Court Opinion

ID: 9664012
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:59:39.449631+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:01.069395
License: Public Domain

*208DAVID T. PROSSER, J.
¶ 132. (concurring in part, dissenting in part). I agree with the majority's conclusion that Jerrell C.J.'s confession was involuntary and that his delinquency adjudication must be reversed. Having made that determination, however, the majority should stop. Instead, it continues on to require that all custodial interrogations of juveniles in future cases be electronically recorded where feasible, and without exception when questioning occurs at a place of detention. The court should have recommended legislation instead of legislating from the bench.
¶ 133. By its action, the court is attempting to dictate the practices of law enforcement agencies under the guise of "superintending" state courts. This is not an appropriate role for the judiciary in our system of government. From the imposition of this new rule, I respectfully dissent.
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¶ 134. This case raises fundamental questions about supreme court power. The power of this court was addressed in 1982 in an opinion by then-Justice Abra-hamson. State v. Holmes, 106 Wis. 2d 31, 315 N.W.2d 703 (1982). The court stated:
It is well established that this court has express, inherent, implied and incidental judicial power. Judicial power extends beyond the power to adjudicate a particular controversy and encompasses the power to regulate matters related to adjudication.
[T]he constitution grants the supreme court power to adopt measures necessary for the due administration of justice in the state, including assuring litigants a fair *209trial, and to protect the courts and the judicial system .... Such power, properly used, is essential to the maintenance of a strong and independent judiciary, a necessary component of our system of government.
Holmes, 106 Wis. 2d at 44.
¶ 135. In this case, the court relies on its "superintending authority" over all state courts to exclude most statements from juveniles when the custodial interrogations producing those statements are not electronically recorded. This "superintending authority" is an express power embodied in Article VII, Section 3 of the Wisconsin Constitution.
¶ 136. It is not completely clear how the court's "superintending authority" differs from.the court's inherent power, for the two powers sometimes overlap. But it is rather breathtaking for the court to describe its "superintending authority" as "unlimited in extent" without putting that notion into historical context. See majority op., ¶ 40. Even the State's police power is not "unlimited in extent."
¶ 137. Article VII, Section 3 of the 1848 constitution read as follows:
The supreme court, except in cases otherwise provided in this constitution, shall have appellate jurisdiction only, which shall be coextensive with the state; but in no case removed to the supreme court shall a trial by jury be allowed. The supreme court shall have a general superintending control over all inferior courts; it shall have power to issue writs of habeas corpus, mandamus, injunction, quo warranto, certiorari, and other original and remedial writs, and to hear and determine the same.
Wis. Const, art. VII, § 3 (1848) (emphasis added). This section remained intact until 1977 when it was *210amended to read, in part: "(1) The supreme court shall have superintending and administrative authority over all courts."
¶ 138. The 1977 amendment changed the term "superintending control" to superintending "authority" and added the phrase "administrative authority." I am not persuaded that changing "superintending control" to "superintending. . . authority" was intended to alter the nature or extent of this specific grant of power. If this view is correct, then an understanding of the original grant would be helpful in interpreting the present constitution. If this view is not correct, there ought to be clear evidence that the framers of the 1977 amendment intended a substantially enlarged grant of superintending power. I have found nothing in the legislative history to support the latter proposition.
¶ 139. The original version of Article VII, Section 3 appeared to tie the court's "superintending control" over inferior courts to the issuance of various writs, as the two provisions were included in the same sentence, divided by a semicolon. Nonetheless, the supreme court tried to sever the tie in The Attorney General v. Blossom, 1 Wis. 277 [*317] (1853). The court construed the "superintending" power very broadly, saying: "This sentence contains a clear grant of power.... It is unlimited in extent. It is undefined in character. It is unsupplied with means and instrumentalities. The constitution leaves us wholly in the dark as to the means of exercising this clear, unequivocal grant of power." Blossom, 1 Wis. at 283 [*325].
¶ 140. The court asked rhetorically whether the superintending power was to be exercised by means of the writs of habeas corpus, mandamus, quo warranto, injunction, and certiorari, and answered its question, in essence: "Not exclusively."
*211What, then, are the means, instrumentalities and agencies by which this power is to be exercised? Clearly the ordinary means provided by the common law, or such as should be supplied by legislative enactment. The very force of the terms, supreme court; comprehending, naming, instituting the highest, the dernier judicial tribunal known to, and recognized by the common law, necessarily carries with it all the writs, instrumentalities, powers and agencies provided by the common law for the convenient and complete exercise of such superintending control. It is idle to say that the enumeration of such writs as are mentioned, were made to supply such means of superintending control.
Id. at 284 [*325-26].
¶ 141. In evaluating the court's analysis, it must be remembered that the question in Blossom was whether the supreme court had original jurisdiction to issue, hear, and determine prerogative writs. To answer this question, the court had to interpret the language of Article VII, Section 3. Building up the court's "superintending control" so that it was not limited to the issuance of prerogative writs was helpful, if not essential, to its ultimate conclusion that the court had original jurisdiction.
