Court Opinion

ID: 9845827
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:29:02.281095+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:23.076117
License: Public Domain

McCOMB, J.
I dissent. I would reverse the order granting defendant Coleman a new trial and would affirm the judgment of first degree murder fixing the penalty at death as to defendant Roberts.
After an examination of the record, I am not of the opinion that it is reasonably probable that a result more favorable to defendants would have been reached in the absence of the errors complained of. (Cal. Const., art. VI, § 4½; see concurring and dissenting opinions in In re Shipp, 62 Cal.2d 547 [43 Cal.Rptr. 3, 399 P.2d 571], People v. Modesto, 62 Cal.2d 436, 464 [42 Cal.Rptr. 417, 398 P.2d 753], and People v. Hines, 61 Cal.2d 164, 175, 183 [37 Cal.Rptr. 622, 390 P.2d 398] ; and dissenting opinions in People v. Dorado, 62 Cal.2d 338, 361-364 [42 Cal.Rptr. 169, 398 P.2d 361].)
My views on the legal principles involved in eases such as this are accurately and realistically expressed by Mr. Justice Fourt in his dissenting opinion in People v. Benavidez, 233 Cal.App.2d 303, 307 et seq. [43 Cal.Rptr. 577], filed on March 30, 1965.
The defendant in that ease was convicted in 1959 of first degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment; his conviction was affirmed by the District Court of Appeal, and this court unanimously denied a hearing. In April 1964, about a year after Douglas v. California, 372 U.S. 353 [83 S.Ct. 814, 9 L.Ed.2d 811], was decided, the District Court of Appeal was compelled to vacate its judgment because the defendant *96had not been represented by counsel on appeal. Counsel was then appointed, the appellate court again reviewed the record, and affirmed the judgment for the second time.
After Escobedo, we granted the defendant’s petition for a hearing and retransferred the case to the District Court of Appeal for reconsideration in light of that decision.
Upon reviewing the case for the third time, two members of the three-member District Court of Appeal felt compelled, six years after conviction, to reverse on the authority of Escobedo and this court’s decision in People v. Dorado, 62 Cal.2d 338 [42 Cal.Rptr. 169, 398 P.2d 361], in spite of the fact that the defendant had voluntarily confessed to having committed a cold-blooded murder in the perpetration of robbery and had had the advantage of every legal resource.
While the long history of review of the Benavidez conviction makes a reversal more appalling than in the present case, Justice Fourt analyzes the problems faced by law enforcement officers when appellate courts, with apparent indifference to the rights of law-abiding citizens, move the rules of formal court procedure back to the police station and reverse convictions where there has been no miscarriage of justice. His dissent is quoted, in part:
“... In effect, a policeman, under the rule set forth [Dorado rule], when he thinks he has a prime suspect in custody must proceed to arraign the suspect for further questioning—and if the policeman does not so properly arraign the suspect, even a full, complete and voluntary confession of the suspect made within two minutes thereafter is not admissible at the trial. And this is done apparently (not to protect an innocent person) but to punish the police for a failure to perform their duty—but the net result is that a dangerous criminal is turned loose onto society and decent people are at the mercy of that dangerous criminal until he is caught in some other crime of violence.
“A Pandora’s box of confusion, uncertainty, disarray and discord is unleashed by such a decree. For example, the law books are full of cases where committing judges, trial judges and others have proceeded in cases with the understanding of all concerned that there was a sufficient, proper and legal waiver of some particular right by a defendant (such as a public trial, jury trial, delay in trial, delay in pronouncing judgment, appointment of counsel, jury challenge, etc.) and which later have been reversed by an appellate court because some justice thought that the judge of the lower court had misinterpreted the evidence of waiver. Can anyone imagine how *97many criminals in the future will swear (even though an officer has fully complied with the law of Dorado) to the effect that they did not really understand that they were waiving any rights, that they did not hear what the policemen had to say, that they were emotionally disturbed at the time and did not really mean to waive any rights. Furthermore, it can easily be seen in the light of the fact that no workable rule is or can be laid down as to what constitutes a proper waiver and as a consequence every police officer necessarily will be practically on his own. In other words, the court says, in effect, that it will nullify the policeman’s efforts and the results obtained therefrom if he does not meet the standards of the court, but the court refuses to tell the policeman in advance what the standards are. Could anyone design a better formula for handcuffing the police ? Query: does the suspect have to make a declaration of waiver, or can he impliedly waive ? What is the standard a policeman is to use in coming to a conclusion as to whether a suspect has intelligently and understandably waived his rights to keep still—keeping in mind, of course, that the waiver must depend upon the particular facts and circumstances of each case, including the background, experience and conduct of the suspect?
