Court Opinion

ID: 9422275
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:01:56.874082+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:35.555207
License: Public Domain

Mr. Chief Justice Warren,
concurring.
It has not been the custom of the Court, in deciding the cases which come before it, to write lengthy and abstract dissertations upon questions which are neither pre*636sented by the record nor necessary to a proper disposition of the issues raised. The opinion which announces the judgment of the Court in the instant case has departed from this custom and is in the nature of an advisory opinion, for it attempts to resolve with finality many difficult problems which are at best only tangentially involved here. The opinion was unquestionably written with the intention of clarifying these problems and of establishing a set of principles which could be easily applied in any coerced-confession situation. However, it is doubtful that such will be the result, for while three members of the Court agree to the general principles enunciated by the opinion, they construe those principles as requiring a result in this case exactly the opposite from that reached by the author of the opinion. This being true, it cannot be assumed that the lower courts and law enforcement agencies will receive better guidance from the treatise for which this case seems to have provided a vehicle. On an abstract level, I find myself in agreement with some portions of the opinion and in disagreement with other portions. However, I would prefer not to write on many of the difficult questions which the opinion discusses until the facts of a particular case make such writing necessary. In my view, the reasons which have compelled the Court to develop the law on- a case-by-case approach, to declare legal principles only in the context of specific factual situations, and to avoid expounding more than is necessary for the decision of a given case are persuasive. See Alabama State Federation of Labor v. McAdory, 325 U. S. 450, 461-462, and cases cited; Poe v. Ullman, ante, p. 497. I see no reason for making an exception in this case, and I am therefore unable to join the opinion which announces the judgment of the Court. Accordingly, I join the separate concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Brennan.