Title: State v. Tetzlaff
Citation: 453 P.2d 638, 75 Wash. 2d 649
Docket Number: 39585
State: Washington
Issuer: Washington Supreme Court
Date: April 10, 1969

75 Wn.2d 649 (1969) 453 P.2d 638 THE STATE OF WASHINGTON, Respondent, v. PAUL ROBERT TETZLAFF, Appellant.[*] No. 39585. The Supreme Court of Washington, Department One. April 10, 1969. Kempton, Savage &amp; Gossard, by Anthony Savage, Jr., for appellant (appointed counsel for appeal). Charles O. Carroll and Steve Paul Moen, for respondent. McGOVERN, J. Defendant appeals from a judgment and sentence entered against him following a jury conviction on two counts each of auto theft and robbery. For appeal purposes he concedes the sufficiency of the admitted evidence to support the verdict. He questions, however, the legal admissibility of certain statements and confessions made by him, introduced by the state, admitted by the court over objections, and considered by the jury. Following his apprehension as an escapee from the Washington State Reformatory at Monroe, defendant was taken to Seattle, placed in a police lineup and identified by several *650 witnesses as the person who committed a number of robberies in King and Snohomish counties. After being so identified he was returned to Monroe. Later that day, two detectives from the King County Sheriff's office went to Monroe and, in the confines of that institution, prepared to interrogate the defendant. It had been decided that he would be charged with at least one of the robberies about which he was to be questioned. Before making inquiry of the defendant regarding the crimes, however, the detectives handed to him a written statement reading as follows: (Italics ours.) Defendant then signed that advisory statement under date of September 28, 1966. One of the detectives verbally advised the defendant "that if he was without resources if he was charged, an attorney would be furnished for him by the State." (Italics ours.) And the other detective told him that "if he does not have resources to obtain an attorney that one would be supplied by the court when he is taken before the court." (Italics ours.) The fact that the defendant was indigent is without contest. He testified that his total resources were in the approximate sum of one dollar and the state did not challenge that testimony. Under this setting, the detectives then proceeded to question the defendant and obtained from him the statements and confessions which were admitted into evidence against him. Defendant argues that the trial court should have sustained his objections to them at the time of the *651 pretrial hearing held under CrR 101.20W(a), RCW vol. 0.[1] The basis of his argument is that he was not adequately advised of his right to be represented by legal counsel at the time of interrogation. He contends that the advice given him only indicated that he was entitled to free counsel at a later time. He insists that the advice received falls far short of that to which he was constitutionally entitled. We agree. [1] We hold that, in absence of a legitimate waiver, the right of a known and identified accused to have counsel present at the time of police interrogation is an indispensable part of the protective privilege of the fifth amendment to our federal constitution. In Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 16 L. Ed. 2d 694, 86 S. Ct. 1602 (1966), our highest court dealt at length with the subject of custodial interrogation by officers of the law. It was then made clear that an accused indigent has certain basic constitutional rights that must be honored if an incriminating statement made by him is to be used against him. Included within the enumerated rights is that of legal counsel, free to the indigent at the time of interrogation. The court said at 474: (Italics ours.) And it was further stated at 479 that: (Footnote omitted. Italics ours.) An examination of the record here makes it clear that this defendant was merely advised that he was entitled to free legal counsel if charged or when brought before a court. That advice was insufficient. He should have been told that he was entitled to free legal counsel at the time of interrogation. He was in legal custody, had been identified as the person who had committed the robberies and it had already been decided that he would be charged with at least one of the robberies. The fact that he had not yet been formally charged makes no difference. This was not the investigatory stage of an unsolved crime. As the known accused he was entitled to legal representation if he was to be questioned about the crimes. See Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478, 12 L. Ed. 2d 977, 84 S. Ct. 1758 (1964). [2] The state then argues that the defendant waived his right to legal representation. We do not agree. While it is certainly true that an accused may waive his right to counsel, it is equally true that such a waiver is effective only if knowingly, voluntarily and intelligently made. Nowhere in the record does it appear that the defendant knew that he was entitled to have counsel at the time of interrogation. Inasmuch as he was not adequately advised, and because it is not shown that he had actual knowledge of his right to counsel, it cannot therefore be said that he waived the right. One cannot effectively waive such a constitutional right without knowledge of its existence. The judgment and sentence of the trial court is reversed and the matter remanded for new trial. *653 HILL and ROSELLINI, JJ., and DONWORTH, J. Pro Tem., concur. HALE, J. (dissenting) I dissent. In my opinion, this record ought to satisfy even the most enthusiastic partisans of the Miranda rationale, Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 16 L. Ed. 2d 694, 86 S. Ct. 1602 (1966). Not only should the defendant be charged with knowing his rights under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments from personal experience, but it strikes me that the record shows that he was fully advised of whatever privileges he can be said to have acquired under Miranda. Explicitly, understandably and repeatedly the officers informed the defendant of his rights under the constitution. But additionally, the conclusion is inescapable in my judgment that in a concentrated career of criminality involving many arrests and several convictions the defendant could not help but have already known them. The record does not show that the defendant professed ignorance or claimed any mental retardation or disability. At a pretrial hearing under CrR 101.20W to test the voluntariness of his confession, defendant testified that he was convicted of forgery in the first degree in March, 1963, and placed on probation by the superior court. Probation, he said, was revoked in December, 1963, because in November, 1963, he had been convicted of grand larceny in the Superior Court for Clark County, sentenced to 