Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/430/387
Timestamp: 2015-11-28 15:17:20
Document Index: 622304460

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 2254', '§ 2254', '§ 2254', '§ 2254', '§ 2254', '§ 2255']

Supreme Court aboutsearch liibulletin subscribe previews Brewer v. Williams
Argued: October 4, 1976
1. The District Court correctly applied 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) in its [p388]
An Iowa trial jury found the respondent, Robert Williams, guilty of murder. The judgment of conviction was affirmed in the Iowa Supreme Court by a closely divided vote. In a subsequent habeas corpus proceeding, a Federal District [p390]
On the morning of December 26, a Des Moines lawyer named Henry McKnight went to the Des Moines police station and informed the officers present that he had just received a long-distance call from Williams, and that he had advised Williams to turn himself in to the Davenport police. Williams did surrender that morning to the police in Davenport, and they booked him on the charge specified in the arrest warrant and gave him the warnings required by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436. The Davenport police then telephoned [p391]
Williams then conferred again with Kelly alone, and, after this conference, Kelly reiterated to Detective Leaming that [p392]
I want to give you something to think about while we're traveling down the road. . . . Number one, I want you to observe the weather conditions, it's raining, it's sleeting, it's freezing, driving is very treacherous, visibility is poor, it's going to be dark early this evening. They are predicting several inches of snow for tonight, and I feel that you yourself are the only person that knows where this little girl's body is, that you yourself have only been there once, and if you get a snow on top of it you yourself may be unable to find it. And, since we will be going right past the area on the way into [p393]
Des Moines, I felt that we could stop and locate the body, that the parents of this little girl should be entitled to a Christian burial for the little girl who was snatched away from them on Christmas [E]ve and murdered. And I feel we should stop and locate it on the way in, rather than waiting until morning and trying to come back out after a snow storm, and possibly not being able to find it at all.
Williams asked Detective Leaming why he thought their route to Des Moines would be taking them past the girl's body, and Leaming responded that he knew the body was in the area of Mitchellville -- a town they would be passing on the way to Des Moines.
Williams was indicted for first-degree murder. Before trial, his counsel moved to suppress all evidence relating to or resulting from any statements Williams had made during the automobile ride from Davenport to Des Moines. After [p394]
and that the evidence in question had been elicited from Williams during "a critical stage in the proceedings requiring the presence of counsel on his request." The judge ruled, however, that Williams had "waived his right to have an attorney present during the giving of such information."
Williams then petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Iowa. Counsel for the State and for Williams stipulated that "the case would be submitted on the record of facts and proceedings in the trial court, without taking of further testimony." The District Court made findings of fact as summarized above, and concluded as a matter of law that the evidence in question had been wrongly admitted at [p395]
Williams' trial. This conclusion was based on three alternative and independent grounds: (1) that Williams had been denied his constitutional right to the assistance of counsel; (2) that he had been denied the constitutional protections defined by this Court's decisions in Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478"] 378 U.S. 478, and 378 U.S. 478, and Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436; and (3) that, in any event, his self-incriminatory statements on the automobile trip from Davenport to Des Moines had been involuntarily made. Further, the District Court ruled that there had been no waiver by Williams of the constitutional protections in question. 375 F.Supp. 170.
Before turning to those issues, we must consider the petitioner's threshold claim that the District Court disregarded the provisions of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) in making its findings of fact in this case. That statute, which codifies most of the criteria set out in Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293, provides that, subject to enumerated exceptions, federal habeas corpus courts shall accept as correct the factual determinations made by the courts of the States.
We conclude that there was no disregard of § 2254(d) in this case. Although either of the parties might well have requested an evidentiary hearing in the federal habeas corpus proceedings, Townsend v. Sain, supra, at 322, they both instead voluntarily agreed in advance that the federal court should decide the case on the record made in the courts of the State. In so proceeding, the District Court made no [p397]
findings of fact in conflict with those of the Iowa courts. The District Court did make some additional findings of fact based upon its examination of the state court record, among them the findings that Kelly, the Davenport lawyer, had requested permission to ride in the police car from Davenport to Des Moines, and that Detective Leaming had refused this request. But the additional findings were conscientiously and carefully explained by the District Court, 375 F.Supp. at 175-176, and were reviewed and approved by the Court of Appeals, which expressly held that "the District Court correctly applied 28 U.S.C. § 2254 in its resolution of the disputed evidentiary facts, and that the facts as found by the District Court had substantial basis in the record," 509 F.2d at 231. The strictures of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) require no more.
Specifically, there is no need to review in this case the doctrine of Miranda v. Arizona, a doctrine designed to secure the constitutional privilege against compulsory self-incrimination, Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U.S. 433, 438-439. It is equally unnecessary to evaluate the ruling of the District Court that Williams' self-incriminating statements were, indeed, involuntarily made. Cf. Spano v. New York, 360 U.S. 315. For it is clear that the judgment before us must, in any event, be affirmed upon the ground that Williams was deprived [p398]
There has occasionally been a difference of opinion within the Court as to the peripheral scope of this constitutional right. See Kirby v. Illinois, 406 U.S. 682; Coleman v. Alabama, 399 U.S. 1. But its basic contours, which are identical in state and federal contexts, Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335; Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U.S. 25, are too well established to require extensive elaboration here. Whatever else it may mean, the right to counsel granted by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments means at least that person is entitled to the help of a lawyer at or after the time that judicial proceedings have been initiated against him -- "whether by way of formal charge, preliminary hearing, indictment, information, or arraignment." Kirby v. Illinois, supra at 689. See Powell v. Alabama, supra; Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458; Hamilton v. Alabama, 368 U.S. 52; Gideon v. Wainwright, supra; White v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 59; Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201; United
States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218; Gilbert v. California, 388 U.S. 263; Coleman v. Alabama, supra.
