Court Opinion

ID: 9725062
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 11:27:34.154617+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:08.632876
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice House specially concurring: I concur in the result solely on the ground that the closing argument was improper and prejudicial. The reversal is primarily predicated upon the assumption that the trial judge unduly limited the scope of the preliminary hearing on the voluntariness of defendant’s confession. While the majority opinion states that, “we are reluctant at this time to announce a rule that would absolutely preclude any use of the confession upon a subsequent trial,” the implication inherent in the statement that the confession may be excluded forces me to take exception to the majority holding. The opinion requires further inquiry into the relevant circumstances surrounding the confessions before passing upon their admissibility. This is entirely unnecessary since the trial judge had the benefit of all relevant circumstances from the evidence adduced at the hearing and defendant’s offers of proof. Within two hours of his arrest the defendant confessed to a brutal rape and murder, repeated it several times that evening and again to newsmen in Boy’s Court the following morning. As noted in the majority opinion there was neither claim, proof or offer of proof of brutality, threats, improper interrogation or any act bordering on physical coercion. There was no reason for further inquiry as to physical coercion since that was not an issue. It is claimed rather that there was psychological coercion. The attendant circumstances to bolster that claim were contained in two offers of proof and nothing more. First defendant offered to prove that he had been falsely told by a police officer that his mother wanted him to tell the truth, although his oral confession was not made until 1% hours later. The second offer of proof was that defendant would testify that he confessed because he was frightened, felt panicky and had given up hope. Admitting the truth of his offers, (usually'as favorable to the party making them as the facts and inferences to be drawn therefrom can possibly permit,) I fail to see how they could possibly support a charge of psychological coercion. The false statement was not that the mother had asked him to confess, but that his mother wanted him to tell the truth. Assuming that he was frightened, felt panicky, and had given up hope, and that he would so testify, that was but natural for one who had committed a heinous crime and avoided police capture by riding and sleeping in stolen cars for nearly 2 days while under charge of murder. If there were any other circumstances surrounding the confessions which tended to indicate psychological coercion undoubtedly they would have been contained in the offer of proof. Under such circumstances this court should have held it was not reversible error to limit the scope of the examination at the preliminary hearing. The trial court was, as well as is this court, apprised of all the attendant circumstances. It seems to me that by refusing to approve the admission of the confessions at this time, the trial court in a subsequent trial may be misled into excluding them. The majority opinion comments upon two other items. They are not given as reasons for reversal but are stated to be significant factors to be considered in determining the competency of the confessions. First, comment is made on the fact that counsel, procured by defendant’s mother, was denied access to him until his arraignment. Assuming that it is immaterial that defendant did not ask for counsel himself, this denial of access is insufficient to warrant a reversal. (See Cicenia v. LaGay, 357 U.S. 504, 2 L. ed. 2d 1523; Crooker v. California, 357 U.S. 433, 2 L. ed. 2d 1448.) Second, defendant was not apprised of his right to remain silent. Neither of these factors, nor both in conjunction with all other circumstances presented by this record, is sufficient to hold incompetent a confession given within two hours of arrest. It seems fundamental that the right of reasonable interrogation between arrest and arraignment is necessary to law enforcement and should not be so circumscribed as to make it valueless. In the words of the late Mr. Justice Jackson, concurring in the result in Watts v. Indiana, 338 U.S. 49, 93 L. ed. 1801, “I suppose no one would doubt that our Constitution and Bill of Rights * * * represent the maximum restrictions upon the power of organized society over the individual that are compatible with the maintenance of organized society itself. * * * It cannot be denied that, even if construed as these provisions traditionally have been, they contain an aggregate of restrictions which seriously limit the power of society to solve such crimes as confront us in these cases. Those restrictions we should not for that reason cast aside, but that is good reason for indulging in no unnecessary expansion of them. I doubt very much if they require us to hold that the State may not take into custody and question one suspected reasonably of an unwitnessed murder. If it does, the people of this country must discipline themselves to seeing their police stand by helplessly while those suspected of murder prowl about unmolested. Is it a necessary price to pay for the fairness which we know as ‘due process of law’ ? And if not a necessary one, should it be demanded of this Court ? I do not know the ultimate answer to these questions; but, for the present, I should not increase the handicap on society.” Our constitutions are unique for their systems of checks and balances. Similarly, while we have a duty to recognize and enforce the rights of individuals, we also have the duty to protect the safety and welfare of the public. At some point between these conflicting interests a line of demarcation must be drawn. If we exclude confessions under circumstances here presented we will have failed. We will have so enlarged the rights of an accused that we will thereby have deprived law enforcement officials of one of the weapons essential to their protection of members of the public, i.e., the right of reasonable interrogation.