Opinion ID: 1910611
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Comparison of Fifth and Sixth Amendment Considerations

Text: On the authority of Harrison v. United States, 128 U.S.App.D.C. 245, 387 F.2d 203 (1967), rev'd on other grounds, 392 U.S. 219, 88 S.Ct. 2008, 20 L.Ed.2d 1047 (1968), appellant claims that none of her prior testimony, elicited under unconstitutional circumstances, should have been used for impeachment at the second trial. Harrison, supra, was an appeal from a third trial for felony murder. In the first trial, a layman had represented appellants, pretending to be a member of the District of Columbia bar. At the third trial, the prosecution impeached one of the appellants with portions of his testimony from the first trial. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed as to that appellant on Sixth Amendment grounds, holding that the constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel barred use of appellant's testimony from the earlier trial. Failure to heed the constitutional admonition that the accused enjoy the right to assistance of counsel negates completely the court's jurisdiction to proceed.[] The proceeding is void, the occurrences therein are vitiated; transpirations otherwise legal go for naught. . . . It cannot be doubted that the Government's introduction into evidence of the statements [appellant] White made during a period when he was without counsel impinges rights the Constitution renders inviolate. [ Id. 128 U.S.App.D.C. at 254, 255, 387 F.2d at 212, 213.] The government questions the continued validity of Harrison, supra, in light of the Supreme Court's more recent decisions in Harris v. New York, 401 U.S. 222, 91 S.Ct. 643, 28 L.Ed.2d 1 (1971), and Oregon v. Hass, 420 U.S. 714, 95 S.Ct. 1215, 43 L.Ed.2d 570 (1975). These two later cases stand for the proposition that even though the government cannot introduce a defendant's post-arrest statements in its own case when Miranda rights have been violated, [30] it may use those statements to impeach the defendant in the event that he or she testifies differently at trial. [31] Although Harris and Hass analyzed the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, the government argues that the same reasoning should apply when Sixth Amendment rights are at issue. The government is not necessarily correct. In Harris and Hass, the Court focused on the question whether impeachment with unlawfully obtained statements would erode, unconstitutionally, the Miranda deterrent to official misconduct. The Court answered no, stressing that the privilege against self-incrimination does not include the right to commit perjury, Harris, supra, 401 U.S. at 225, 91 S.Ct. at 645 even though the possibility of uncovering impeachment material may increase the likelihood of unlawful police interrogation. Hass, supra, 420 U.S. at 723, 95 S.Ct. 1215. [32] A premise of both decisions, however, was the reliability of the impeaching statements. The Court assumed that the trustworthiness of the evidence satisfies legal standards, Harris, supra, 401 U.S. at 224, 91 S.Ct. at 645; it meets the traditional standards of evaluating voluntariness and trustworthiness. Hass, supra, 420 U.S. at 723, 95 S.Ct. at 1221. Appellant's Sixth Amendment case is different. The conflict of interest which arose between appellant and her attorney at the first trial in no sense was the product of misconduct by government officials. Thus, in this particular type of Sixth Amendment case, the government's use of appellant's prior trial testimony for impeachment would not undermine any constitutional protection against official misconduct. [33] On the other hand, we have an issue of reliability which was not present in Harris and Hass. The absence of effective counsel bears directly on the completeness, clarity, and thus reliability of a defendant's trial testimony. As a defendant is testifying, for example, the lawyer can ask additional questions to help resolve ambiguous responses or to correct answers based on misunderstanding of the question. Without uncompromising legal assistance, a defendant risks misstating the truth, or making material omissions, unaware of the lapse. The Supreme Court has emphasized that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel secured in Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799 (1963)  which was deemed so vital that the Court gave it retroactive application  goes to the very integrity of the fact-finding process in criminal trials, and that a conviction obtained after a trial in which the defendant was denied the assistance of a lawyer lacked reliability. [ Loper v. Beto, 405 U.S. 473, 484, 92 S.Ct. 1014, 1019, 31 L.Ed.2d 374 (1972) (quoting Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U.S. 618, 639 & n. 20, 85 S.Ct. 1731, 14 L.Ed.2d 601 (1965))].[ [34] ] We therefore have to consider whether the reliability of appellant's testimony at the first trial is sufficiently suspect that its use for impeachment at the second trial would violate the Sixth Amendment. [35] This question is part of a larger one, however, for as the government points out  and as the Supreme Court emphasized in Harris and Hass  the reliability of appellant's testimony at the second trial is also at issue. We therefore must weigh two related factors here: (1) the potential unreliability of the prior testimony and (2) the potential unreliability of the second trial testimony, based on appellant's opportunity to recast it without risk of impeachment.