That the incriminating statements were elicited surreptitiously in the Massiah case, and otherwise here, is constitutionally irrelevant. See ibid.; McLeod v. Ohio, 381 U.S. 356; United States v. Crisp, 435 F.2d 354, 358 (CA7); [p401]
United States ex rel. O'Connor v. New Jersey, 405 F.2d 632, 636 (CA3); Hancock v. White, 378 F.2d 479 (CA1). Rather, the clear rule of Massiah is that, once adversary proceedings have commenced against an individual, he has a right to legal representation when the government interrogates him.
[U]nder the proper standards for determining waiver, there simply is no evidence to support a waiver. . . . [T]here is no affirmative indication . . . that [Williams] did waive his rights. . . . [T]he state courts' emphasis on the absence of a demand for counsel was not only legally inappropriate, but factually unsupportable, as well, since Detective Leaming himself testified that [Williams], on several occasions during the trip, indicated that he would talk after he saw Mr. McKnight. Both these statements and Mr. Kelly's statement to Detective Leaming that [Williams] would talk only after seeing Mr. McKnight in Des Moines certainly were assertions of [Williams'] "right or desire not to give information absent the presence of his attorney. . . ." Moreover, the statements were obtained only after Detective [p403]
Leaming's use of psychology on a person whom he knew to be deeply religious and an escapee from a mental hospital -- with the specific intent to elicit incriminating statements. In the face of this evidence, the State has produced no affirmative evidence whatsoever to support its claim of waiver, and, a fortiori, it cannot be said that the State has met its "heavy burden" of showing a knowing and intelligent waiver of . . . Sixth Amendment rights.
The District Court and the Court of Appeals were correct in the view that the question of waiver was not a question of historical fact, but one which, in the words of Mr. Justice Frankfurter, requires "application of constitutional principles to the facts as found. . . ." Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443, [p404]
507 (separate opinion). See Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. at 309 n. 6, 318; Brookhart v. Janis, 384 U.S. 1, 4.
We conclude, finally, that the Court of Appeals was correct in holding that, judged by these standards, the record in this case falls far short of sustaining petitioner's burden. It is true that Williams had been informed of and appeared to understand his right to counsel. But waiver requires not merely comprehension, but relinquishment, and Williams' consistent reliance upon the advice of counsel in dealing with the authorities refutes any suggestion that he waived that right. He consulted McKnight by long-distance telephone before turning himself in. He spoke with McKnight by telephone again shortly after being booked. After he was arraigned, Williams sought out and obtained legal advice from Kelly. Williams again consulted with Kelly after Detective Leaming and his fellow officer arrived in Davenport. Throughout, Williams was advised not to make any statements before seeing McKnight in Des Moines, and was [p405]
The Court of Appeals did not hold, nor do we, that, under the circumstances of this case, Williams could not, without notice to counsel, have waived his rights under the Sixth and [p406]
Whether Williams waived his constitutional rights was not, of course, a question of fact, but an issue of federal law. See discussion infra at 401-404.
The Iowa trial court expressly acknowledged Williams' "right to have an attorney present during the giving of such information." See supra at 394. The Iowa Supreme Court also expressly acknowledged Williams' "right to the presence of his counsel." See ibid.
Cf. Michigan v. Mosley, 423 U.S. 96, 110 n. 2 (WHITE, J., concurring in result):
I concur wholeheartedly in my Brother STEWART's opinion for the Court, but add these words in light of the dissenting [p407]
opinions filed today. The dissenters have, I believe, lost sight of the fundamental constitutional backbone of our criminal law. They seem to think that Detective Leaming's actions were perfectly proper, indeed laudable, examples of "good police work." In my view, good police work is something far different from catching the criminal at any price. It is equally important that the police, as guardians of the law, fulfill their responsibility to obey its commands scrupulously. For, "in the end, life and liberty can be as much endangered from illegal methods used to convict those thought to be criminals as from the actual criminals themselves." Spano v. New York, 360 U.S. 315, 320-321 (1959).
In this case, there can be no doubt that Detective Leaming consciously and knowingly set out to violate Williams' Sixth Amendment right to counsel and his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, as Leaming himself understood those rights. Leaming knew that Williams had been advised [p408]
Leaming knowingly isolated Williams from the protection of his lawyers, and, during that period, he intentionally "persuaded" him to give incriminating evidence. It is this intentional police misconduct -- not good police practice -- that the Court rightly condemns. The heinous nature of the crime is no excuse, as the dissenters would have it, for condoning knowing and intentional police transgression of the constitutional rights of a defendant. If Williams is to go free -- and, given the ingenuity of Iowa prosecutors on retrial or in a civil commitment proceeding, I doubt very much that there is any chance a dangerous criminal will be loosed on the streets, the [p409]
As the dissenting opinion of THE CHIEF JUSTICE sharply illustrates, resolution of the issues in this case turns primarily on one's perception of the facts. There is little difference of opinion, among the several courts and numerous judges who have reviewed the case, as to the relevant constitutional principles: (i) Williams had the right to assistance of counsel; [p410]
The incriminating statements were made by Williams during the long ride while in the custody of two police officers, and in the absence of his retained counsel. The dissent of THE [p411]
CHIEF JUSTICE concludes that, prior to these statements, Williams had "made a valid waiver" of his right to have counsel present. Post at 417. This view disregards the record evidence clearly indicating that the police engaged in interrogation of Williams. For example, the District Court noted:
According to Detective Leaming's own testimony, the specific purpose of this conversation [which was initiated by Leaming and which preceded Williams' confession] was to obtain statements and information from [Williams] concerning the missing girl.
