Opinion ID: 2401451
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Impeachment Testimony and the Sixth Amendment

Text: Appellant contends that the trial court erred by permitting the government to impeach his credibility with a statement obtained in violation of the Sixth Amendment. The government counters that a compelling interest in promoting truth at trial justified impeachment of appellant's credibility with a prior inconsistent statement obtained in violation of the Sixth Amendment. At a pretrial hearing on appellant's motion to suppress, inter alia on Miranda and Sixth Amendment grounds, it developed that the statement in question was obtained by one Detective Schwartz who visited Simpson at the Washington Hospital Center (for the third time) [9] on January 12, 1988. On the previous day, January 11, 1988, Simpson had been formally indicted, but counsel had been appointed for him at presentment on January 6, 1988. At the time of this third visit, Detective Schwartz knew that Simpson had appointed counsel and knew the lawyer's name. Nevertheless, he decided to great appellant (although he knew that to be improper in the absence of the lawyer). The detective specifically asked Simpson if he wanted to talk about what had happened. The detective knew that any information he obtained could not be used in the government's case in chief, but could be used for impeachment purposes. He did not advise Simpson of his Miranda rights, never told him he had been appointed a lawyer, and never asked him for any kind of waiver. The interview lasted for roughly 20 to 30 minutes [10] during which time, according to the detective, appellant said that he waited until the children had fallen asleep before killing them, that he was careful in stabbing the boys because he only wanted to kill them and did not want to hurt them, that he stabbed Dwayne first because he was the oldest and could have cried out or screamed, and that during the attack on Dwayne, Jerome woke up and mouthed the word Dad before appellant stabbed him. The motions court ruled that appellant's Sixth Amendment right to counsel had attached on January 6, 1988, six days before Detective Schwartz obtained the statements at issue. See infra note 12. The court ruled and, the government conceded, that the detective violated Mr. Simpson's Sixth Amendment right to counsel. In response to requests for a finding as to whether the detective acted in bad or good faith, the court answered: I will state as follows: I find as a fact that Detective Schwartz did not go to the hospital specifically to conduct a further interrogation of the defendant. I believe that he went there for a legitimate reason to find out when he would be moved from the Washington Hospital Center to a secure custody situation.... However, I do find that once there, Detective Schwartz, knowing that statements he elicited from the defendant could not be utilized in the government's case in chief and knowing that they could be used, or at least thinking that they could be used for impeachment, went in to talk with the defendant. That is what I know and can state, and I think that's enough for anyone else to conclude whether it was good faith or bad faith. I don't think I have to say that. I'll state what his knowledge was and what he did, knowing that it couldn't be used, and knowing that he could be used in other circumstances, though he might have been right or he might have been wrong. On balance the motions court ruled ultimately that although the statements were obtained in violation of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel, they were voluntary and could be introduced to impeach Simpson's testimony. At trial, after Simpson had testified on direct examination as to his despair and frustration, the prosecutor's cross-examination sought to establish that Simpson had deliberately and consciously decided to kill his sons. [11]
The basic question before us is whether the admission, for impeachment purposes at trial, of Simpson's pretrial statements taken in violation of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel, requires reversal. As the parties have briefed this issue, the critical question is whether the violation is a core violation, as the appellant claims or merely a violation of a prophylactic rule, as the government argues. Both parties agree that the Supreme Court in Michigan v. Harvey, 494 U.S. 344, 354, 110 S.Ct. 1176, 1182, 108 L.Ed.2d 293 (1990) left open the issue of impeachment use of a statement taken in violation of the core Sixth Amendment right to counsel, i.e., the admissibility for impeachment purposes of a voluntary statement obtained in the absence of a knowing and voluntary waiver of the right to counsel. Appellant's Brief, p. 30; Appellee's Brief, p. 37. The government nevertheless makes a vigorous argument here, in purported reliance upon Martinez v. United States, 566 A.2d 1049, 1059 (D.C.1989), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 1030, 111 S.Ct. 685, 112 L.Ed.2d 677 (1991), that the case before us only involves the violation of a prophylactic rule and therefore a compelling interest in promoting truth at trial justified