Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/407/371/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 22:23:19+00:00

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Petitioner in this habeas corpus proceeding challenged on Fifth and Sixth Amendment grounds the introduction at his trial of a post-indictment, pretrial confession he made to a police officer posing as a fellow prisoner. The denial of habeas corpus relief is affirmed without reaching the merits of petitioner's claims; any possible error in the admission of the challenged confession was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt in light of three other unchallenged confessions and strong corroborative evidence of petitioner's guilt. Harrington v. California, 395 U. S. 250; Chapman v. California, 386 U. S. 18. Pp. 407 U. S. 372-378.
BURGER, C.J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which WHITE, BLACKMUN, POWELL, and REHNQUIST, JJ., joined. STEWART, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which DOUGLAS, BRENNAN, and MARSHALL, JJ., joined, post, p. 407 U. S. 378.
We granted the writ of certiorari on claims under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments arising out of the use of one of a number of confessions, all of which were received in evidence over objection. The confession challenged here was obtained by a police officer posing as an accused person confined in the cell with petitioner.
Petitioner Milton is presently serving a life sentence imposed in 1958 upon his conviction of first-degree murder following a jury trial in Dade County, Florida. During that trial, the State called as a witness a police officer who, at a time when petitioner had already been indicted and was represented by counsel, posed as a fellow prisoner and spent almost two full days sharing a cell with petitioner. The officer testified to incriminating statements made to him by petitioner during this period. Contending that the statements he made to the officer were involuntary under Fifth Amendment standards and were obtained in violation of his Sixth Amendment rights as subsequently interpreted in Massiah v. United States, 377 U. S. 201 (1964), petitioner initiated the present habeas corpus proceeding in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. The District Court, finding that petitioner had exhausted his state remedies in the course of several post-conviction proceedings in the Florida courts, ruled against petitioner on the merits of his claim, holding that his statements to the police officer were not inadmissible on Fifth Amendment grounds and that his Sixth Amendment claim could not prevail, since "[n]o Court has declared Massiah retroactive, and this Court will not be the first to do so." 306 F.Supp. 929, 933. The Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of relief to petitioner, 428 F.2d 463.
testimony, was presented with overwhelming evidence of petitioner's guilt, including no less than three full confessions that were made by petitioner prior to his indictment. Those confessions have been found admissible in the course of previous post-conviction proceedings brought by petitioner in his attempts to have this conviction set aside, and they are not challenged here.
Approximately one week after he had made these confessions, petitioner secured the services of an attorney, who advised him not to engage in any further discussions of his case with anyone else.
same as those given in the prior confessions not challenged here.
locking device into position, and then retightening the screw; and that these devices were found securely screwed in the locked position when the car, with the victim's body still inside, was recovered from the river. After hearing all the evidence, the jury found petitioner guilty of murder in the first degree, but recommended mercy; on that recommendation, the trial judge imposed the sentence of life imprisonment.
The petitioner has made a number of collateral attacks on his conviction, primarily in the courts of Florida. In response to one of his applications for post-conviction relief, the Florida Supreme Court issued a writ of habeas corpus, heard oral argument on the voluntariness of petitioner's wire-recorded and written confessions, but thereafter discharged the writ in a reported decision upholding the voluntariness of those confessions, and their admissibility at trial. Milton v. Cochran, 147 So.2d 137 (1962), cert. denied, 375 U.S. 869 (1963). The issues raised in that proceeding are not now before us, and must, for the purposes of the instant case, be treated as having been properly resolved by the Florida Supreme Court. Cf. Sup.Ct.Rule 23(1)(c).
years ago by use of evidence not challenged here; the use of the additional evidence challenged in this proceeding and arguably open to challenge was, beyond reasonable doubt, harmless.
"Minnie Lee Claybon [the murder victim] and myself had an insurance policy together. So I started thinking about the insurance and the money that I could get if something happened to her. I knew that I could use the money if something happened. So I decided to do something about it one way or the other, so one night we had been riding around in the car. So I decided to get the whole thing over with. So I drived the car into the river and she was killed."
In this second writing, petitioner confirmed in major part the statements he had made the night before, but said in addition that he had "decided to kill" the woman "about a month before this incident happened." He further stated, however, that he was not thinking of the insurance money when he made that decision, but was thinking instead of the woman's habits of associating with other men, drinking too much, and staying out late at night. He reaffirmed in express terms that he had deliberately driven the car into the river with the intention of killing the woman.
Under the guise of finding "harmless error," the Court today turns its back on a landmark constitutional precedent established 40 years ago. That precedent, which clearly controls this case, is Powell v. Alabama, 287 U. S. 45. I respectfully dissent.
In 1958, a Florida grand jury indicted the petitioner, George Milton, for first-degree murder. This was an offense punishable by death under Florida law. After he had been indicted, Milton was remanded to the Dade County jail to await trial. He had retained a lawyer, who had advised him not to talk about his case with anyone.
by his supposed fellow prisoner, Milton allegedly confessed the murder to Langford.
his case, but he chose not to follow that advice."
