Del Vecchio v. Illinois

Background

George Del Vecchio, who was convicted in 1979 of murder and other crimes, faced the death penalty after a sentencing hearing. The State relied in part on two confessions Del Vecchio gave in 1965, when he was 16, to a police officer and an assistant district attorney. At the sentencing hearing the trial court admitted those confessions without holding any separate hearing about whether they had been coerced. The prosecutor emphasized those statements to portray Del Vecchio as a career criminal. The jury found aggravating factors and imposed the death sentence. On appeal, the Illinois Supreme Court said Del Vecchio’s earlier guilty plea barred him from later challenging the voluntariness of those confessions.

Reasoning

The central issue raised by the dissent was whether it is constitutional to use old confessions at a capital sentencing without first deciding if those statements were voluntary and reliable. Justice Marshall, joined by Justice Brennan, argued that admitting confessions without inquiry into coercion undermines the needed reliability in a death penalty case and conflicts with prior decisions requiring reliability and special procedural safeguards. The dissent stressed that a guilty plea years earlier does not eliminate concerns about whether the confessions were coerced or about their truth beyond basic facts.

Real world impact

Because the Supreme Court denied review, the Illinois court’s ruling and Del Vecchio’s death sentence remain in place for now. The dissent warned that allowing these confessions without a voluntariness hearing raises serious Eighth Amendment reliability concerns in capital cases. The denial of review does not resolve those constitutional questions on the national level and leaves open the possibility of future review or state proceedings.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice Marshall’s dissent would have granted review, found the admission of the confessions constitutionally flawed, and vacated the death sentence; he also flagged a prosecutor’s possibly false parole statement as a separate serious error.