Court Opinion

ID: 9451144
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:07:54.862169+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:35.342684
License: Public Domain

WASHINGTON, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) :
On the basis of recent cases in this court and the Supreme Court, it seems clear that appellant’s incriminating statements would have been inadmissible in the Government’s case in chief. Ricks v. United States, 118 U.S.App.D.C. 216, 334 F.2d 964 (1964); Queen v. United States, 118 U.S.App.D.C. 262, 335 F.2d 297 (1964); Johnson and Stewart v. United States, 120 U.S.App.D.C. 69 at 70, 344 F.2d 163 at 164 (1964); see also Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201, 84 S.Ct. 1199, 12 L.Ed.2d 246 (1964); Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478, 84 S.Ct. 1758, 12 L.Ed.2d 977 (1964). The Government conceded on oral argument that the statements were not properly admitted for impeachment if they were not admissible in the Government’s case in chief. Hence appellant’s conviction should be reversed.
An indictment charging Cephus with three counts of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and one count of grand larceny was returned on December 2, 1963. He was convicted on two counts of unauthorized use after a jury trial; the trial judge dismissed the other two counts at the conclusion of the prosecutor’s case in chief.
Appellant was arrested on October 30, 1963, and brought before the United States Commissioner the following morning on a complaint alleging unauthorized use of one car — a Chevrolet. The record of proceedings in the preliminary hearing shows that the appellant was given the routine warnings and informed of his right to retain counsel. Cf. Blue v. United States, 119 U.S.App.D.C. 315, 342 F.2d 894 (1964), cert. denied, 380 U.S. 944, 85 S.Ct. 1029, 13 L.Ed. 964 (1965). There is no suggestion on the record that he was told that he had a right to have counsel appointed or that he “freely and intelligently” waived his right to counsel. Cf. Blue v. United States, supra at 319, 320, 342 F.2d at 898-899. The record shows that defendant requested a prompt hearing. The Commissioner concluded that probable cause was shown and committed appellant to the District of Columbia Jail to await an appearance before the grand jury.
While in the D. C. Jail, on November 17, 1963, before his indictment, appellant filed a written request to see Captain Williams or one of his aides in the Auto Squad “about an article in the paper which involved me.” On the stand *669appellant stated that he did not remember requesting to see Captain Williams. The appellant consented in writing to see the officers on November 18.
What went on during this 50-minute interview is disputed.1 The appellant testified that he neither confessed to the four crimes for which he was tried nor offered to plead guilty to misdemeanor charges. The two policemen stated that they questioned the appellant and confronted him with incriminating evidence; that he admitted committing the four crimes for which he was subsequently indicted; and that he asked what “his chances were to plead to a misdemeanor rather than felonies to these counts.” There is no suggestion in the record that appellant confessed spontaneously.2 Since his confession was obtained through “a process of interrogations that lends itself to eliciting incriminating statements,” Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. at 491, 84 S.Ct. at 1765, in the absence of counsel while held following a preliminary hearing, it is not admissible.3 Appellee’s brief suggests that the “instant facts are not *670qualitatively different from” a situation in which “Appellant loudly exclaimed his guilt from the jail cell and this was overheard by a guard.” This analogy seems wholly inconsistent with the policemen’s testimony describing the interview.
The instant case is very close on its facts to Johnson and Stewart v. United States, supra. In that case Johnson made an uncounseled confession in the course of interrogation in jail nineteen days after his preliminary hearing had been continued to permit him to obtain and consult counsel. He had consented to see the officer at the time of the interrogation, even though he had not obtained counsel. The United States Commissioner had told the defendants that they were not required to make a statement and that they had a right to retain counsel. The interrogating policeman testified that he again informed the defendants of their rights at the beginning of the interview. The confession was admitted for purposes of impeachment. On appeal, we reversed the conviction. After pointing out that Johnson and Stewart were then confined in the District of Columbia Jail, and were interviewed together there by a police officer, we stated:
