United States v. Shane Young (10th Cir. July 2020)
Fifth Amendment, Tenth Circuit
|The Tenth Circuit reversed the defendant’s conviction and held that the district court erred in failing to suppress involuntary statements made by the defendant to an FBI agent. The Court held that the agent’s interrogation of the defendant was coercive given his false representations about the sentence the defendant faced and the agent’s ability to get the defendant a reduced sentence based on the agent’s relationship with the judge. The agent’s coercive questioning outweighed the defendant’s waiver of rights and prior experiences with the justice system.