Q. In fact, Captain, whether [Williams] was a mental patient or not, you were trying to get all the information you could before he got to his lawyer, weren't you?
Q. Well, I'll put it this way: You were hoping to get all the information you could before Williams got back to McKnight, weren't you?
there is nothing in the record to indicate that [Williams] waived his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights except the fact that statements eventually were obtained.
Id. at 182. (Emphasis in original.) The Court of Appeals stated affirmatively that "the facts [p412]
I join the opinion of the Court which also finds that the efforts of Detective Leaming "to elicit information from Williams," as conceded by counsel for petitioner at oral argument, ante at 400 n. 6, were a skillful and effective form of interrogation. Moreover, the entire setting was conducive to the psychological coercion that was successfully exploited. Williams was known by the police to be a young man with quixotic religious convictions and a history of mental disorders. The date was the day after Christmas, the weather was ominous, and the setting appropriate for Detective Leaming's talk of snow concealing the body and preventing a "Christian burial." Williams was alone in the automobile with two police officers for several hours. It is clear from the record, as both of the federal courts below found, that there was no evidence of a knowing and voluntary waiver of the right to have counsel present beyond the fact that Williams ultimately confessed. It is settled law that an inferred waiver of a constitutional right is disfavored. Estelle v. Williams, 425 U.S. 501, 515 (1976) (POWELL, J., concurring). I find no basis in the record of this case -- or in the dissenting opinions [p413]
The dissenting opinion of THE CHIEF JUSTICE states that the Court's holding today "conclusively presumes a suspect is legally incompetent to change his mind and tell the truth until an attorney is present." Post at 419. I find no justification for this view. On the contrary, the opinion of the Court is explicitly clear that the right to assistance of counsel may be waived, after it has attached, without notice to or consultation with counsel. Ante at 405-406. We would have such a case here if petitioner had proved that the police officers refrained from coercion and interrogation, as they had agreed, and that Williams freely, on his own initiative, had confessed the crime.
As Stone was decided subsequently to these [p414]
Detective Leaming obtained statements from Petitioner in the absence of counsel (1) after making, and then breaking, an agreement with Mr. McKnight that Petitioner would not be questioned until he arrived in Des Moines and saw Mr. McKnight; (2) after being told by both Mr. McKnight and Mr. Kelly that Petitioner was not to be questioned until he reached Des Moines; (3) after refusing to allow Mr. Kelly, whom Detective Leaming himself regarded as Petitioner's co-counsel, to ride to Des Moines with Petitioner; and (4) after being told by Petitioner that he would talk after he reached Des Moines and Mr. McKnight. By violating or ignoring these several, clear indications that Petitioner was to have counsel during interrogation, Detective Leaming deprived Petitioner of his right to counsel in a way similar to, if not more objectionable than, that utilized against the defendant in Massiah [v. United States, 377 U.S. 201 (1964)].
I tend generally to share the view that the per se application of an exclusionary rule has little to commend it except ease of application. All too often, applying the rule in this fashion results in freeing the guilty without any offsetting enhancement of the rights of all citizens. Moreover, rigid adherence to the exclusionary rule in many circumstances imposes greater cost on the legitimate demands of law enforcement than can be justified by the rule's deterrent purposes. Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 267 (1973) (POWELL, J., concurring). I therefore have indicated, at least with respect to Fourth Amendment violations, that a distinction should be made between flagrant violations by the police, on the one hand, and technical, trivial, or inadvertent violations, on the other. Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 610-612 (1975) (concurring opinion). Here, we have a Sixth Amendment case and also one in which the police deliberately took advantage of an inherently coercive setting in the absence of counsel, contrary to their express agreement. Police are to be commended for diligent efforts to ascertain the truth, but the police conduct in this case plainly violated respondent's constitutional rights.
MR. JUSTICE STEWART, in his opinion for the Court which I join, MR. JUSTICE POWELL, and MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL have [p415]
Underlying the surface issues in this case is the question whether a fugitive from justice can rely on his lawyer's advice given in connection with a decision to surrender voluntarily. The defendant placed his trust in an experienced Iowa trial lawyer, who, in turn, trusted the Iowa law enforcement authorities to honor a commitment made during negotiations which led to the apprehension of a potentially dangerous person. Under any analysis, this was a critical stage of the proceeding in which the participation of an independent professional was of vital importance to the accused and to society. At this stage -- as in countless others in which the law profoundly affects the life of the individual -- the lawyer is the essential medium through which the demands and commitments of the sovereign are communicated to the citizen. If, in the long run, we are seriously concerned about the individual's effective representation by counsel, the State cannot be permitted to dishonor its promise to this lawyer.
The result in this case ought to be intolerable in any society which purports to call itself an organized society. It continues [p416]
In so ruling, [p417]
(1)The Court Concedes Williams' Disclosures Were Voluntary
The Court purports to apply as the appropriate constitutional waiver standard the familiar "intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right or privilege" test of Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 464 (1938). Ante at 404. The Court assumes, without deciding, that Williams' conduct and statements were voluntary. It concedes, as it must, ibid., that Williams had been informed of and fully understood his constitutional rights and the consequences of their waiver. Then, having either assumed or found every element necessary to make out a valid waiver under its own test, the [p418]
This remarkable result is compounded by the Court's failure to define what evidentiary showing the State failed to make. Only recently, in Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 238 n. 25 (1973), the Court analyzed the distinction between a voluntary act and the waiver of a right; there, MR. JUSTICE STEWART stated for the Court:
[T]he question whether a person has acted "voluntarily" is quite distinct from the question whether he has "waived" a trial right. The former question, as we made clear in Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. [742,] 749, can be answered only by examining all the relevant circumstances to determine if he has been coerced. The latter question turns on the extent of his knowledge.