“There is no longer any doubt that the confession obtained from Johnson, under such circumstances, was inadmissible as part of the Government’s case in chief. Ricks v. United States, 118 U.S.App.D.C 216, 334 F.2d 964, decided June 9, 1964. See also, Queen v. United States, 118 U.S.App.D.C. 262, 335 F.2d 297, decided June 29, 1964, Cf. Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478, 84 S.Ct. 1758, 12 L.Ed.2d 977 (1964).” 120 U.S.App.D.C. at 70, 344 F.2d at 164.
The court ruled that the confession was inadmissible even for impeachment purposes, and reversed because of the use of the confession. See also Ricks v. United States, supra;4 Queen v. United States, supra.
Insofar as the admissibility of an uncounseled confession is concerned, the Johnson and Stewart case is indistinguishable from the instant case.5 The majority argues that the instant case is distinguishable from Queen and Johnson and Stewart because preliminary hearings had been continued to allow the defendants to procure counsel in those cases.6 Their incriminating statements *671were made before they had obtained counsel, or at least, in the absence of counsel, after those defendants had expressed a desire to be represented by counsel at the preliminary hearing. In calling attention to this factual difference, the majority seems to focus on the fact that appellant had not requested a lawyer prior to his interview with the police. But the right to counsel .does not depend on a request by the defendant.7 I agree with the views expressed in Judge Fahy’s dissent in Jackson v. United States, supra, 119 U.S.App.D.C. at 108, 337 F.2d at 144:
“And it is of no significance that appellant had not requested counsel before making his confession. In Lee v. United States, 322 F.2d 770 (5th Cir. 1963), in which the use at trial of a confession obtained from the accused before he had had opportunity to consult with counsel was held violative of due process, the court stated: ‘The record does not show whether Lee requested counsel or not at the time his interrogators appeared or before they opened his cell door. * * * “But it is settled that where the assistance of counsel is a constitutional requisite, the right to be furnished counsel does not depend on a request.” Carnley v. Cochran, 1962, 369 U.S. 506, 513, 82 S.Ct. 884, 889, 8 L.Ed.2d 70. Nor can there be a presumption of waiver of counsel. Johnson v. Zerbst, 1938, 304 U.S. 458, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 82 L.Ed. 1461 [146 A.L.R. 357], 332 F.2d at 777.3”
The majority also argues that appellant cannot object to the admission of his confession since he sought out the interview with the police. However, the appellant’s written request to see Captain Williams indicates that he sought the interview in order to discuss a newspaper article that had been published about him. The testimony of the policemen indicates that it was their confronting appellant with damaging evidence and questioning him which diverted the interview and elicited the admissions from appellant that he had taken the four automobiles. While the testimony of the officers could be read as indicating that the appellant took the initiative in suggesting a plea to a misdemeanor *672charge if the felony charges were dropped, it is hard to see how appellant could have made this proposal when there was only one charge against him at the time of the interview. In any case, it is clear that police questioning elicited the highly damaging specific confessions to the one offense then charged and the three offenses that were later charged.
The defendants in Ricks, Johnson and Stewart and Queen were not compelled to speak to the police; they freely consented to do so even though counsel was not present. Their free consent was not held to bar their objection to the use of their uncounseled confessions; and there is a strong indication that those defendants knew that they were consenting to interrogation by the police. Here there is no indication in the record that the defendant knew that his request for an interview and his consent thereto were an invitation to police questioning. In Queen and Johnson and Stewart the police testified that they warned the defendants that a statement could be used against them; in the instant case, the police testified that they did not warn appellant. Cf. People v. Stewart, 43 Cal.Rptr. 201, 400 P.2d 97 (1665); United States ex rel. Russo v. New Jersey, No. 14869, decided May 20, 1965, 351 F.2d 429 (3d Cir.).
In the light of the Queen, Ricks, Johnson and Stewart, Escobedo, and Massiah cases, the incriminating statements would have been inadmissible if they had been offered as part of the Government’s case in chief.8 And the Government conceded that the statements were not properly admitted for impeachment if they were not admissible as direct evidence. The denial of defense counsel’s objection to their admission was error; the prejudicial impact of these statements, admitted without a cautionary instruction, cannot be doubted. Appellant’s conviction should be reversed.

