Court Opinion

ID: 9721748
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:07:47.737508+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:28.441073
License: Public Domain

DeBRULER, Justice,
concurring in result.
At the time appellant was informed of his Miranda rights, he was lying in a hospital emergency room, suffering greatly from a bullet wound to the chest, and had just been drifting in and out of consciousness. According to the officers, he remained conscious and coherent after acknowledging that he understood his rights and answered questions. I find this evidence insufficient to warrant the conclusion beyond a reasonable doubt that appellant knew and appreciated his right to remain silent and to have counsel present, and knowingly chose to forego those rights. I find further however that under the cireumstances of this case the error in admitting the statements and the officer's testimony regarding them was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
It is appellant's argument that the benefit to the State's case, and the harm to his case, produced by the introduction of his statements, did not flow from the incriminating substance of them, but from the inference which they would support that he was behaving rationally and had recall shortly after the attack. As posed, this conceived inference would tend to support the State's rebuttal of the insanity defense. That this inference was even made by the jury and that it had measurable impact on the decision to reject the insanity defense is speculative and remote. I would therefore conclude that any constitutional error in the admission of the statements was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Since we deal here with the use of statements challenged on Miranda grounds, Mincey v. Alabama, (1978) 437 U.S. 385, 98 S.Ct. 2408, 57 L.Ed.2d 290, does not bar this constitutional harmless error conclusion.