Court Opinion

ID: 9629715
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:47:45.779058+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:22.666081
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Me. Justice Nix :
I dissent.
A review of this record convinces me that appellees were denied the rights guaranteed them by the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the United States Constitution as well as Art. I, Sec. 9 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. I would therefore affirm the quashing of indictments obtained at least partially as a result of the deprivation of such rights.
Appellees were questioned by the District Attorney of Philadelphia pursuant to an investigation into “widespread corruption” in programs administered by the *374Philadelphia Housing Authority. After this interview, the appellees were informed that their answers were unsatisfactory, that they were subject to immediate arrest and that they would be subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury investigating public housing programs.
One week later, appellees appeared before the supervising judge of the grand jury pursuant to a subpoena. Counsel requested that he be permitted to accompany the appellees during questioning before the grand jury or, in the alternative, that they be permitted to leave the grand jury room during the course of questioning to confer with counsel and obtain assistance in understanding a question or in deciding whether to claim the privilege against self-incrimination. Those requests were denied.
Appellees were then questioned in front of the grand jury and subsequently indicted. In its presentment, the grand jury found:
“We have found that approved developers, asking extra money for the construction of new walls, certifying that the old walls were unsafe, have left the old walls untouched or coated their defects with stucco and billed the authority for new walls.
“4. Columbia Investment Corporation — The principals of this firm are Herbert Burstein and Jack Shapiro. There were a total of twenty-six (26) properties wherein they requested additional money for new wall construction work. A total of eighty-six (86) walls were assigned as in need of new construction out of which fifty-eight (58) were found not to have been done. Yet this developer received for this supposed work thirty-seven thousand dollars ($37,000).

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“Most of the developers involved in this fraudulent practice were called to testify before the Investigating Grand Jury. Their explanations varied. Some of the developers suggested that there was a breakdown in *375communication within their own work forces. Others suggested that their workload was too heavy and thus they were unable to keep up with the work called for as to each house. Others offered no reasonable explanation. In at least three instances, the developers involved stated that they hired a general contractor who did all the construction work and they merely received a fixed percentage of the sale price depending upon whether it was a single family unit, multi or triplex to be rehabilitated. These developers suggested, therefore, that the responsibility for this faulty work rests with the general contractor and not with them.

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“We have analyzed each case with care and a/re recommending indictments against developers where a substantial pattern of fraud exists, without a/ny explanation which credibly indicates that such actions resulted from inadvertence or negligence.