the admissibility for impeachment purposes of the pretrial statements taken from Mr. Simpson. Simpson counters that the government's interpretation misconstrues Sixth Amendment jurisprudence. Before turning to Martinez, which predated Harvey, we will broadly examine such jurisprudence. For our purposes here the case law (but not the analyses) relied upon for Sixth Amendment jurisprudence may be briefly culled from a reading of both the majority and dissenting opinions in Michigan v. Harvey, supra, 494 U.S. 344, 110 S.Ct. 1176. The text of the Amendment provides in pertinent part that [i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence. Id. at 348, 356 n. 2, 110 S.Ct. at 1178, 1183 n. 2. A defendant is entitled to the aid of his lawyer from the time of arraignment through the time of first appeal. See Penson v. Ohio, 488 U.S. 75, 85, 109 S.Ct. 346, 352, 102 L.Ed.2d 300 (1988); Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 68-71, 53 S.Ct. 55, 63-65, 77 L.Ed. 158 (1932). Once formal criminal proceedings begin, the Sixth Amendment renders inadmissible in the prosecution's case in chief, statements deliberately elicited from a defendant without an express waiver of the right to counsel. See generally Maine v. Moulton, 474 U.S. 159, 106 S.Ct. 477, 88 L.Ed.2d 481 (1985); United States v. Henry, 447 U.S. 264, 100 S.Ct. 2183, 65 L.Ed.2d 115 (1980); Brewer v. Williams, 430 U.S. 387, 97 S.Ct. 1232, 51 L.Ed.2d 424 (1977); Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201, 84 S.Ct. 1199, 12 L.Ed.2d 246 (1964). For the fruits of post-indictment interrogations to be admissible in a prosecution's case in chief the State must prove a voluntary, knowing and intelligent relinquishment of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. Patterson v. Illinois, 487 U.S. 285, 292-93, 108 S.Ct. 2389, 2394, 101 L.Ed.2d 261 (1988); Brewer, supra, 430 U.S. at 404, 97 S.Ct. at 1242. [12] The Harvey majority parts drastically from the Harvey minority when it interprets the holding of Michigan v. Jackson, 475 U.S. 625, 106 S.Ct. 1404, 89 L.Ed.2d 631 (1986) (holding that once a criminal defendant invokes his Sixth Amendment right to counsel, a subsequent waiver of that righteven if voluntary, knowing and intelligent under traditional standards is presumed invalid if secured pursuant to police-initiated conversation) by establishing a prophylactic rule where the prosecution may use a statement taken in violation of that prophylactic rule to impeach a defendant's inconsistent testimony. Drawing upon the reasoning of Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 484, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 1884, 68 L.Ed.2d 378 (1981), which had announced a prophylactic rule in the Fifth Amendment context, the Harvey majority held that Mr. Harvey (who had signed a constitutional rights waiver form on which he initialed the portions advising him of his right to remain silent, his right to have a lawyer present before and during questioning, and his right to have a lawyer appointed for him prior to any questioning) had no right at trial to use the State's illegally obtained statement to provide himself with a shield against contradiction of his untruths. Harvey, supra, 494 U.S. at 351, 110 S.Ct. at 1180 (citing inter alia Harris v. New York, 401 U.S. 222, 224, 91 S.Ct. 643, 644, 28 L.Ed.2d 1 (1971)). Significantly however, the Harvey majority, noting that Harvey's counsel did not object to the State's use of his statement for impeachment purposes, remanded the case to the Michigan courts to conduct a hearing to permit the State to meet its burden of proving that Harvey had knowingly and voluntarily waived his right to counsel. Id. 494 U.S. at 354, 110 S.Ct. at 1182. [13] Moreover, the majority made it clear that the Court had consistently mandated the exclusion of reliable and probative evidence for all purposes when it is derived from involuntary statements, citing New Jersey v. Portash, 440 U.S. 450, 459, 99 S.Ct. 1292, 1297, 59 L.Ed.2d 501 (1979), and Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 398, 98 S.Ct. 2408, 2416, 57 L.Ed.2d 290 (1978). Id. 494 U.S. at 351, 110 S.Ct. at 1180. The Harvey issue of a right secured after Miranda warnings and a later voluntary decision to proceed without the assistance of counsel does not place the government in the instant case in a posture where it can rely upon a search for truth. The government focuses our attention primarily on our own decision in Martinez v. United States, supra, 566 A.2d at 1050, decided prior to Harvey (and accurately predicting the trend that the Supreme Court would follow), where we held that although the defendant did not waive his Sixth Amendment right to counsel, it was, under the circumstances of that case, not error for the trial court to permit an inconsistent voluntary statement of the defendant to impeach his testimony at trial. Id. at 1050. In so doing, we followed the line of cases which equated Sixth Amendment rights with Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights and adopted an approach which balances two competing policies of law(1) the policy that proscribes, as a prophylactic measure, the use