¶ 142. In subsequent discussions, however, the court was more circumspect about this power. It concluded: "The power of superintending control is . the power to 'control the course of ordinary litigation in inferior courts,' as exercised at common law by the court of Kang's Bench, and by the use of writs specifically mentioned in the constitution and other writs there referred to or authorized." Seiler v. State, 112 Wis. 293, 299, 87 N.W. 1072 (1901).
¶ 143. Seiler followed closely the more frequently cited case of State ex rel. Fourth National Bank of Philadelphia v. Johnson, 103 Wis. 592, 79 N.W. 1081 *212(1899), in which the Blossom statement that the "superintending control" power is unlimited in extent, was quoted. But Johnson put that quote in perspective. It provided an extensive discussion of the King's Bench:
[B]y the constitutional grant of "a general superintending control over all inferior courts" [the Wisconsin Supreme] court was endowed with a separate and independent jurisdiction, which enables and requires it in a proper case to control the course of ordinary litigation in such inferior courts, and was also endowed with all the common-law writs applicable to that jurisdiction. ... That the makers of the constitution used the words in question understandingly, and with a specific meaning, and not as a mere rhetorical flourish or high sounding form of words, can admit of no doubt. Only a superficial knowledge of the growth and development of the English judicial system is necessary to determine what that meaning was and is. The English court of king's bench had a superintending jurisdiction over all the inferior courts of the realm, which it freely exercised by the use of well-defined writs from very early times.
Johnson, 103 Wis. at 613.
¶ 144. Writing for a unanimous court, Justice John B. Winslow quoted Blackstone as writing that the jurisdiction of the King's Bench "is very high and transcendent. It keeps all inferior jurisdictions within the bounds of their authority, and may either remove the proceedings to be determined here, or prohibit their progress below." Id. at 614. Blackstone explained that the King's Bench "commands magistrates and others to do what their duty requires, in every case where there is no other specific remedy." Jd1
*213¶ 145. Justice John Wickhem summarized and synthesized 90 years of Wisconsin case law on the court's "superintending power" in a 1941 law review article. John D. Wickhem, The Power of Superintending Control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, 1941 Wis. L. Rev. 153. He wrote:
The purpose of this ["superintending control over inferior courts"] jurisdiction is to protect the legal rights of a litigant when the ordinary processes of action, appeal and review are inadequate to meet the situation, and where there is need for such intervention to avoid grave hardship or complete denial of these rights. Thus, it is held that before the court will *214intervene, it must appear that there is no adequate remedy by appeal or writ of error. For example, the order of the inferior court or its inaction, if that is the thing objected to, may be of such character as not to be appealable, or appeal from the judgment may come too late for effective redress. It is variously stated in the cases that to warrant exercise of the power there must be a clear legal right on the part of the applicant; a plain duty on the part of the inferior court; the remedy by appeal or writ of error must be inadequate; there must be an exigency calling for prompt action; the power is not to be used to perform the office of appeal or writ of error and the result of a refusal to act and to exercise superintending control must result in grave hardship to the litigant.
These statements represent attempts to state in whole or in part the policy which underlies both the constitutional grant of supervisory control and the court's exercise of it as a matter of policy.
Id. at 161-62 (citations omitted).
¶ 146. This description of superintending authority, to control the course of ordinary litigation in lower courts so as to avoid grave hardship to a litigant, is very different from the incredibly elastic power the court now employs. Somehow the court's superintending authority over all courts has been transformed into broad authority to mandate desirable policy ostensibly related to judicial proceedings but extending far beyond the litigants in a specific case. The power is being employed during normal appellate review, so that there is no intervention into a lower court proceeding because of an exigency. The court is not protecting a clear legal right; rather, it is creating new procedures that are not even deemed "rights." It is not acting because alternate *215remedies are inadequate. It requires no grave hardship because Jerrell C.J.'s adjudication of delinquency has been reversed. In other words, the court's use of its superintending authority to effect an arguably desirable policy violates every principle of our express but limited constitutional power.
¶ 147. The court started down this road in 1967 when it sought to uphold the promulgation of an ethical code for judges. See In re Promulgation of a Code of Judicial Ethics, 36 Wis. 2d 252, 153 N.W.2d 873, 155 N.W.2d 565 (1967). The court said:
At least twenty-three states have adopted a Code of Judicial Ethics by supreme court action, generally in the exercise of their recognized inherent and implied power of supervision over the courts, judges, and attorneys of the judicial system. The power has been considered generally to be as broad as is necessary for the administration of justice or as needed to protect the public or the state or a particular litigant. Our constitution has expressly given this court superintending power over inferior courts.
We hold this court has an inherent and an implied power as the supreme court, in the interest of the administration of justice, to formulate and establish the Code of Judicial Ethics .... This power, inherent in the supremacy of the court and implied from its expressed constitutional grants of supervisory power, embraces all members of the judiciary.
