Opinion ID: 1640348
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: confession in violation of defendant's right to counsel for impeachment

Text: Now that we have concluded that the defendant's inculpatory statements were taken in violation of his right to counsel, we determine whether the trial court erred in admitting those statements to impeach the defendant's testimony. The prosecutor urges us to extend the reasoning of Harris v New York, 401 US 222; 91 S Ct 643; 28 L Ed 2d 1 (1971), and hold that while statements taken in violation of defendant's right to counsel may not be used for substantive purposes, they may be used to impeach the defendant. The defendant, on the other hand, urges us to reject the analogy of the Harris Fifth Amendment decision to a Sixth Amendment violation of counsel situation, and to adopt an approach under Const 1963, art 1, § 20, which would render statements taken in violation of defendant's right to counsel inadmissible for either substantive or impeachment purposes. We find the logic of the defendant's position more compelling. Initially, we repeat that there is no question here as to the inadmissibility of defendant's statements for substantive purposes. At trial, the prosecutor conceded that the statements were not admissible for substantive purposes and only sought their admission as impeachment evidence. The trial judge's ruling focused solely on that issue and ruled the statements admissible. In Harris v New York, supra , the defendant was impeached on cross-examination with statements he made to the police immediately following his arrest. The prosecutor had conceded that such statements were inadmissible in his case in chief under Miranda v Arizona, 384 US 436; 86 S Ct 1602; 16 L Ed 2d 694 (1966), and defendant made no claim that the statements made to the police were coerced or involuntary. Harris, supra, p 224. The United States Supreme Court held that statements taken in violation of Miranda, while not admissible in the prosecution's case in chief, could be used to impeach the defendant: Some comments in the Miranda opinion can indeed be read as indicating a bar to use of an uncounseled statement for any purpose, but discussion of that issue was not at all necessary to the Court's holding and cannot be regarded as controlling. Miranda barred the prosecution from making its case with statements of an accused made while in custody prior to having or effectively waiving counsel. It does not follow from Miranda that evidence inadmissible against an accused in the prosecution's case in chief is barred for all purposes, provided of course that the trustworthiness of the evidence satisfies legal standards.