306 F.Supp. 929, 933-934. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed per curiam "on the basis of [the District Court's] opinion," 428 F.2d 463, and we granted certiorari, 403 U.S. 904.
"during perhaps the most critical period of the proceedings against these defendants, that is to say, from the time of their arraignment until the beginning of their trial, when consultation, thorough-going investigation, and preparation were vitally important, the defendants did not have the aid of counsel in any real sense, although they were as much entitled to such aid during that period as at the trial itself."
287 U.S. at 287 U. S. 57.
"the most elemental concepts of due process of law contemplate that an indictment be followed by a trial, 'in an orderly court room, presided over by a judge, open to the public, and protected by all the procedural safeguards of the law.' . . . [A] Constitution which guarantees a defendant the aid of counsel at such a trial could surely vouchsafe no less to an indicted defendant under interrogation by the police in a completely extrajudicial proceeding. . . ."
"This view," we said, "no more than reflects a constitutional principle established as long ago as Powell v. Alabama, 287 U. S. 45." 377 U.S. at 377 U. S. 204-205.
"Let it be emphasized at the outset that this is not a case where the police were questioning a suspect in the course of investigating an unsolved crime. . . ."
"Under our system of justice, an indictment is supposed to be followed by an arraignment and a trial. At every stage in those proceedings, the accused has an absolute right to a lawyer's help if the case is one in which a death sentence may be imposed. Powell v. Alabama."
Spano v. New York, 360 U. S. 315, 360 U. S. 327 (concurring opinion). So the question in this case is not whether Massiah is "retroactive," [Footnote 2/3] for the rule in that case has been settled law ever since Powell v. Alabama.
cannot, under Fahy \[v. Connecticut, 375 U. S. 85], be conceived of as harmless."
386 U.S. at 386 U. S. 23-24. And on the question of whether a jury might possibly have been influenced, the State must "prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the error complained of did not contribute to the verdict obtained." Id. at 386 U. S. 24.
Neither the District Court nor the Court of Appeals even suggested the possibility of harmless error in this case, and with very good reasons. The Court today relies on the fact that the challenged "confession" was only one of several introduced at the petitioner's trial. But it fails to mention that each of the previous statements was taken during an 18-day period after arrest but before indictment, when the petitioner was held in jail incommunicado and was questioned almost every day, often for hours at a time. For 10 days, the petitioner denied that he had deliberately killed his wife. Finally, during a session in which two detectives working in tandem questioned him continuously for some eight hours, the petitioner allegedly confessed. Other statements followed that one, but all were taken during the period of incommunicado detention.
given by a jury to any alleged confession is affected by the circumstances under which it was obtained, and the ability of the petitioner to discredit in the minds of the jury the evidence of his prior statements was undoubtedly destroyed by the strong corroboration and elaboration supplied by the testimony of Officer Langford, who had been unconstitutionally planted in the petitioner's jail cell. Surely there is, at the least, a reasonable doubt whether, in these circumstances, the introduction of Langford's testimony did not contribute to the verdict of first-degree murder returned by the jury, particularly where a conviction for a lesser degree of homicide was a distinct possibility on the evidence.
"The writ of habeas corpus has limited scope; the federal courts do not sit to re-try state cases de novo, but rather to review for violation of federal constitutional standards."
Ante at 407 U. S. 377.
"fundamental postulate . . . 'that there are certain immutable principles of justice which inhere in the very idea of free government which no member of the Union may disregard.'"
Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. at 287 U. S. 71-72.
Massiah involved a federal noncapital felony charge, where the defendant had an absolute Sixth Amendment right to counsel under Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458. The same absolute right was secured by Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335, to defendants in noncapital state criminal cases under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments. This constitutional guarantee has now been further extended. See Argersinger v. Hamlin, ante p. 407 U. S. 25.
An issue of the "retroactivity" of a decision of this Court is not even presented unless the decision in question marks a sharp break in the web of the law. The issue is presented only when the decision overrules clear past precedent, e.g., Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U. S. 618; Desist v. United States, 394 U. S. 244; Williams v. United States, 401 U. S. 646; or disrupts a practice long accepted and widely relied upon, e.g., Johnson v. New Jersey, 384 U. S. 719; Stovall v. Denno, 388 U. S. 293; Cipriano v. City of Houma, 395 U. S. 701.
Even on the erroneous premise that the "retroactivity" of Massiah is here involved, the District Court was quite mistaken in stating that "[n]o Court has declared Massiah retroactive." This Court, in McLeod v. Ohio, 381 U. S. 356, reversed, citing Massiah, an Ohio conviction because a voluntary confession was admitted in evidence that had been obtained when police officers questioned the petitioner in the absence of counsel a week after he had been indicted. The conviction antedated Massiah by almost four years.

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