. This court has noted that:
“ * * * conflicts in testimony concerning what is actually said and done in the privacy of police detention prior to arraignment seem almost inevitable. This is one of the problems which Rule 5(a) was intended to obviate.” Seals v. United States, 117 U.S.App.D.C. 79, 81 n. 4, 325 F.2d 1006, 1008 n. 4 (1963), cert. denied, 376 U.S. 964, 84 S.Ct. 1123, 11 L.Ed.2d 982 (1964).
In Lee v. United States, 322 F.2d 770 (5th Cir. 1963), the court looked with scepticism on the statements of the questioning officers, noting that the lack of a reliable record is a major objection to all ew parte interrogations by the police of an uncounseled prisoner. The court stated:
“Even if not fully worth his salt, we may be sure that he [a lawyer] would have insisted that any admission would have to be in the form of a written statement, signed or approved by the accused or a record of some kind made and attested to by a court reporter. There would have been some assurance of the accuracy of the agent’s recital of what Lee reputedly admitted. See Wong Sun v. United States, 1963, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441. Here we have a narrative of oral conclusory statements, the accuracy of which is dependent upon the memory and conscience of the inquisitor.” 322 F.2d at 777.

. Contrast Long v. United States, 119 U.S. App.D.C. 209, 338 F.2d 549 (1964). In Long the court refused to lay down a blanket rule excluding all uncounseled admissions made while in police custody. But there the defendant had spontaneously “volunteered the statement that he had shot the decedent” in a corridor of the police station “even before the officers could identify themselves.” Supra at 210, 338 F.2d at 550. The court in Long was dealing with a spontaneous utterance of the kind excepted from the coverage of the Mallory rule. Naples v. United States, 113 U.S.App.D.C. 281, 307 F.2d 618 (en banc 1962); cf. Veney v. United States, 120 U.S.App.D.C. 157, 344 F.2d 542 (1965) (concurring opinion). See also Harling v. United States, 111 U.S. App.D.C. 174, 177, 295 F.2d 161, 164 (en bane 1961). On the facts of this case we need not consider the relevance of the spontaneity exception to right to counsel cases.
See also Jackson v. United States, 119 U.S.App.D.C. 100, 337 F.2d 136 (1964), cert. denied, 380 U.S. 935, 85 S.Ct. 944, 13 L.Ed.2d 822 (1965). In its brief in this case appellee notes that in Jackson the defendant “spontaneously confessed.” “Absent was a police presence aimed at the conscious elicitation of a confession.” The same cannot be said about the instant case. The police conceded that they questioned appellant and confronted him with evidence implicating him in a crime for which he was not even charged at that time; it is apparent that their purpose was to elicit an incriminating statement. The fact that the confession was elicited in what might have been a bargaining context is irrelevant. If the police were engaged in “the conscious elicitation of a confession” from an uncounseled accused in these circumstances, such a confession cannot be used as direct evidence. Appellee argues that “the touchstone in these cases is the quest for a confession by the police.” But it finds no such quest here. I agree with the “touchstone” suggested by appellee; I disagree only with its application in this case.

. The admissibility of appellant’s confession does not turn on whether the police activity was “improper” or “unconscionable.” The policy behind Escobedo is to *670give real meaning to the constitutional guarantee of the right to counsel, and assure that the right at trial does not become meaningless. 378 U.S. at 487, 84 S.Ct. at 1763. The primary purpose of the rule is not to “police the police,” but to assure a defendant of the assistance of counsel at all essential points in the criminal process.
The police can continue to bargain with uncounseled defendants: but they cannot use their uncounseled statements against them in a trial. There is no reason why representation of the accused would preclude bargaining; it might well facilitate it.

. While the decision in Ricks rested on the exercise of our supervisory power, the later Queen case reached the same result relying on Massiah and Escobedo. The Fifth Circuit in Lee v. United States, 322 F.2d 770 (1963), reached a similar result in the exercise of its supervisory power.

. It is useful to compare the majority’s distinctions of Escobedo and Massiah with the facts of Johnson and Stewart. The majority reads Escobedo “in light of its facts,” especially the “exclusion of appellant’s waiting lawyer * * The fact that a lawyer had not even been retained in Johnson and Stewart was not considered relevant. The majority states that there was “affirmative police action” in Massiah and Escobedo. But in Johnson and Stewart there was no affirmative action, other than the questioning by the police; and this is precisely the kind of action taken by the police in the instant case. (It is unclear why police questioning is not itself “affirmative police action.”)

. In distinguishing the Ricks decision the majority seems to attach some significance to the fact that the police quickly pursued the defendant from the hearing room to his cell. But the speed of pursuit factor has been recognized to be irrelevant in Queen (2-week lapse between original hearing and subsequent questioning) and in Johnson and Stewart (19-day lapse).

. In his concurring opinion in Williams v. United States, 120 U.S.App.D.C. 244, 345 F.2d 733 (filed April 1, 1965), Judge Burger does not list a request for counsel by the accused as one of the prerequisites to the operation of the Escobedo exclusionary rule. Supra at 245, 345 F.2d at 734. Contrast Jackson v. United States, supra at 104, 105, 337 F.2d at 140-141. See Justice White’s dissent in Escobedo, 378 U.S. at 495, 84 S.Ct. 1758.
Appellant’s failure to request counsel cannot be taken as a waiver of the right, Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 82 L.Ed. 1461 (1938), especially since he had not been informed of his right to have counsel appointed. See Blue v. United States, supra; cf. Greenwell v. United States, 119 U.S.App.D.C. 43, 47, 336 F.2d 962, 966 (1964); People v. Dorado, 42 Cal.Rptr. 169, 398 P.2d 361 (1965); State v. Dufour, 206 A.2d 82 (R.I.1965).
The fact that the preliminary hearings had not been completed in Queen, Johnson and Stewart, and Rides, is of no' significance. The records of the preliminary hearings in those cases indicate that the defendants had been informed of their rights to the same extent as had' appellant herein. The fact that the preliminary hearing has been completed in the instant case could hardly divest die defendant of his right to counsel.

“3. As one court has pointed out, a failure to request counsel has significance only if it amounts to a waiver of that right; but the courts will indulge every reasonable presumption against such a waiver and one will not be found unless it is made in clear and unequivocal terms by an accused fully aware of its consequences. Griffith v. Rhay, 282 F.2d 711, 717 (9th Cir. 1960), cert. denied, 364 U.S. 941, 81 S.Ct. 460, 5 L.Ed.2d 373 (1961).
“ ‘Further, the mere failure to request the presence of a retained or an appointed counsel should not be deemed an intelligent waiver, since a particular defendant who does not request aid probably has as much or more need of effective assistance than one who does so request.’ Note, 61 Colum.L.Rev. 744, 748 (1961).”

. Government counsel at trial apparently had sufficient doubts about the admissibility of the confessions that they permitted two counts against appellant to be dropped rather than risk putting in appellant’s statements in its case in chief.