Opinion ID: 1799945
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Escobedo's Application Absent Affirmative Conduct

Text: It is a significant fact in the Escobedo case that the defendant there was deprived of consultation with his attorney by affirmative conduct on the part of law enforcement officials occurring between the time of his arrest and the time the confession was secured. Respected courts have held that the application of the rule should not turn on whether the defendant involved requested or retained counsel, emphasizing that such an application may disadvantage the ignorant and uninformed as compared to those alert to their rights. These jurisdictions include California, [13] Oregon, [14] and Rhode Island. [15] And there are decisions of lower Federal courts supporting this approach. [16] In our judgment the better rule, recognizing that Escobedo represents a departure from or change of previously held conceptions, [17] is to limit Escobedo to fact situations of the kind there presented. There is a reasonable difference in the degree of danger to be apprehended between a situation where police officers deliberately and affirmatively separate a defendant from his lawyer and those where no such misconduct is to be found. The planned, affirmative action is clearly more objectionable. Therefore, we join with such jurisdictions as Arizona, [18] Florida, [19] Illinois, [20] Maryland, [21] Nevada, [22] New Jersey, [23] New York, [24] Ohio, [25] Virginia, [26] and Wisconsin, [27] in holding that the failure of law enforcement authorities to advise a defendant of his rights to counsel does not in and of itself compel exclusion of a confession obtained from one upon whom the investigative procedures have come to focus. Although Pennsylvania originally adopted the restricted interpretation of the Escobedo case, [28] it has now reversed itself in Commonwealth v. Negri, 419 Pa. 117, 213 A.2d 670, to conform with the broad interpretation adopted by the Court of Appeals in the Third Circuit in United States ex rel. Russo v. State (3 Cir.) 351 F.2d 429. The most recent discussion of the problem appears in two cases emanating from the Court of Appeals of the Second Circuit filed November 22, 1965, entitled United States v. Cone, 354 F.2d 119 and United States v. Robinson, 354 F.2d 109. A restricted interpretation of the Escobedo decision was adopted by the majority of that court in these cases. We believe it to be good procedure for the police to advise an arrested person immediately of his right to counsel, his right to remain silent; and that anything he says may be used against him. Unless the United States Supreme Court decides otherwise, the failure to give this advice will not of itself make a subsequent confession inadmissible, but the absence of such a warning will continue to be a significant factor in testing whether the confession was given freely by the defendant and may give reason in the context of a particular case for rejecting as nonvoluntary an incriminating statement, oral or written, attributed to the defendant.