Opinion ID: 2173102
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Attempt to Coerce a Waiver of the Privilege

Text: It is well settled that an agent of the State cannot pursue a course of action whose object is to penalize an individual's assertion of his constitutional rights. See, e.g., Bordenkircher v. Hayes, 434 U.S. 357, 362, 98 S.Ct. 663, 667, 54 L.Ed. 2d 604, 610 (1978). Consequently, a state agency may neither impose nor threaten to impose sanctions upon a person because he elects to exercise his right not to tender self-incriminatory testimony. Lefkowitz v. Cunningham, 431 U.S. 801, 806, 97 S.Ct. 2132, 53 L.Ed. 2d 1 (1977); Lefkowitz v. Turley, supra, 414 U.S. at 81-82, 94 S.Ct. 316; Garrity v. New Jersey, 385 U.S. 493, 500, 87 S.Ct. 616, 17 L.Ed. 2d 562 (1967). The State is not merely precluded from punishing criminally one who asserts the privilege. Since the touchstone of the Fifth [and Fourteenth] Amendment[s] is compulsion, the State cannot impose sanctions of any kind  including economic sanctions  which are capable of coercing the self-incrimination which the Constitution forbids. See, e.g., Lefkowitz v. Cunningham, supra, 431 U.S. at 806, 97 S.Ct. 2132. In the present case, the Director informed each plaintiff that assertion of the privilege might subject his license to revocation. A more clear-cut case of patently unconstitutional conduct cannot be imagined. In Lefkowitz v. Turley, supra , the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional a New York statute which conditioned a contractor's right to transact business with the State upon a waiver of his privilege against self-incrimination. In its holding, the Court emphasized that a waiver secured under threat of substantial economic sanction cannot be termed voluntary. Id. at 82-83, 94 S.Ct. at 316. A similar result was reached in Garrity v. New Jersey, supra . In that case police officers suspected of having fixed traffic tickets were informed that they would be removed from office if they invoked the privilege during the Attorney General's inquiry into their past conduct. The Court squarely held that the State's actions in this regard were unconstitutional because the police were presented with a choice between surrendering their constitutional rights or their jobs. Id. at 498-500, 87 S.Ct. at 616. See also Lefkowitz v. Cunningham, supra (State cannot remove a political party officer from his position or bar him from holding any public office because he has refused to waive his privilege against compelled self-incrimination). The similarity of the present case to Cunningham, Turley, and Garrity leaves no doubt that the Director has transcended constitutional bounds. The revocation of plaintiffs' licenses is at least as substantial an economic sanction as the loss of employment occasioned in Cunningham and Garrity and the deprivation of public contracting rights condemned in Turley. Consequently, the Director may not in any way attempt to carry out these threats. Should he do so, judicial remedies are available. In addition to confronting plaintiffs with the threat of license revocation, the Director also stated that a licensee's waiver of his privilege [would] be a mitigating factor in any future disciplinary proceedings and that those who insisted upon exercising the privilege [would] be dealt with accordingly. The State asserts that these statements are not proscribed by Cunningham, Turley and Garrity because the Director did not threaten to penalize an assertion of the privilege but merely to reward a waiver thereof. In effect, the State is asking this Court to elevate form over substance. Notwithstanding the semantics employed by the Director, it is clear that he is promising to treat more harshly  i.e., to penalize  those licensees who invoke the privilege simply because they will have asserted their constitutional rights. His threats therefore amount to an unconstitutional attempt to coerce a waiver of the privilege. The State also argues that Supreme Court decisions upholding the validity of plea bargaining between a prosecutor and a criminal suspect, see, e.g., Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742, 90 S.Ct. 1463, 25 L.Ed. 2d 747 (1970), immunize the Director's promises of leniency from successful constitutional attack. In both situations, the State maintains, an individual is induced to incriminate himself in return for favorable treatment. A careful review of the plea bargaining cases, however, demonstrates clearly that the two situations are not analogous. Although the Supreme Court has tolerated the use of the plea bargaining procedure, see Bordenkircher v. Hayes, 434 U.S. 357, 360, 98 S.Ct. 663, 666, 54 L.Ed. 2d 604, 609 (1978), it has consistently stated that such a procedure is not one which should be utilized in an ideal world since it results in many criminal suspects incriminating themselves and foregoing their rights to a jury trial. See, e.g., Bordenkircher, supra, 434 U.S. at 3601, 98 S.Ct. at 666. 