of evidence obtained in violation of a rule of law, and (2) the policy ... which regards an adversary judicial proceeding as a search for truth. Id. at 1055-57. We then applied this approach to the facts in the case of Mr. Martinez. Id. at 1057-59. We do not read our Martinez decision as dictating affirmance here. Like the detective in Martinez, Detective Schwartz in the instant case initiated and obtained a statement in violation of Simpson's Sixth Amendment right to counsel. Unlike the defendant in Martinez, [14] however, Simpson had not been fully advised as to his Miranda rights; moreover, unlike the circumstances in Martinez, [15] there was evidence that Simpson had a lawyer at the time of his interrogation and his interrogator knew this. It would be safe to say here, even more so than in Martinez, that the government did not meet its burden of showing that Simpson (not having been told that he had the right to counsel or that counsel had been appointed for him) had knowingly and voluntarily waived the right to counsel. See id. at 1054. Moreover, there is a question in this case as to whether Simpson spoke voluntarily. Neither this court nor the Supreme Court has made an exception to the exclusionary rule where statements have been made involuntarily as a result of abusive tactics. See Michigan v. Harvey, supra, 494 U.S. at 351, 110 S.Ct. at 1180; Martinez v. United States, supra, 566 A.2d at 1058-59. Ultimately the issue of voluntariness is one for the appellate court. See Rogers v. United States, 483 A.2d 277, 285-86 (D.C.1984), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1227, 105 S.Ct. 1223, 84 L.Ed.2d 363 (1985). In determining whether Mr. Simpson's statements which he made from a hospital bed were voluntary, we look to the factually similar case of Mincey v. Arizona, supra, 437 U.S. 385, 98 S.Ct. 2408. In that case, the defendant was brought to the hospital after being shot. Id. at 396, 98 S.Ct. at 2415. Like Mr. Simpson, the defendant had tubes inserted into various parts of his body and was in pain. Id. In reversing the Arizona Supreme Court's ruling that his statements were voluntary, the Court reasoned: [i]t is hard to imagine a situation less conducive to the exercise of a rational intellect and a free will than Mincey's.... [W]hile [the defendant] was being questioned he was lying on his back on a hospital bed, encumbered by tubes, needles, and breathing apparatus. He was, in short, at the complete mercy of [the detective], unable to escape or resist the thrust of [the detective's] interrogation. Id. at 398-99, 98 S.Ct. at 2416. It is apparent from the record that Mr. Simpson was in a weakened state on the three occasions that Detective Schwartz visited him in the hospital. He was in physical pain, isolated from family, friends and legal counsel, and had not been apprised of his right to have counsel present when the interrogation occurred. Unlike the defendants in Michigan v. Harvey, supra, 494 U.S. at 346, 110 S.Ct. at 1177, and Martinez, supra, 566 A.2d at 1052, the record makes clear that Simpson's statements were given without a waiver, either oral or written. Accordingly, due process of law requires that Simpson's statements, obtained as these were, cannot be used in any manner against him at trial. Mincey, supra, 437 U.S. at 402, 98 S.Ct. at 2418. Finally, therefore, even if we felt called upon (which we do not) to balance the policy of deterring police violations of law as against the policy of a search for truth in this criminal trial, we would not be inclined to elevate the search for truth over that of a constitutional right to counsel (thus putting the prosecution in a better position than it would have been in if no illegality had transpired, see Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431, 443, 104 S.Ct. 2501, 2508, 81 L.Ed.2d 377 (1984)). With some irony here we can be proud of the fact that we are not faced with our constable [who] has blundered. See id. at 455, 104 S.Ct. at 2515 (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment) (internal quotations and citation omitted). We have a detective here who thought he knew the difference between a core violation of the Sixth Amendment and the transgression of a prophylactic rule which might deter future violations of that Amendment. In deliberately visiting the hospital room of a physically incapacitated (and crying) Simpson, knowing that Simpson (who had admitted the crime) had been appointed counsel, and initiating a conversation in the absence of counsel, the detective knew that any statements he obtained could not be used in the government's case in chief, but he believed that such statements could be used for impeachment purposes (prompting apparent awe on the part of the motions judge who delegated to anyone else the task of concluding whether the elicitation of the statements constituted good faith or bad faith). [16] Under these circumstances, exclusion for all purposes of the statements taken in this knowing and intentional violation of Sixth Amendment rights is mandated. To permit the balancing of competing interests here would allow the exception to swallow the rule. This we decline to do.