Similarly, in McMann v. Richardson, 397 U.S. 759, 766 (1970), we said that, since a guilty plea constituted a waiver of a host of constitutional rights, "it must be an intelligent act ‘done with sufficient awareness of the relevant circumstances and likely consequences.'" If the Court today applied these standards with fidelity to the Schneckloth and McMann holdings, it could not reach the result now announced.
One plausible but unarticulated basis for the result reached is that, once a suspect has asserted his right not to talk without the presence of an attorney, it becomes legally impossible [p419]
for him to waive that right until he has seen an attorney. But constitutional rights are personal, and an otherwise valid waiver should not be brushed aside by judges simply because an attorney was not present. The Court's holding operates to "imprison a man in his privileges," Adams v. United States ex rel. McCann, 317 U.S. 269, 280 (1942); it conclusively presumes a suspect is legally incompetent to change his mind and tell the truth until an attorney is present. It denigrates an individual to a nonperson whose free will has become hostage to a lawyer so that, until the lawyer consents, the suspect is deprived of any legal right or power to decide for himself that he wishes to make a disclosure. It denies that the rights to counsel and silence are personal, nondelegable, and subject to a waiver only by that individual.
The opinions in support of the Court's judgment do not enlighten us as to why police conduct -- whether good or bad -- should operate to suspend Williams' right to change his mind and "tell all" at once, rather than waiting until he reached Des Moines.
In his concurring opinion, MR. JUSTICE POWELL suggests that the result in this case turns on whether Detective Leaming's remarks constituted "interrogation," as he views them, or whether they were "statements" intended to prick the conscience of the accused. I find it most remarkable that a murder case should turn on judicial interpretation that a statement becomes a question simply because it is followed by an [p420]
(2)The Exclusionary Rule Should Not be Appliedto Non-egregious Police Conduct
The obvious flaws of the exclusionary rule as a judicial remedy are familiar. See Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U.S. 388, 411 (1971) (BURGER, C.J., dissenting); Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465, 498-502 (1976) (BURGER, C.J., concurring); Oaks, Studying the Exclusionary Rule in Search and Seizure, 37 U.Chi.L.Rev. 665 (1970); Williams, The Exclusionary Rule Under Foreign Law -- England, [p421]
52 J.Crim. L. 272 (1961). Today's holding interrupts what has been a more rational perception of the constitutional and social utility of excluding reliable evidence from the truth-seeking process. In its Fourth Amendment context, we have now recognized that the exclusionary rule is in no sense a personal constitutional right, but a judicially conceived remedial device designed to safeguard and effectuate guaranteed legal rights generally. Stone v. Powell, supra at 482; United States v. Janis, 428 U.S. 433, 443-447 (1976); United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 347-348 (1974); see Alderman v. United States, 394 U.S. 165, 174-175 (1969). We have repeatedly emphasized that deterrence of unconstitutional or otherwise unlawful police conduct is the only valid justification for excluding reliable and probative evidence from the criminal factfinding process. Stone v. Powell, supra at 485-486; United States v. Janis, supra at 446, 458-459, n. 35; United States v. Peltier, 422 U.S. 531, 536-539 (1975).
In a variety of contexts we inquire whether application [p422]
As with any remedial device, the application of the rule has been restricted to those areas where its remedial objectives are thought most efficaciously served.
United States v. Calandra, supra at 348; accord, Stone v. Powell, supra, at 486-491; United States v. Janis, supra; Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 606, 608-609 (1975) (POWELL, J., concurring in part); United States v. Peltier, supra at 538-539. This is, of course, the familiar balancing process applicable to cases in which important competing interests are at stake. It is a recognition, albeit belated, that "the policies behind the exclusionary rule are not absolute," Stone v. Powell, supra at 488. It acknowledges that so serious an infringement of the crucial truth-seeking function of a criminal prosecution should be allowed only when imperative to safeguard constitutional rights. An important factor in this amalgam is whether the violation at issue may properly be classed as "egregious." Brown v. Illinois, supra at 609 (POWELL, J., concurring in part). The Court understandably does not try to characterize the police actions here as "egregious." Against this background, it is striking that the Court fails even to consider whether the benefits secured by application of the exclusionary rule in this case outweigh its obvious social costs. Perhaps the failure is due to the fact that this case arises not under the Fourth Amendment, but under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), and the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. The Court apparently perceives the function of the exclusionary rule to be so different in these varying contexts that it must be mechanically and uncritically [p423]
applied in all case arising outside the Fourth Amendment.
But this is demonstrably not the case where police conduct collides with Miranda's procedural safeguards, rather than with the Fifth Amendment privilege against compulsory self-incrimination. Involuntary and coerced admissions are suppressed because of the inherent unreliability of a confession wrung from an unwilling suspect by threats, brutality, or other coercion. Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. at 242; Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U.S. 618, 638 (1965); Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. at 496-497 (BURGER, C.J., concurring); Kaufman v. United States, 394 U.S. 217, 237 (1969) (Black, J., dissenting). We can all agree on "‘[t]he abhorrence of society to the use of involuntary confessions,'" Linkletter v. Walker, supra at 638, and the need to preserve the integrity of the human personality and individual free will. Ibid.; Blackburn v. Alabama, 361 U.S. 199, 206-207 (1960).