“Heretofore the courts have thought that ‘the serious and weighty responsibility ’ of making a determination as to whether there was a waiver of a substantial right was lodged in the trial judge. (Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 465 [58 S.Ct. 1019, 82 L.Ed. 1461, 146 A.L.R. 357].) Now, apparently, the policeman is supposed to make the determination as to whether and when the suspect makes an intelligent and knowledgeable waiver. The simple stating of the proposition makes it clear that the successful interrogation of suspects will be next to impossible under any such rule.
“The Supreme Court of the United States has in the past ruled to the effect that there was no constitutional right of a suspect to be advised of his right to counsel or of his right to remain silent. (Haynes v. Washington, 373 U.S. 503 [83 S.Ct. 1336, 10 L.Ed.2d 513]; Crooker v. California, 357 U.S. 433 [78 S.Ct. 1287, 2 L.Ed.2d 1448]; Cicenia v. Lagay, 357 U.S. 504 [78 S.Ct. 1297, 2 L.Ed.2d 1523].) Likewise, our Supreme Court has heretofore similarly held in People v. Ditson, 57 Cal.2d 415 [20 Cal.Rptr. 165, 369 P.2d 714] ; People v. Garner, 57 Cal.2d 135 [18 Cal.Rptr. 40, 367 P.2d 680]; People v. Kendrick, 56 Cal.2d 71 [14 Cal.Rptr. 13, 363 P.2d 13] ; and People v. Crooker, 47 Cal.2d 348 [303 P.2d 753].
*98“Under Dorado policemen who ordinarily are not required to be learned and skilled in constitutional law now have the burden of advising suspects of their constitutional rights, and they must do so at just the right moment in the proceedings, otherwise the probabilities are extremely great that a self-confessed violent criminal will be turned loose. It appears that any court, at the very least, should look at the totality of the circumstances in the police procedure to determine whether there was fundamental fairness; even under those circumstances there would be no well-defined guide lines for a policeman to follow. There should never be a situation, however, where a coldblooded, robbing, murderer in the face of a mountain of conclusive evidence against him may be released into society solely because the police failed to comply with a rule which was nonexistent at the time of the investigation and the trial—and particularly so where the reversal is not upon the theory that possibly the defendant is innocent.
“A hearing before a judicial officer in a judicial proceeding is one thing—a police investigation is something else. The rules of evidence should, of course, prevail in the judicial proceeding, but certainly not in the police interrogation process. The next step might well be to promulgate a rule to the effect that the police cannot consider hearsay evidence in their investigations. Query: what occurs in the event a suspect asks for a named attorney and the police secure that named attorney for the defendant and the suspect later claims that the attorney was ineffective, and, therefore, was no attorney at all—is the free and voluntary confession of the suspect made after he had talked to the named attorney to be admitted or rejected because counsel was supposedly ineffective? Is there to be a presumption that any suspect who confesses after seeing his attorney has an ineffective attorney?
“Assume that a crime has been committed, and the police arrest a prime suspect and have him in custody and the suspect wants to talk to his attorney A (who has represented him in several other criminal trials) but A is out of the country on a vacation at the time and will not be back for 30 days—what do the police do—is the investigation át a standstill and stalemate—and if the suspect confesses in the meantime and before the attorney returns, is the confession admissible into evidence?
