In the case of State v. Blank, the Supreme Court of Louisiana relied on the videotape of the interrogation to uphold the admissibility of a confession the defendant claimed was coerced as a result of the interrogators references to the defendant's deceased mother, appeals to his emotions and religious beliefs, as well as repeated exhortations to tell the truth. The court stated the following:

While defendant's factual allegations are accurate, he does not show that any of the state's conduct coerced his admissions or rendered the confession involuntary. Our review of the videotapes and the verbatim transcript does not show the officers exercising any type of coercion which would at all indicate that this confession was involuntary. To the contrary, the vast majority of the interview was extremely benign on the part of the officers and Blank was treated very well throughout. In response to defendant's specific examples of coercive conduct, it is evident from the record that defendant did not request food during the interview, during which, notably, none of the interrogators stopped to eat a meal. Despite intermittent statements expressing fatigue and or physical discomfort, defendant never requested to terminate the interview. Moreover, for the most part, officers accommodated defendant when possible, providing him drinks, allowing him to use the restroom and heating the interrogation room. While at first the officers denied defendant's request to smoke, after he smoked a cigarette while he was alone in the bathroom, they continued to let him smoke, and he was allowed to smoke before he confessed to any crimes. As to the references to defendant's deceased mother, appeals to a defendant's emotions and/or religious beliefs typically do not render an ensuing confession involuntary. See e.g., Johnson v. Trigg, 28 F.3d 639, 644-45 (7th Cir.1994) (confession voluntary even though 14-year-old defendant of below average intelligence saw police arrest terminally ill mother before confessing); United States v. Miller, 984 F.2d 1029, 1031-32 (9th Cir.1993) (confession voluntary even though officer, a Mormon bishop, lectured to Mormon defendant that religious tenets required repentance and restitution for wrongdoing). This claim lacks merit.

Defendant also claims that the officers' relentless exhortations that he tell the truth in conjunction with false suggestions indicating that they possessed forensic evidence of his guilt, illegally coerced the confession. Defendant claims that during the interrogation, officers used the word "truth" no less than 30 times, including several communications in which they urged that he answer their questions truthfully. Courts have routinely held that a mild exhortation to tell the truth, or a remark that if the defendant cooperates the officer will "do what he can" or "things will go easier," will not negate the voluntary nature of a confession. State v. Petterway, 403 So.2d 1157, 1159-60 (La.1981); State v. Magee, 93-0643, pp. 3-4 (La.App. 3d Cir.10/5/94), 643 So.2d 497, 499; State v. English, supra at 1364.

In this case, although the officers repeatedly admonished defendant to tell the truth throughout the interrogation, they did not promise him anything in exchange for the confession except for the suggestion that he could clear his conscience. Notably, in State v. Lavalais, supra at 1053, this Court held that an officer's comments to the defendant that he would likely receive more favorable treatment if he confessed as opposed to failing a polygraph examination did not constitute inducements rendering the subsequent confession involuntary. See also State v. Rochester, 301 S.C. 196, 391 S.E.2d 244, 247 (1990) (advice to defendant from polygraph examiner that it would be "in his best interest to tell the truth" does not render ensuing statement inadmissible). In this situation, defendant fails to show the existence of coercion rendering the statement involuntary.