But use of Williams' disclosures and their fruits carries no risk whatever of unreliability, for the body was found where he said it would be found. Moreover, since the Court makes no issue of voluntariness, no dangers are posed to individual dignity or free will. Miranda's safeguards are premised on presumed unreliability long associated with confessions extorted by brutality or threats; they are not personal constitutional rights, but are simply judicially created prophylactic measures. Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U.S. 433 (1974); Doyle
v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610, 617 (1976); Brown v. Illinois, supra at 606 (POWELL, J., concurring in part).
the strong interest under any system of justice of making available to the trier of fact all concededly relevant and trustworthy evidence which either party seeks to adduce. . . . We also "must consider society's interest in the effective prosecution of criminals. . . ."
Michigan v. Tucker, supra at 450.
the core purpose of the counsel guarantee was to assure "assistance" at trial, when the accused was confronted with both the intricacies of the law and the advocacy of the public prosecutor.
United States v. Ash, 413 U.S. 300, 309 (1973). Thus, the right to counsel is fundamentally a "trial" right necessitated by the legal complexities of a criminal prosecution [p425]
and the need to offset, to the trier of fact, the power of the State as prosecutor. See Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, supra at 241. It is now thought that modern law enforcement involves pretrial confrontations at which the defendant's fate might effectively be sealed before the right of counsel could attach. In order to make meaningful the defendant's opportunity to a fair trial and to assistance of counsel at that trial -- the core purposes of the counsel guarantee -- the Court formulated a per se rule guaranteeing counsel at what it has characterized as "critical" pretrial proceedings where substantial rights might be endangered. United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 224-227 (1967); Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, supra at 238-239.
As we have seen in the Fifth Amendment setting, violations of prophylactic rules designed to safeguard other constitutional guarantees and deter impermissible police conduct need not call for the automatic suppression of evidence without regard to the purposes served by exclusion; nor do Fourth Amendment violations merit uncritical suppression of evidence. In other situations, we decline to suppress eyewitness identifications which are the products of unnecessarily suggestive lineups or photo displays unless there is a "very substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification." Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 384 (1968). Recognizing that "[i]t is the likelihood of misidentification which violates a defendant's right to due process," Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. 188, 198 (1972), we exclude evidence only when essential to safeguard the integrity of the truth-seeking process. The test, in short, is the reliability of the evidence.
So, too, in the Sixth Amendment sphere, failure to have counsel in a pretrial setting should not lead to the "knee-Jerk" suppression of relevant and reliable evidence. Just as even uncounseled "critical" pretrial confrontations may often be conducted fairly, and not in derogation of Sixth Amendment values, Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 298-299 (1967), evidence [p426]
that holding was [p427]
premised on the utter reliability of evidence sought to be suppressed, the irrelevancy of the constitutional claim to the criminal defendant's factual guilt or innocence, and the minimal deterrent effect of habeas corpus on police misconduct. This case, like Stone v. Powell, comes to us by way of habeas corpus after a fair trial and appeal in the state courts. Relevant factors in this case are thus indistinguishable from those in Stone and from those in other Fourth Amendment cases suggesting a balancing approach toward utilization of the exclusionary sanction. Rather than adopting a formalistic analysis varying with the constitutional provision invoked,
In his opinion, MR. JUSTICE POWELL intimates that he agrees there is little sense in applying the exclusionary sanction where the evidence suppressed is "‘typically reliable, and often the most probative information bearing on the guilt or innocence of the defendant.'" Ante at 414. Since he seems to concede that the evidence in question is highly reliable and probative, his joining the Court's opinion can be explained only by an insistence that the "question has not been presented in the briefs or arguments submitted to us." Ibid. But petitioner has directly challenged the applicability of the exclusionary rule to this case, Brief for Petitioner 31-32, and has invoked principles of comity and federalism against reversal of the conviction. Id. at 69-73. Moreover, at oral argument -- the first opportunity to do so -- petitioner argued [p428]
At the least, if our intervening decision in Stone makes application of the exclusionary rule in this case an open question which "should be resolved only after the implications of such a ruling have been fully explored," the plainly proper course is to vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for reconsideration in light of that case. Indeed, only recently, we actually applied the intervening decision of Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. 229"] 426 U.S. 229 (1976), to resolve the constitutional issue in 426 U.S. 229 (1976), to resolve the constitutional issue in Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Dev. Corp., 429 U.S. 252 (1977). There, we found no difficulty in applying the intervening holding ourselves without a remand to give the Court of Appeals an opportunity to reconsider its holding; we reached the correct result directly, over MR. JUSTICE WHITE's dissent urging a remand. Today, the Court declines either to apply the intervening case of Stone v. Powell, which MR. JUSTICE POWELL admits may well be controlling, or to remand for reconsideration in light of that case; this is all the more surprising since MR. JUSTICE POWELL wrote Stone v. Powell, and today makes the fifth vote for the Court's judgment.
The bizarre result reached by the Court today recalls Mr. Justice Black's strong dissent in Kaufman v. United States, 394 U.S. at 231. There, too, a defendant sought release after his conviction had been affirmed on appeal. There, as here, the defendant's guilt was manifest, and was not called into question by the constitutional claims presented. This Court granted relief because it thought reliable evidence had been unconstitutionally obtained. Mr. Justice Black's reaction, foreshadowing our long overdue holding in Stone v. Powell, serves as a fitting conclusion to the views I have expressed:
It is seemingly becoming more and more difficult to gain acceptance for the proposition that punishment of [p429]
the guilty is desirable, other things being equal. One commentator, who attempted in vain to dissuade this Court from today's holding, thought it necessary to point out that there is "a strong public interest in convicting the guilty." . . .