“The police, as I understand it, are representatives of the executive arm of the government—there to enforce the law as written, to protect and to serve the community. Why should an officer be insulated from talking to a suspect? There seems *99to be expressed in both Escobedo and Dorado a veiled distrust of the police. As heretofore indicated, police are but the representatives of the public and the presumption is that they perform their duties faithfully and well, and the records bear out the fact that they do their jobs extremly well considering the judge-made hurdles which have been put into their paths. The fact that police work is not performed in public view should be of no particular consequence, for by the nature of things, it has to be so conducted—the work of the police is to ferret out crime and to keep the community a safe place for its residents. It may be distasteful to have police at all or to have them investigating and questioning—on the other hand, it is more distasteful to be unable to walk on an ordinary street in a city without fear of violence being committed to your person or property. If people committed no crime, there would be little need for policemen. But be that as it may, the judicial attitude of this state seems entirely unrealistic as to conditions as they exist insofar as the police are concerned.
“In Dorado the court waves aside any forebodings of law enforcement officials as to the effect of its ruling. The court cites as authority, in part, for its position a statement in an article by J. Edgar Hoover in a 1951-1952 Iowa Law Review (p. 182) where Hoover said:
“ ‘Agents are taught that any suspect or arrested person, at the outset of an interview, must be advised that he is not required to make a statement and that any statement given can be used against him in court. Moreover, the individual must be informed that, if he desires, he may obtain the services of an attorney of his own choice. Duress or brutality of any type is absolutely forbidden. Any Special Agent guilty of such conduct is subject to immediate dismissal from the service. The highest ethics of law enforcement become part of the Special Agent’s credo. Nothing less can be accepted.’
“Hoover also pointed out in that article that the P.B.I. is not a police force—it is the investigative arm of the Department of Justice, is strictly a fact-finding agency. It does not authorize or decline prosecution or make recommendations or evaluations.
“In any event, if J. Edgar Hoover is to be used as an authority (and I assuredly believe he should be) then it is appropriate to have something of his of more recent date. In a speech at St. Ignatius Loyola University on November 24, 1964, and reported in the Congressional Record February 8, 1965, he said, among other things:
“ ‘The moment has arrived when we must face realistically *100the startling fact that since 1958 crime in this country has increased five times faster than our population growth. Serious crimes—murder, forcible rape, robbery, burglary, aggravated assault, automobile theft—have mounted steadily since the end of World War II. In 1951 these crimes for the first time topped the 1 million mark, and more than 2%. million serious crimes were reported during 1963.
‘‘ ‘ Even more ominous is the fact that this terrifying spiral in crime has come about through a growing wave of yonthful criminality across the Nation. Last year for the 15th consecutive year crimes involving our young people increased over the previous year. For all serions crimes committed in the United States in 1963, youthful offenders were responsible for a staggering 72 percent of the total arrests for these crimes.
“ ‘What a grim and unhappy commentary on the moral climate of this great Nation. The moral strength of our Nation has decreased alarmingly. . . .
“ ‘These shocking statistics together with the public’s apparent indifference to them are indicative of the false morality we are tolerating today. . . .
“ ‘Law and order are the foundations upon which successfu,l government must stand. Without law and order, society will destroy itself.
“ ‘We must never forget that government cannot favor one group or one special interest over its duty to protect the rights of all citizens. We must constantly guard government against the pressure groups which would crush the rights of others under heel in order to achieve their own ends.
“ ‘The law of the land is above any individual. All must abide by it. If we short cut the law, we play a dangerous game which can only result in total defeat for all of us because if we destroy our system of government by law, we destroy o%ir only means of achieving a stable society. . . .
‘ ‘ ‘Justice has nothing to do with expediency. It has nothing to do with temporary standards ....
“ ‘Unfortunately and too often humanity, if left to itself, moves along the line of least resistance. That is the reason we make such slow progress, and why we are prone to wait for pathfinders to blaze the way for us to follow. Each of us hopes that beyond the despair and darkness of today there is something better in store for tomorrow. It will be tragic if nothing but hope is brought to bear on the problem of crime in the United States today....

“ ‘. . .If we are to reverse the crime picture in this country, 
*101
we must make a sustained effort to stir the complacent ones to awareness.