15 years and sent to the reformatory. He testified, too, that while serving time in the reformatory, but detailed to the honor camp at Washougal, he escaped in July, 1966, and remained a fugitive until September 22, 1966, at which time he was captured in Edmonds. During his escape, according to his testimony, he committed armed robbery and was convicted of this crime in October, 1966. To presume that a person of at least average intelligence in the course of accumulating three felony convictions and while the wheels of justice were grinding slowly away would remain ignorant of his constitutional freedom from compulsory self-incrimination, makes the law appear ineluctably *654 foolish and stupid. That during his innumerable consultations with counsel and appearances before the superior court concomitant with the three felony convictions, probation and revocation thereof, the accused was not informed of his rights under the Fifth Amendment, challenges the credulity of the most unsophisticated. The courts, in my opinion, should maintain a degree of sophistication compatible at least with life in the second half of the twentieth century. Even the accused did not try to establish that he was unaware of his rights under the Fifth Amendment. His ignorance of the very rights he is presumed to know for all persons are presumed to know the law is simply presumed by the majority. That the accused already knew of his constitutional and statutory rights as a person accused of crime is no more than a minor aspect of this case, for the record shows he was repeatedly advised of them. The defendant indicated his confession was prompted mainly by a police officer telling him he had been identified as a participant in four armed robberies and there was evidence implicating his relatives. He figured that if he confessed and was cooperative, he would be charged with only one count of robbery and his relatives with none. He did not claim that he confessed because of his ignorance of his right to remain silent. But aside from the proposition that the defendant knew his rights under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, the record, I think, shows that the defendant was fully and explicitly advised of them including, for good measure, that he would be supplied with counsel to represent him in court in event he was charged. If, as is contended in some quarters, Miranda mandates a kind of legalistic catechism between questioner and accused as a predicate for admissibility if the courts are now rejecting the age-old principle that the law looks to substance and not form even then, I think this record meets the test of such errant sophistry and shows that the court properly admitted defendant's confession. *655 Here is defendant's own testimony on cross-examination at the pretrial hearing pursuant to CrR 101.20W: One should note that it is the defendant saying here that he could not remember, and implying that he could have told the officers he did not want a lawyer, and it is the defendant who is saying that he believed the officers advised him of his rights. On this crucial point, in contrast to this negative testimony, we also have the positive testimony of the officers. Detective Richard A. Rebman, King County Deputy Sheriff, referring to conversation with the defendant at the reformatory, testified: (Italics mine.) Another officer completely corroborated this evidence. Detective Jim Harris, also of the King County Sheriff's staff testified that he was present at the Monroe Reformatory interview when defendant gave a confession. At the pretrial hearing, Detective Harris testified: (Italics mine.) The record shows too that defendant admitted in open court that he signed a detailed written confession which, just above his signature contained the caveat: He testified also that he signed the following statement: and that, before signing, he read it and understood its contents. I think the record shows that, if there be a theoretical maximum to the quantum of advice to which an accused is constitutionally entitled, this defendant received far more than his aliquot share. After hearing the foregoing and other evidence pursuant to CrR 101.20W, the trial judge made findings and conclusions among which he found under "undisputed facts" the following: The court then entered a formal conclusion that "The defendant knowingly and intelligently waived his right to have an attorney present when he told the officers that he didn't want an attorney." The record, I think, abundantly supports the court's findings and conclusions. I would conclude from the record that the evidence overwhelmingly established not only that the defendant was informed of his right to remain silent and that anything he might say could be used in evidence, but was repeatedly advised both verbally and in writing that he could talk to an attorney before making any statement and have an attorney present at the time of making a statement. Two officers testified that he said he did not want an attorney, and the defendant not only did not deny this but conceded that possibly he had said so. I do not believe, unless the accused is insane or suffering from serious mental retardation or infirmity, that the constitution requires the police to argue the point with him. Additionally and the majority seems to fault the prosecution on this point the officers verbally and in writing told the defendant that if he were indigent and charged with a crime the court would provide him with counsel. I do not see how it can be held that this further bit of advice in substance, an assurance that counsel would be appointed by the court at public expense in case he were formally charged and tried derogates from his waiver of counsel at the interrogation. Accordingly, the court properly ruled to admit the confessions in evidence as voluntarily made. Finally, before the so-called Miranda rule becomes a complete barrier to the admission of confessions and damaging admissions against interest, the courts should take note of a recently enacted rule of evidence by the Congress governing the admissibility of confessions in the federal courts. In what seems to me to amount largely to a restatement of the American common law, Congress has adopted the following provision: 18 U.S.C.A. § 3501 (Supp. 1969), Act of June 19, 1968. I think, therefore, that the confessions were properly admitted and would affirm. [*] Reported in 453 P.2d 638. [1] CrR 101.20W(a) provides: "In every criminal case in which a confession or confessions of the accused are to be offered in evidence, the judge, either at the time of the trial or prior thereto, shall hold a hearing, in the absence of the jury for the purpose of determining whether, in the light of the surrounding circumstances, the confession was voluntary, and, therefore admissible. A court reporter shall record the evidence adduced at this hearing."