. . . I would not let any criminal conviction become invulnerable to collateral attack where there is left remaining the probability or possibility that constitutional commands related to the integrity of the factfinding process have been violated. In such situations, society has failed to perform its obligation to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the crime. But it is quite a different thing to permit collateral attack on a conviction after a trial according to due process when the defendant clearly is, by the proof and by his own admission, guilty of the crime charged. . . . In collateral attacks, whether by habeas corpus or by § 2255 proceedings, I would always require that the convicted defendant raise the kind of constitutional claim that casts some shadow of a doubt on his guilt. This defendant is permitted to attack his conviction collaterally although he conceded at the trial, and does not now deny, that he had robbed the savings and loan association, and although the evidence makes absolutely clear that he knew what he was doing. Thus, his guilt being certain, surely he does not have a constitutional right to get a new trial. I cannot possibly agree with the Court.
394 U.S. at 240-242.
The criminal is to go free because the constable has blundered. . . . A room is searched against the law, and the body of a murdered man is found. . . . The privacy of the home has been infringed, and the murderer goes free.
The Court protests, ante at 407 n. 12, that its holding excludes only "Williams' incriminating statements themselves [as well as] any testimony describing his having led the police to the victim's body," thus hinting that successful retrial of this palpably guilty felon is realistically possible. Even if this were all, and the corpus delicti could be used to establish the fact and manner of the victim's death, the Court's holding clearly bars all efforts to let the jury know how the police found the body. But the Court's further -- and remarkable -- statement that "evidence of where the body was found and of its condition" could be admitted only "on the theory that the body would have been discovered in any event" makes clear that the Court is determined to keep the truth from the jurors pledged to find the truth. If all use of the corpus delicti is to be barred by the Court as "fruit of the poisonous tree" under Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471 (1963), except on the unlikely theory suggested by the Court, the Court renders the prospects of doing justice in this case exceedingly remote.
2. Such a paternalistic rule is particularly anomalous in the Sixth Amendment context, where this Court has only recently discovered an independent constitutional right of self-representation, allowing an accused the absolute right to proceed without a lawyer at trial, once he is aware of the consequences. Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806 (1975).
3. Paradoxically, in light of the result reached, the Court acknowledges that Williams repeatedly stated: "When I get to Des Moines and see Mr. McKnight, I am going to tell you the whole story." Read in context, it is plain that Williams was saying he intended to confess. The Court then goes on to hold, in effect, that Williams could not change his mind until he reached Des Moines.
4. One familiar example of this Court's unwillingness to apply the prophylactic exclusionary rule beyond its natural scope is the requirement that evidence seized in violation of the rights of another person may not be challenged by a defendant whose own rights were not invaded. Alderman v. United States, 394 U.S. 165, 174-175 (1969).
Alderman v. United States, supra at 175; see United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 348 (1974).
5. Indeed, if this were a Fourth Amendment case, our course would be clear; only last Term, in Stone v. Powell, we held that application of the exclusionary rule in federal habeas corpus has such a minimal deterrent effect on law enforcement officials that habeas relief should not be granted on the ground that unconstitutionally seized evidence was introduced at trial. Since the quantum of deterrence provided by federal habeas does not vary with the constitutional provision at issue, it appears that the Court sees fundamental, though unarticulated, differences in the exclusionary sanction when it is applied in other contexts.
6. Statements obtained in violation of Miranda have long been used for impeachment purposes. Oregon v. Hass, 420 U.S. 714 (1975); Harris v. New York, 401 U.S. 222 (1971). See also Walder v. United States, 347 U.S. 62 (1954).
7. Indeed, we determine whether pretrial proceedings are "critical" by asking whether counsel is there needed to protect the fairness of the trial. See United States v. Ash, 413 U.S. 300, 322 (1973) (STEWART, J., concurring); Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 239 (1973). It is also clear that the danger of factual error was the moving force behind the counsel guarantee in such cases as United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218 (1967) (post-indictment lineups).
8. This is a far cry from Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201 (1964). Massiah's statements had no independent indicia of reliability, as do respondent's. Moreover, Massiah was unaware that he was being interrogated by ruse, and had not been advised of his right to counsel.
9. Clearly there will be many cases where evidence obtained in violation of "right to counsel" rules is inadmissible, either for reasons related to the normative purposes of the Sixth Amendment or to the deterrence of unlawful police conduct. But this is, on the Court's facts, not such a case, and it hardly furthers reasoned analysis to lump it into an undifferentiated conceptual category for reasons which do not apply to it.
The respondent in this case killed a 10-year-old child. The majority sets aside his conviction, holding that certain [p430]
The victim in this case disappeared from a YMCA building in Des Moines, Iowa, on Christmas Eve in 1968. Respondent was seen shortly thereafter carrying a bundle wrapped in a blanket from the YMCA to his car. His car was found in Davenport, Iowa, 160 miles away, on Christmas Day. A warrant was then issued for his arrest. On the day after Christmas, respondent surrendered himself voluntarily to local police in Davenport, where he was arraigned. The Des Moines police, in turn, drove to Davenport, picked respondent up and drove him back to Des Moines. During the trip back to Des Moines, respondent made statements evidencing his knowledge of the whereabouts of the victim's clothing and body and leading the police to the body. The statements were, of course, made without the presence of counsel, since no counsel was in the police car. The issue in this case is whether respondent -- who was entitled not to make any statements to the police without consultation with and/or presence of counsel,
validly waived those rights.