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“We ask the Court to direct the District Attorney to prepare and present to an appropriate indicting Grand Jury, bills of indictment charging the following firms and individuals with the offenses reflected in this Presentment.
“3. That Columbia Investment Corporation and its principals, Herbert Burstein and Jack Shapiro, during the years 1968 and 1969, conspired among themselves and together with others to unlawfully obtain money by false pretenses and to cheat and defraud the Philadelphia Housing Authority in fifty-eight (58) instances as previously observed in this Presentment and pursuant to that conspiracy, presented false statements and claims for the payment of money for new wall construction which was in fact not done and thereby obtained such money unlawfully from the Philadelphia Housing Authority.”
*376The majority reverses the quashing of the indictments and explicitly holds that “no witness subpoenaed to testify before an investigating grand jury has the right either to refuse to appear or the unqualified right to appear and remain silent. Neither does a witness have the right to have his attorney present during his grand jury appearance.” In rejecting appellees’ attack on their indictment, the majority implicitly holds that a witness before an investigating grand jury need not be given the right to leave the grand jury room during the course of questioning to obtain counsel’s advice in deciding to invoke the privilege against self-incrimination. I believe the majority’s position is violative of the protection intended to be afforded under the Fifth Amendment and the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. This ruling also offends the protection against self-incrimination and the right to counsel provided by the Constitution of this Commonwealth.
It is certainly beyond cavil that a witness appearing before a grand jury may refuse to answer any given question on the ground that it may tend to incriminate him. Curcio v. United States, 354 U.S. 118 (1957); Hoffman v. United States, 341 U.S. 479 (1951); Counselman v. Hitchcock, 142 U.S. 547 (1892). I do not understand the majority or the Commonwealth to argue otherwise. Nor has anyone suggested that one appearing before a grand jury may not retain counsel to represent Mm. In Ms instructions to the appellees immediately before their appearance, Judge Sloan assured them: “Each one of you has a right to have a lawyer, you have a right to consult with him, advise with Mm, be guided by him.” In my view, however, after recognizing the right of counsel, the court proceeded to proscribe such limitations on the right to confer with that counsel, that the protection was rendered illusory. The majority’s insistence that witnesses, who are the focus of the grand jury’s inquiry, make the decision to invoke *377the privilege against self-incrimination unaided by counsel dilutes the privilege and frustrates the right to counsel.
The privilege against self-incrimination is as important as any of the protections afforded in the Bill of Rights. Gouled v. United States, 255 U.S. 298 (1921). It originated as a protest against the continental inquisitorial and unjust methods of interrogating accused persons and in the setting up of additional barriers in England to protect the people against the exercise of arbitrary power. Brown v. Walker, 161 U.S. 591, 596 (1896).
“[The Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination] was aimed at ... a recurrence of the Inquisition and the Star Chamber. . . . Prevention of the greater evil was deemed of more importance than occurrence of the lesser evil [that the privilege may, on occasion, save a guilty man from his just desserts.]” Ullman v. United States, 350 U.S. 422, 428 (1956). The privilege operates to protect the innocent as well as the guilty. Grunewald v. United States, 353 U.S. 391 (1957); Slochouer v. Bd. of Higher Education of New York City, 350 U.S. 551 (1956).
Courts have construed the privilege consistent with the breadth of the mischief against which it seeks to guard. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966). To sustain the privilege, it need only be evidenced from the implications of the question, in the setting in which it was asked, that a responsive answer to the question or an explanation of why it cannot be answered might be dangerous because an injurious disclosure would result. Curcio v. United States, supra; Emspak v. United States, 349 U.S. 190 (1955).
Despite the importance and breadth of the privilege, courts have consistently held that the voluntary offer of testimony upon a fact is a waiver as to all other relevant facts, because of the necessary connection between *378all. Spencer v. Texas, 385 U.S. 554, 561 (1967); Michelson v. United States, 335 U.S. 469 (1948); Johnson v. United States, 318 U.S. 189 (1943).
Because the layman is not generally aware of either the breadth of the Fifth Amendment’s coverage, or the ease of its waiver, one who is the object of a grand jury’s investigation must be afforded a meaningful opportunity to consult with his counsel when deciding whether to invoke the privilege. Meaningful assistance from counsel requires that counsel be in the grand jury room, beside his client, in order to hear the implications arising from the flow of questions. Only through such a procedure can an attorney determine that point at which questioning threatens to impinge upon a sensitive area.
The layman is not skilled at perceiving the implications that a given answer may have. He is likely to misjudge the breadth of the Fifth Amendment’s protection, and then discover, too late, that he has waived his privilege. In addition the layman’s decision whether to remain silent is colored by the natural tendency to respond to an accuser’s allegations. To require the lay witness to proceed to exercise the privilege is in fact to strip him of the protection that privilege sought to provide.
The majority has offered no persuasive reasons for the curtailment of the important rights at issue. Clearly secrecy of the grand jury would not justify such a result. Counsel has a right to argue the validity of his client’s claim of privilege. Obviously, he must have the benefit of questions and answers up to that point in order to make a meaningful argument on that issue. The majority apparently approves of the holding in Commonwealth v. McCloskey, 443 Pa. 117, 138, 277 A.2d 764, 774-75, cert. denied, 404 U.S. 1000 (1971) to the effect that: “Each witness is entitled to his own testimony. Furthermore, should any of the other evidence *379before the investigating grand jury be material to the impeachment of Commonwealth witnesses at trial, we will not presuppose that the trial court would not adequately protect any rights a defendant might have to utilize such evidence.” (Footnote omitted). I must assume that under the above rule both the witness and his counsel are entitled to a transcript of at least the witness’s own testimony before the grand jury. In light of that rule, it would be totally unjustified to withhold counsel from the grand jury room on a pretext of secrecy. Clearly, the presence of counsel in the jury room during the questioning of his client in no way encroaches upon the veil of secrecy presently recognized as surrounding the jury’s activities.
Nor, can it be argued that the presence of an attorney representing the witness would disrupt the proceedings unnecessarily. Such a procedure is used at trials with satisfactory results. The presence of an attorney can only enable the witness to appreciate fully his rights. Society has no legitimate interest in keeping witnesses ignorant of their rights. Having concluded that witnesses before a grand jury have a privilege against self-incrimination and have a right to a warning to that effect, I cannot understand the majority’s reluctance to allow counsel to be present to insure the proper invocation of the privilege.
Finally, I cannot accept the majority’s bald assertion because appellees have failed to assign “any potentially incriminating questions” they were compelled to answer, they were not prejudiced. This assertion fails to perceive the distinction between a complaint of being compelled to answer a specific incriminating question and the wrong asserted here that they were deprived of counsel when called upon to make a determination as to the invocation of the privilege. Throughout the proceedings questions were being propounded and throughout the proceedings they alone, without the advice of *380counsel, were called upon to decide when and if to elect to seek the protection afforded by this constitutional right. This is the prejudice asserted and it is clearly demonstrated by their being forced to testify out of the presence of their counsel and without immediate access to him.
Equally untenable is any suggestion that the denial of the right of counsel and the deprivation of the Fifth Amendment privileges were in this instance harmless error beyond a reasonable doubt. Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18 (1967). As a result of the presentment offered by this grand jury the indicting grand jury returned one hundred and fifty-six (156) indictments against the corporate and individual appellees. This grand jury stated their reason for recommending indictments as being those instances where there was an absence of “any explanation which credibly indicates that such actions resulted from inadvertence or negligence.” To conclude in this context that the appellees’ responses to the questions propounded were exculpatory and thus not incriminating would be completely unrealistic. Indictments must be quashed where they are based in any way upon a defendant’s testimony given in violation of his right against self-incrimination. Commonwealth v. Cohen, 221 Pa. Superior Ct. 244, 289 A.2d 96 (1972).
I would affirm the orders of the Superior Court and the court below quashing these indictments.