California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Houston, 230 Cal.Rptr. 141, 42 Cal.3d 595, 724 P.2d 1166 (Cal. 1986):
The trial court employed the reasonable-doubt standard to determine whether defendant had completed his inculpatory statement before the police embarked on the conduct here condemned. We conclude it did so correctly. Because of the importance of ensuring that coerced confessions are not admitted, and because of the tendency, under a preponderance-of-evidence standard, to accept the authorities' self-serving account of events over the suspect's, we have ruled that the reasonable doubt standard applies to the determination whether a confession was voluntary. (People v. Jimenez (1978) 21 Cal.3d 595, 602-608, 147 Cal.Rptr. 172, 580 P.2d 672; see also People v. Murtishaw (1981) 29 Cal.3d 733, 753, 175 Cal.Rptr. 738, 631 P.2d 446, cert. den. (1982) 455 U.S. 922, 102 S.Ct. 1280, 71 L.Ed.2d 464.) We think similar principles bear on a finding whether a confession
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