne LaFave et al., Criminal Procedure ß 6.2(c) at 453-54 (2d ed.1999) (nationwide examples of threats or specific promises that have rendered a confession involuntary include a threat to take a defendant's wife into custody; a threat that defendant could lose her welfare payments and custody of her children; a promise of nonprosecution; a promise to drop some of the charges; a promise of medical treatment; and a promise of a certain reduction in the punishment the defendant may receive); see also Pierce v. State, 761 N.E.2d 821, 824 (Ind.2002) (noting that police statements that express a desire that the suspect cooperate and explain the crimes and penalties that are possible consequences are not specific enough to constitute either promises or threats). Because Detective Jowitt's comments do not rise to the level of threats or specific promises, we conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it admitted Bramley's confession into evidence