Court Opinion

ID: 9766485
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:51:13.576904+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:23.258635
License: Public Domain

TERRY, Associate Judge,
concurring in the result:
I agree that appellant’s conviction should be reversed on the ground that the statement obtained by Detective Schwartz from appellant, as he lay in pain in his hospital bed, was involuntary and therefore inadmissible even for impeachment. See Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 98 S.Ct. 2408, 57 L.Ed.2d 290 (1978). Whether there was a “core violation” of the Sixth Amendment or merely a violation of a “prophylactic rule” is, in my view, somewhat interesting but ultimately irrelevant; voluntariness is the only real issue in this case. For that reason I would not address some of the points discussed in pari II of Judge Mack’s opinion for the court, and hence I concur only in the result.
With respect to the provocation issue discussed in part I of Judge Mack’s opinion, however, I would be inclined to decide it because it is likely to come up again in a retrial. Indeed, I would flatly reject appellant’s argument and hold, as the government argues, that the provocation must come from the victim, or at least from someone associated with the victim, as in Bostick v. United States, 605 A.2d 916 (D.C.1992). I find no merit whatever in appellant’s argument that the harsh circumstances or “personal tragedies” of his daily life could constitute mitigation sufficient to reduce his crime from murder to manslaughter. Our decision in Brown v. United States, 584 A.2d 537 (D.C.1990), goes a long way toward enlarging the concept of provocation, but not even Brown can be read to support the extreme argument that appellant presents to us here.