The relevant facts are as follows. Before the Des Moines police officers arrived in Davenport, respondent was twice advised, once by Davenport police and once by a judge, of his right to counsel under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. [p431]
advised him that [the officer] wanted him to be sure to remember what [the officer] had just told him, because it was a long ride back to Des Moines and he and [the officer] would be visiting.
I want to give you something to think about while we're traveling down the road. . . . Number one, I want you to observe the weather conditions, it's raining, it's sleeting, it's freezing, driving is very treacherous, visibility [p432]
is poor, it's going to be dark early this evening. They are predicting several inches of snow for tonight, and I feel that you yourself are the only person that knows where this little girl's body is, that you yourself have only been there once, and if you get a snow on top of it, you yourself may be unable to find it. And, since we will be going right past the area on the way into Des Moines, I feel that we could stop and locate the body, that the parents of this little girl should be entitled to a Christian burial for the little girl who was snatched away from them on Christmas [E]ve and murdered. And I feel we should stop and locate it on the way in, rather than waiting until morning and trying to come back out after a snow storm, and possibly not being able to find it at all.
Respondent asked Detective Leaming why he thought their route to Des Moines would be taking them past the girl's body, and Leaming responded that he knew the body was in the area of Mitchellville -- a town they would be passing on the way to Des Moines. Leaming then stated: "I do not want you to answer me. I don't want to discuss it any further. Just think about it as we're riding down the road." On several occasions during the trip, respondent told the officers that he would tell them the whole story when he got to Des Moines and saw Mr. McKnight -- an indication that he knew he was entitled to wait until his counsel was present before talking to the police.
The strictest test of waiver which might be applied to this case is that set forth in Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 464 (1938), and quoted by the majority, ante at 404. In order to show that a right has been waived under this test, the State must prove "an intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right or privilege." The majority creates no new rule preventing an accused who has retained a lawyer from waiving his right to the lawyer's presence during questioning. The majority simply finds that no waiver was proved in this case. I disagree. That respondent knew of his right not to say anything to the officers without advice and presence of counsel is established on this record to a moral [p434]
certainty. He was advised of the right by three officials of the State -- telling at least one that he understood the right -- and by two lawyers.
Finally, he further demonstrate his knowledge of the right by informing the police that he would tell them the story in the presence of McKnight when they arrived in Des Moines. The issue in this case, then, is whether respondent relinquished that right intentionally.
The majority's contrary conclusion seems to rest on the fact that respondent "asserted" his right to counsel by retaining and consulting with one lawyer and by consulting with another. How this supports the conclusion that respondent's later relinquishment of his right not to talk in the [p435]
The majority recognizes that, even after this "assertion" of his right to counsel, it would have found that respondent waived his right not to talk in counsel's absence if his waiver had been express -- i.e., if the officers had asked him in the car whether he would be willing to answer questions in counsel's absence, and if he had answered "yes." Ante at 430 U.S. 405"]405. But waiver is not a formalistic concept. Waiver is shown whenever the facts establish that an accused knew of a right and intended to relinquish it. Such waiver, even if not express,
was plainly shown here. The only other conceivable [p436]
basis for the majority's holding is the implicit suggestion, ante at 400-401, that the right involved in 405. But waiver is not a formalistic concept. Waiver is shown whenever the facts establish that an accused knew of a right and intended to relinquish it. Such waiver, even if not express,
basis for the majority's holding is the implicit suggestion, ante at 400-401, that the right involved in Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201"] 377 U.S. 201 (1964), as distinguished from the right involved in 377 U.S. 201 (1964), as distinguished from the right involved in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), is a right not to be asked any questions in counsel's absence, rather than a right not to answer any questions in counsel's absence, and that the right not to be asked questions must be waived before the questions are asked. Such wafer-thin distinctions cannot determine whether a guilty murderer should go free. The only conceivable purpose for the presence of counsel during questioning is to protect an accused from making incriminating answers. Questions, unanswered, have no significance at all. Absent coercion
-- no matter how the [p437]
The consequence of the majority's decision is, as the majority recognizes, extremely serious. A mentally disturbed killer whose guilt is not in question may be released. Why? Apparently the answer is that the majority believes that the law enforcement officers acted in a way which involves some risk of injury to society, and that such conduct should be deterred. However, the officers' conduct did not, and was not likely to, jeopardize the fairness of respondent's trial, or in any way risk the conviction of an innocent man -- the risk against which the Sixth Amendment guarantee of assistance of counsel is designed to protect. Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45 (1932); Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458 (1938); Hamilton v. Alabama, 368 U.S. 52 (1961); Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963); White v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 59 (1963); United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218 (1967); Gilbert v. California, 388 U.S. 263 (1967); Coleman v. Alabama, 399 U.S. 1
[p438]
(1970); and Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U.S. 25 (1972). But see Massiah v. United States, supra. The police did nothing "wrong," let alone anything "unconstitutional." To anyone not lost in the intricacies of the prophylactic rules of Miranda v. Arizona, the result in this case seems utterly senseless; and for the reasons stated in Part II, supra, even applying those rules, as well as the rule of Massiah v. United States, supra, the statements made by respondent were properly admitted. In light of these considerations, the majority's protest that the result in this case is justified by a "clear violation" of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments has a distressing hollow ring. I respectfully dissent.
It does not matter whether the right not to make statements in the absence of counsel stems from Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201"] 377 U.S. 201 (1964), or 377 U.S. 201 (1964), or Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966). In either case, the question is one of waiver. Waiver was not addressed in Massiah because there, the statements were being made to an informant, and the defendant had no way of knowing that he had a right not to talk to him without counsel.
