Court Opinion

ID: 9671894
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:44:33.847874+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:12.832620
License: Public Domain

KOHN, Justice
(dissenting).
Nothing in this dissent is intended to suggest the innocence or guilt of the defendant. Such is not the issue here. Since the original opinion decided by this court on June 13, 1968, granted the defendant a new trial, it was not then necessary, in such original opinion, to discuss at length certain aspects of the case as disclosed by the record of the proceedings at the trial of the defendant relative to the principle set out in United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149, and referred to in the original opinion of this court. Now this court, by its decision rendered today, some four months after its rendition of its original opinion, changes its mind after approving its original opinion, on July 25, 1968, when the matter, for the second time, came before the court on the application made by the State for rehearing. The hearing today being the third time this matter has been before the court. The opinion today now for the first time affirms the conviction of the defendant.
The writer of this dissent is of the opinion that justice and the law require that this case be reversed and remanded for another trial. The reason being on the additional ground that the record does not disclose a sufficient compliance with Wade, supra, and other decisions relative to the necessity for the presence of defendant’s lawyer at the specific time and place, when and where late at night, while in custody, the defendant was ordered to disrobe. This occurred in the absence of defendant’s lawyer, but in the presence of law enforcement officers. This positive, affirmative and non-voluntary act of the defendant at such time and place resulted in the disclosure, by such ordered and non-voluntary disrobing, of certain evidence that over the objection of defendant through his lawyer at the trial below was admitted into evidence before the jury. While it is true that Wade was decided several months after the original trial of defendant Hubbard below, Wade approves Carnley v. Cochran, 369 U.S. 506, 82 S.Ct. 884, 8 L.Ed.2d 70, decided April 30, 1962, which was before the trial of the defendant, Hubbard. The principle set out in Carnley, supra (and other decisions), is sound and should be applied here.
The majority opinion, overruling the original opinion, may be logical and sound reasoning, but in the opinion of the writer, it overrules prior decisions of this court construing a clearly expressed, plainly worded section of the Constitution of Alabama 1901, setting out a basic right which, in effect, creates a mandate to this court.
This court, like the most humble citizen, is subject to the Constitution.
Should the Constitution require amending, it should be done by the method prescribed by the Constitution itself, and not by judicial fiat. In the tumultuous times of today, the thought may not be of popular acceptance, but it is a legal truism long existing in American jurisprudence, that the convicted — even the guilty — have certain constitutional rights. The defendant in this case, in being granted a new trial, was simply given the benefit of a basic and fundamental right given him, and all other citizens, by the Constitution of Alabama. For the particular wording of the Constitution giving him such a right is plain, clear and *197simple. I can come to no other conclusion than that the majority opinion rendered today in allowing an affirmance (after twice doing otherwise) on this appeal departs from what the Constitution of Alabama says in plain, simple and unmistakable language, language that has heretofore been given plain and positive meaning by this court.
The winds of change are constantly blowing, sometimes withering the leaves upon the tree of liberty. But, if the Constitution —the tap root — lives, the fruit will come again.
It is the Alabama Constitution we are construing. I approach it with respect for it is a covenant made by the people to govern themselves. No division of government should amend it, for such right is vested in the people alone, the ultimate power of government.
To depart from what the Constitution of Alabama plainly provides and what this court has held it to mean in its decisions, pointed out in the original opinion, would be, in effect, to deny the people the right to govern themselves by a written Constitution.
I respectfully dissent.