Opinion ID: 2363382
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Claimed Miranda Violations.

Text: On June 27, 1978 counsel for defendant filed two motions to suppress extra-judicial inculpatory statements he had made as evidence against him. One motion was directed to defendant's telephone conversation with Lt. LaMontagne and the other to his conversation with Officer Pinette. As to his inculpatory statements to LaMontagne, defendant maintained that he gave them without the benefit of the Miranda warnings of his constitutional rights. [4] With respect to his conversation with Officer Pinette, defendant maintained that while he had been advised of his Miranda rights before he made any statements, he had not in fact purported to waive them and, in any event, his mental condition at the time was such that he could not make an effective waiver of them. On June 29, 1978, the two motions for suppression were consolidated for hearing with a pre-trial motion that defendant be admitted to bail, and a Justice of the Superior Court heard all three motions together. The State presented testimony by the State's Medical Examiner, Dr. Henry Ryan, and various police officers. At the close of the State's evidence, without hearing testimony from the witnesses defendant wanted to call, the Justice stated that he would deny the two suppression motions. Over defense counsel's objection that the Justice should not rule until defendant had presented his evidence, the Justice terminated the hearing. On July 21, 1978 counsel for defendant filed a motion to reconsider the denial of defendant's motions to suppress. This motion was denied a week later, without a hearing. Subsequently, on September 5, 1978, the Justice reversed himself and held a hearing on the motion to reconsider. He decided to set aside his previous orders denying the suppression motions, and he set a date for further hearing on these motions. On October 12, 1978, the Justice undertook the further hearing on the two suppression motions. He said that hearing would be resumed with defendant having opportunity to present such evidence as he wished. The Justice made plain that he would not permit the re-examination of witnesses who had previously been examined at the June 29, 1978 suppression hearing. Believing this ruling unfair, defendant personally addressed the presiding Justice and demanded that the hearing on the suppression motions should start entirely anew, as if the June 29th hearing had never been held. The Justice overruled this personal demand of defendant. Thereupon, and acting contrary to the advice of his attorney that he should go forward with the hearing, defendant made his own personal determination to withdraw both of his motions to suppress. Stating that he could not prevent defendant from withdrawing his motions, the presiding Justice authorized defendant to withdraw them, observing on the record that he believed that defendant was seeking to judgeshop. Having withdrawn his suppression motions on October 12, 1978, defendant one week later sought to present them to another Superior Court Justice. This Justice ruled that by his prior conduct defendant had waived his right to be heard on his suppression motions. The Justice stated that defendant had made a calculated decision not to proceed with a hearing before a particular Judge and that defendant was now seeking to have those same matters heard before another Judge . . . that is playing fast and loose with the judicial process. I do not intend to permit it. This second Justice presided at defendant's jury trial. When defendant objected at trial to the admissibility in evidence of his extra-judicial inculpatory statements on the grounds that they were received by the police in violation of Miranda, the presiding Justice overruled the objections, stating that defendant had waived his right to make such claims and was, therefore, permanently foreclosed from having them judicially considered. The proceedings described above yield no reason for a reversal of the judgment of conviction. Although defendant's motions to suppress spoke generally of a violation of defendant's constitutional rights without referring particularly to Miranda violations, the record of the June 29th hearing makes plain that defendant was relying only on such constitutional rights as are guaranteed him under Miranda v. Arizona, supra . Defendant's contention was that his disturbed mental condition on March 2, 1978 prevented him from fully understanding the nature of his rights under Miranda and, consequently, that he had not purported to make, and was incapable of making, a knowing and intelligent waiver of his Miranda rights. It is evident, then, that defendant never contended that his inculpatory statements were involuntary, so as to have been independently violative of 14th Amendment due process of law, in the sense that the police had elicited the statements by force, fraud or coercion or had exploited defendant's disturbed mental condition so as to overbear his will. We are therefore called upon, here, to evaluate only contentions that the prophylactic interests of Miranda were not served; we have no concern with the more seriously substantive interests underlying the independent voluntariness required by 14th Amendment due process of law as a precondition of the admissibility in evidence of extra-judicial admissions, or confessions, of a defendant. [5] Defendant initially raised his Miranda claims at a seasonable time prior to trial. [6] Unquestionably, the first hearing on June 29th did not afford defendant a fair opportunity to present these claims, inasmuch as the presiding Justice refused to allow the defendant to present his own evidence in support of his motions to suppress. However, the Justice who presided, later realizing that he may have erred, set aside his denial of the suppression motions and afforded defendant fair opportunity, still seasonably prior to trial, to complete the hearing as to his Miranda claims. Defendant made a deliberate tactical choice not to avail himself of this opportunity. He decided to withdraw his motions to suppress as they were then pending before one Superior Court Justice, this move being the first step in attempting to bring them forward later to be considered by another Justice. A defendant's right to a judicial hearing of claims that his constitutional rights have been violated does not include a right to have the determination made by a Justice of defendant's own choosing, or preference. Thus, when on October 12th the Justice of the Superior Court before whom defendant's motions to suppress had been pending, and who had already undertaken to hear them, concluded that further hearing should be held, defendant had no right to withdraw his suppression motions as a maneuver to circumvent such further hearing and to seek to present the motions for the consideration of another Justice. If defendant believed that the first Justice had proceeded erroneously, or unfairly, his proper course was to make appropriate objections to preserve his claims on the record and then seek appropriate remedies for the alleged errors by appeal. Defendant had no right to take matters into his own hands to provide a remedy that he thought would work better, by resorting to the tactic of withdrawing his motions to suppress as his first step to undertake judgeshopping. We decide that this conduct by defendant constituted a deliberate by-pass of sound procedural requirements, in consequence of which defendant must be taken to have lost his right to a judicial determination of his claims of Miranda violations as a ground for the exclusion from evidence of his extra-judicial inculpatory statements. We stress that in so deciding, we are not purporting to settle the issue whether or not a defendant must raise claims of Miranda violations at a seasonable time prior to trial upon peril that the failure so to assert such claims will constitute a procedural default depriving defendant of the right to assert the claims during trial. See n. 6, supra. We now hold only that when a defendant (1) chooses to raise Miranda issues seasonably before trial and (2) then proceeds to withdraw them from judicial consideration for the patently invalid reason of avoiding having them decided by the Justice before whom they are pending and seeking to have them decided by a different Justice more to defendant's liking, it is not an abuse of discretion for a second Justice before whom defendant tries to reassert the claims, whether pre-trial or at trial, to rule that the defendant was guilty of a deliberate by-passing of procedural requirements and thus lost his right to a judicial determination of his claims of Miranda violations. [7]