The Courts of Appeals, in administering the rule of Miranda v. Arizona, have not required an express waiver of the rights to silence and to counsel which an accused must be advised about under that case. Waiver has been found where the accused is informed of those rights, understands them, and then proceeds voluntarily to answer questions in the absence of counsel. United States v. Marchildon, 519 F.2d 337, 343 (CA8 1975) ("Waiver depends on no form of words, written or oral. It is to be determined from all of the surrounding circumstances. Addressing ourselves to this issue, we held in Hughes v. Swenson, 452 F.2d 866, 867-868 (CA8 1971), that: ‘The thrust of appellant's claim is that a valid waiver cannot be effective absent an expressed declaration to that effect. We are cited to no case which supports appellant's thesis, and independent research discloses none. To the contrary, the Fifth, Seventh, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits have held, in effect, that, if the defendant is effectively advised of his rights and intelligently and understandingly declines to exercise them, the waiver is valid'"); United States v. Ganter, 436 F.2d 364, 370 (CA7 1970) ("[A]n express statement that the individual does not want a lawyer is not required if it appears that the defendant was effectively advised of his rights and he then intelligently and understandingly declined to exercise them"); United States v. James, 528 F.2d 999, 1019 (CA5 1976) ("‘All that the prosecution must show is that the defendant was effectively advised of his rights, and that he then intelligently and understandingly declined to exercise them'"); Blackmon v. Blackledge, 541 F.2d 1070, 1072 (CA4 1976) ("[H]e was reasonably questioned only after having been fully informed of his rights and permitted to make a telephone call. Under such circumstances, a suspect's submission to questioning without objection and without requesting a lawyer is clearly a waiver of his right to counsel, if, indeed, he understands his rights"); United States v. Boston, 508 F.2d 1171 (CA2 1974); United States v. Johnson, 466 F.2d 1206 (CA8 1972); Mitchell v. United States, 140 U.S.App.D.C. 209, 434 F.2d 483 (1970); Bond v. United States, 397 F.2d 162 (CA10 1968).
There is a rigid prophylactic rule set forth in Miranda v. Arizona that, once an arrestee requests presence of counsel at questioning, questioning must cease. The rule depends on an indication by the accused that he will be unable to handle the decision whether or not to answer questions without advice of counsel, see Michigan v. Mosley, 423 U.S. 96, 110 n. 2 (1975) (WHITE, J., concurring), and is inapplicable to this case for two reasons. First, at no time did respondent indicate a desire not to be asked questions outside the presence of his counsel -- notwithstanding the fact that he was told that he and the officers would be "visiting in the car." The majority concludes, although studiously avoiding reliance on Miranda, that respondent asserted his right to counsel. This he did in some respects, but he never, himself, asserted a right not to be questioned in the absence of counsel. Second, as is noted in the dissenting opinion of MR. JUSTICE BLACKMUN, respondent was not questioned. The rigid prophylactic rule -- as the majority implicitly recognizes -- is designed solely to prevent involuntary waivers of the right against self-incrimination, and is not to be applied to a statement by a law enforcement officer accompanied by a request by the officer that the accused make no response followed by more than an hour of silence and an apparently spontaneous statement on a subject -- the victim's shoes -- not broached in the "speech." Under such circumstances. there is not even a small risk that the waiver will be involuntary.
First, the police did not deliberately seek to isolate Williams from his lawyers so as to deprive him of the [p439]
assistance of counsel., cf. Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478 (1964). The isolation in this case was a necessary incident of transporting Williams to the county where the crime was committed.
Second, Leaming's purpose was not solely to obtain incriminating evidence. The victim had been missing for only two days, and the police could not be certain that she was dead. Leaming, of course, and in accord with his duty, was "hoping to find out where that little girl was," ante at 399, but such motivation does not equate with an intention to evade the Sixth Amendment.
Moreover, the Court seems to me to place an undue emphasis, ante at 392, 400, and aspersion on what it and the lower courts have chosen to call the "Christian burial speech," and on Williams' "deeply religious" convictions.
Third, not every attempt to elicit information should be regarded as "tantamount to interrogation," ante at 400. I am not persuaded that Leaming's observations and comments, made as the police car traversed the snowy and slippery miles between Davenport and Des Moines that winter afternoon, were an interrogation, direct or subtle, of Williams. Contrary to this Court's statement, ibid., the Iowa Supreme Court appears to me to have thought and held otherwise, State v. Williams, 182 N.W.2d 396, 403-405 (1970), and I agree. Williams, after all, was counseled by lawyers, and warned by the arraigning judge in Davenport and by the [p440]
In summary, it seems to me that the Court is holding that Massiah is violated whenever police engage in any conduct, in the absence of counsel, with the subjective desire to obtain information from a suspect after arraignment. Such a rule is far too broad. Persons in custody frequently volunteer statements in response to stimuli other than interrogation. See, e.g., United States v. Cook, 530 F.2d 145, 152-153 (CA7), cert. denied, 426 U.S. 909 (1976) (defendant engaged officers in conversation while being transported to magistrate); United States v. Martin, 511 F.2d 148, 150-151 (CA8 1975) (agent initiated conversation with suspect, provoking damaging admission); United States v. Menichino, 497 F.2d 935, 939-941 (CA5 1974) (incriminating statements volunteered during booking process); Haire v. Sarver, 437 F.2d 1262 (CA8), cert. denied, 404 U.S. 910 (1971) (statements volunteered in response to questioning of defendant's wife). When here is no interrogation, such statements should be admissible as long as they are truly voluntary.
The Massiah point thus being of no consequence, I would vacate the judgment of the Court of Appals and remand [p441]