Court Opinion

ID: 9546984
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:39:04.73871+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:17:06.749581
License: Public Domain

CROCKETT, Justice
(concurring).
I concur in the results arrived at in the prevailing opinion, but have some reservations respecting certain statements made therein. It recites: “Had they consulted counsel before answering any questions maybe they would not have confessed, for as stated by Mr. Justice JACKSON * * * ‘any lawyer worth his salt will tell the suspect in no uncertain terms to make no statement to police under any circumstances.’ ” I do not see how that idea finds proper application to the facts of this case. It seems to me that it incorrectly presupposes that every person investigated or arrested in regard to a crime is guilty and that the function of the lawyer is to keep the law enforcement officers from learning the truth. Officers may investigate, or even arrest, an innocent person or a guilty one whose conscience prompts him to disclose the truth. In such event, it is not so unusual as is popularly supposed that a lawyer “worth his salt” does advise his accused client to make a full disclosure of all facts and thus assist in the solution of the crime under investigation.
The conduct of the boy Sullivan who was 19 years of age at the time, and very apparently under the domination of his older companion, does not suggest that if he had had counsel the confession would not have been made. The fact is that after he learned that Manzione had died he wanted to give himself up at Cedar City but was prevented from doing so by Braasch. At Las Vegas, he freely confessed to the crime before the officers there had any basis to suspect his guilt. I, therefore, think that the portion quoted from the opinion is hardly fair to that defendant and, moreover, I do not believe that the assumption that attorneys, as a class, would uniformly assist and encourage the boy to conceal his guilt when he wanted to confess, is justified.
*464The prevailing opinion correctly indicates that the right to have the assistance of counsel at every stage of the proceedings includes the right to counsel at the arraignment at the preliminary hearing and at all subsequent proceedings. At the preliminary hearing, the defendants requested an attorney and did not get one. When they were told they could have one but had to pay for it, they said no more about the matter and apparently acquiesced in going forward without the benefit of counsel. Whether they actually waived their rights to counsel or not may be open to dispute. If not, it was in violation of their right to proceed without providing them with an attorney. Be that as it may, it is not every error that is prejudicial and this can be so no matter how vital the right in question may be. There should be no reversal of the case merely because the law enforcement officers and the justice of the peace may not have done just exactly as the law prescribes, nor because they did not follow what might be pointed out as the most desirable procedure in providing counsel for the defendants. As was very aptly stated by Mr. Justice SCHAUER in the case of People v. Stroble, Cal. Sup., 226 P. 2d 330, 332: “it is not the function of this court to reverse a judgment solely as a rebuke to ‘law enforcement’ officers * *
The prevailing opinion does no violence to the idea that the privilege of having counsel at every stage of a criminal proceeding is an important right which should not be denied. I agree that under the facts of this case, where the confessions were made before the preliminary hearing, the truth of which has never been questioned by the defendants, it was not prejudicial error for the justice of the peace to proceed with the preliminary hearing without procuring .counsel for the defendants.