Court Opinion

ID: 9531673
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:13:48.532489+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:33.751382
License: Public Domain

LINDE, J.,
concurring.
I concur in almost all of the Court’s discussion of the two separate constitutional premises involved. It makes clear that respect for a suspect’s right to counsel is independent of the elements of custody and compulsion or inducement that trigger protection of the right against self-incrimination, and that it forecloses questioning or otherwise obtaining evidence from a suspect by consent in a matter in which he is represented by counsel unless he consults counsel before consenting. But I have misgivings about a test that makes the admissibility of evidence depend on whether the inquiries to *99which he consented without consultation with counsel concerned the same or a different criminal episode.
What makes the distinction appear plausible in this case is that a defendant jailed in one city on the charge on which he had legal counsel confessed to an apparently unrelated crime in another city, in response to questions by officers from that city. But the distinction is likely to prove difficult to administer when any of these factors is missing, when officers from the same or a closely associated jurisdiction question a suspect about activities related in time or place, by the identity of the victim, or by the repetition of similar unlawful acts. This is illustrated by the cases under such a test reviewed by the New York Court of Appeals when it abandoned the test in People v. Rogers, 48 NY2d 167, 422 NYS2d 18, 397 NE2d 709 (1979).
Future cases will require scrutiny of the notion that a defendant has an attorney on one charge yet has none on another potential charge about which he is questioned. Again, that notion may appear plausible when one is accustomed to assuming that defendants are represented by counsel appointed by a court for a specific purpose. It is far less plausible when a retained attorney appears to represent an accused and look after his interests in the investigatory stages of the criminal process. Yet we must guard against letting such a difference enter into a rule protecting the right to counsel. The appointment of counsel is designed to protect exactly the same rights for which the constitution guarantees the right to retain counsel. In a rule governing the questioning of suspects, therefore, the test whether the suspect is represented by an attorney must be the same whether the attorney is appointed or retained; it is whether the officers are on notice that the suspect’s attorney reasonably would regard protection of the suspect’s rights in the matter under investigation to fall within his professional responsibility. The obvious precaution is to ask before proceeding.
Lent, J., joins in this concurring opinion.