54 L.Ed. 2d at 609; Blackledge v. Allison, 431 U.S. 63, 97 S.Ct. 1621, 52 L.Ed. 2d 736 (1977). Nonetheless, the procedure has been upheld against constitutional attack. The Court's main reason for reaching this result is that many concrete advantages flow to both the State and the accused when the latter foregoes his right to trial. As stated in Brady, supra :    For a defendant who sees slight possibility of acquittal, the advantages of pleading guilty and limiting the probable penalty are obvious  his exposure is reduced, the correctional processes can begin immediately, and the practical burdens of a trial are eliminated. For the State there are also advantages  the more promptly imposed punishment after an admission of guilt may more effectively attain the objectives of punishment; and with the avoidance of trial, scarce judicial and prosecutorial resources are conserved for those cases in which there is a substantial issue of the defendant's guilt or in which there is substantial doubt that the State can sustain its burden of proof. [397 U.S. at 752, 90 S.Ct. at 1471; footnote omitted] See State v. Corbitt, 74 N.J. 379, 394 (1977), aff'd ___ U.S. ___, 99 S.Ct. 492, 58 L.Ed. 2d 466 (1978). It is the presence of these substantial benefits flowing to both the State and the accused which justifies the practice of plea bargaining. See, e.g., Bordenkircher, supra, 434 U.S. at 363, 98 S.Ct. at 668, 54 L.Ed. 2d at 611; State v. Corbitt, supra, 74 N.J. at 396. The plea bargaining decisions also emphasize the procedural protections accorded a suspect with whom the prosecutor wishes to negotiate. Thus, the Court has recognized the suspect's right to have counsel present during bargaining sessions, see, e.g., Brady, supra ; the need for a public record indicating that a guilty plea was knowingly and voluntarily made, see, e.g., Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 23 L.Ed. 2d 274 (1969); and the requirement that a prosecutor's plea bargaining promises not be breached, see, e.g., Santobello v. New York, 404 U.S. 257, 92 S.Ct. 495, 30 L.Ed. 2d 427 (1971). Most importantly, the Court has emphasized that a guilty plea is entered in open court before a judge who must satisfy himself that the plea is voluntarily and intelligently tendered and that a factual basis supports the plea. See, e.g., Brady, supra, 397 U.S. at 754-755, 90 S.Ct. 1463; State v. Corbitt, supra, 74 N.J. at 396. In this way, defendants are prevented from involuntarily and unnecessarily foregoing their rights to stand trial and to not incriminate themselves. In the present case, the factors justifying the validity of the plea bargain are simply not present. The Director, unlike a plea bargaining prosecutor, does not possess any evidence pointing to the guilt of any particular plaintiff. Hence, a licensee who waives his privilege will increase, not diminish, the potential that he will be subjected to sanctions. The use of such waivers will not result in a saving of scarce judicial resources. Moreover, the Director has not attempted to demonstrate that absent promises of leniency his investigative ability will be severely handicapped. [2] The mutuality of advantage emphasized in Brady thus is not here present. In addition, plaintiffs will not be accorded the procedural protections guaranteed a plea-bargaining defendant. No judge is present to ensure that a licensee's waiver is intelligently made after a consideration of all available options and their attendant risks. The Director's promises of leniency, as his threats of license revocation, thus constitute an attempt to coerce a waiver of the privilege against self-incrimination. Should the Director seek to enforce these threats, plaintiffs have the right to have his conduct enjoined by a court of law. This is not to say, however, that should the Director uncover evidence of a particular licensee's guilt he may not consider as a mitigating factor that the licensee has volunteered self-incriminatory information. Such a voluntary proffering of information may in certain circumstances bear upon the licensee's repentance for having engaged in illegal conduct and hence his propensity to commit similar crimes in the future. This may be considered in combination with all other aggravating and mitigating circumstances surrounding the perpetration of the offense. What the Director may not do is to implement a course of action whose object is to treat more harshly all those who have invoked their privilege simply because they have elected to exercise their constitutional rights.