“ ‘We mollycoddle young criminals and release unreformed hoodlums to prey anew on society. The bleeding hearts, particularly among the judiciary, are so concerned for young criminals that they become indifferent to the rights of law-abiding citizens.
“ ‘We must have judges with courage and a high sense of their duty to protect the public and to adequately penalize criminals if we are to stop the spread of serious and dangerous crimes against society.
“ ‘We must adopt a most realistic attitude toward this critical problem. We have tried the lenient approach and it has failed.’ (Italics added.)
“Furthermore, if it is to be inferred from Dorado that the rule enunciated there works well in the federal system, I can only think that the one area where they have the federal system exclusively, namely, Washington, D.C., does not commend itself to California. The statistics show, without question, that Washington, D.C. has more aggravated assaults than any city of corresponding size in the United States, where armed marauders prowl the streets at night, where no sensible woman dares walk at nighttime—where an atmosphere of lawlessness even pervades the public schools. And a look at the crime statistics of this area (California) will indicate that ever since the courts apparently have embraced the philosophy of superior rights for inferiors or criminals, the law-abiding public has suffered drastically.
“The rights of those accused of crimes should not be paramount and superior to the rights of the decent law-abiding citizens of the community. It is to engage in nothing short of duplicity to say that the rule of Dorado will not seriously hamper effective law enforcement in California—and the penalty in effect, as I have heretofore indicated, is visited upon the pubEc.
“The police have the right and duty to conduct reasonable interrogations of persons charged with crime—it is a duty they will have, regardless of Supreme Court decisions, and it is totally unrealistic and manifestly unfair and dangerous to expound rules of conduct or procedure to which the police cannot possibly strictly adhere while at the same time performing their duties and fulfilling their responsibilities as expected of them by the decent people of the community.
“This business of grasping at anything to support a reversal in a criminal ease (the search for error) has gotten to the point *102of absurdity where justice is perverted and respect for the administration of justice is nil.
“If any support is needed for that assertion, I only point to the general disrespect for authority and specifically to the disrespect for the law enforcement officer who is repeatedly assaulted while acting in the line of duty.
“I refuse to join in what I think is a most unfortunate trend of judicial decisions which strain to give the guilty not the same but vastly more protection than the law-abiding citizen receives.
‘‘ Furthermore, contrary to the rule of Dorado, the appellate courts of Illinois, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio, Maryland, Nebraska, Nevada, New York and New Jersey have held in effect that the rule of Escobedo is as the Supreme Court of the United States stated it, namely that the refusal of a suspect’s request for counsel is an indispensable condition of the new constitutional rule.
“Admittedly, this so-called newly discovered constitutional right uncovered in Dorado is something which no other court in the past 150 years has ever before found. It seems to me that rights which reach constitutional magnitude in 1965 surely must have been of some significance or size sometime during the last 100 years at least to the extent that one appellate court in the land would have observed such a right and so declared it. There is no such opinion in the books which I can find. I am unwilling to attribute to all of the appellate justices of all of the appellate courts of the United States in the past 150 years such blindness.
“If the thought is that free and voluntary confessions should no longer be used or available to the prosecution in the trial of cases, it would be far better to so announce in so many words and have done with it. The use of confessions should not, however, by any whittling down process be put out of existence on the installment plan—in other words, the use of confessions should not meet the fate the death penalty has met.
“An investigation of criminal activity and the trial of a suspect should be a search for the truth, with all competent and relevant evidence admitted before the trier of fact to the end that justice might prevail and the public be protected. Nothing could be worse than to have no fixed doctrine in the decisions and no precise guidelines for those whose duty it is to enforce the law.
“It is an old saying that every criminal ought to have his *103day in court, and he certainly should have it, but it is nothing short of ridiculous for the appellant in this case, having had his many, many days in court to be turned loose now, not because there is even a remote possibility of his innocence, but to teach the police a lesson.
“How refreshing it would seem, and how greatly enhanced the respect for the administration of justice, if appellate courts would not roam at will in the limitless area of personal beliefs and philosophy, but would make their decrees under the plain language of the Constitution.”