Id. at 253-54 (emphasis added).
¶ 148. When County Judge Charles E. Kading of Jefferson County challenged a rule under the Code requiring disclosure of investment assets held by himself or his wife, the court upheld the Code rule on a 4-3 *216vote, saying: "We reject this attack on the fundamental authority of this court. Both the adoption of the code and the later adoption of Rule 17 are actions of this court performed under its inherent power to function as the supreme court and also performed in carrying out the function of superintending control as expressly set forth in art. VII, sec. 3, of the Wisconsin Constitution." In re Honorable Charles E. Kading, 70 Wis. 2d 508, 516-17, 235 N.W.2d 409 (1975) (emphasis added).
¶ 149. Speaking through Chief Justice Horace Wilkie, the court declared:
[W]e find an additional source of authority for this court's promulgation of the Judicial Code ... in the power which is reasonably implied from this court's express constitutional authority to exercise "a general superintending control over all inferior courts." This power of superintending control is "unlimited in extent . .. undefined in character.. . [and] unsupplied with means and instrumentalities."... Mr. Justice ROUJET MARSHALL, after a painstaking survey of this power[,] concluded in 1908 that it is "not limited other than by the necessities of justice" and that it necessarily includes "all. .. means applicable thereto and all power necessary to make such ... means fully adaptable for the purpose." The superintending power is as broad and as flexible as necessary to insure the due administration of justice in the courts of this state.
If this [superintending] power were strictly limited to the situations in which it was previously applied, it would cease to be superintending, since this word definitely contemplates ongoing, continuing supervision in response to changing needs and circumstances. The power of superintending control should not be ossified by an unduly restrictive interpretation of its extent.
*217Id. at 519-20 (citing State ex rel. Umbreit v. Helms, 136 Wis. 432, 462, 118 N.W. 158 (1908) (Marshall, J., concurring)).2
¶ 150. These paragraphs, supported by four members of a deeply divided court, in a case in which the court's inherent power to promulgate a code of judicial ethics would surely have sufficed, are the source of the court's contemporary "supervisory power." They are highly suspect. A writer in the Wisconsin Law Review noted immediately that, "These statements represented a considerable departure from prior interpretations of the court's constitutional authority to superintend inferior courts." Dennis Gallagher, Superintending Power of the Wisconsin Supreme Court and Financial Disclosure Rules for Judges, 1977 Wis. L.Rev. 1111, 1119 (1977). Calling the court's action "an unprecedented development," id. at 1121, the writer contended that:
Justice Roujet Marshall's opinion in Seiler v. State shows clearly that the constitutional grant of "general superintending control" was understood as a very limited authority over actions in the inferior courts. In rejecting the argument that the superintending control clause could be used as authority to sustain acts of legislation purporting to grant the supreme court origi*218nal jurisdiction in certain criminal cases, Justice Marshall stated that superintending control should be understood as "the power to 'control the course of ordinary litigation in inferior courts,' as exercised at common law by the court of King's Bench, and by the use of writs specifically mentioned in the constitution ... ." Justice Marshall rejected any extension of this power beyond its common law signification, such as using it to justify advisory opinions by the supreme court.
Id. at 1120 (citations omitted).
¶ 151. In a hard-hitting dissent, Justice Robert Hansen also quoted Roujet Marshall:
"While the true limits of judicial power must be jealously guarded and firmly maintained, it would be as dangerous to extend as to limit the same, by giving to the language in which the jurisdiction was granted a meaning different from that which was in mind when the grant was made. The power of superintending control, as has been decided and before indicated, has to do only with controlling inferior courts in the exercise of their jurisdiction by the use of instruments mentioned specifically in the constitution or authorized thereby."
Kading, 70 Wis. 2d at 540 (Hansen, J., dissenting) (quoting Seiler, 112 Wis. at 300 n.9).
¶ 152. As noted, Article VII, Section 3 of the constitution was amended in 1977 to produce new text: "The supreme court shall have superintending and administrative authority over all courts." Constitutional revision gave the supreme court administrative authority over all courts and simultaneously provided in Article VII, Section 4(3): "The chief justice of the supreme court shall be the administrative head of the judicial system and shall exercise this administrative *219authority pursuant to procedures adopted by the supreme court." Wis. Const, art. VII, § 4(3) (emphasis added).
¶ 153. This "administrative authority" creates an indisputable hierarchy among state courts, giving authority to the supreme court to establish policies and procedures for the state's entire judicial system. I see no evidence, however, that the 1977 amendments were intended to alter and enhance the "superintending... authority" of the supreme court. The use of the superintending authority to dictate law enforcement procedure is simply miles from the sort of superintending control over lower courts in specific cases that the framers intended.
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¶ 154. The supreme "court has express, inherent, implied and incidental judicial power." Holmes, 106 Wis. 2d at 44. The court's inherent power has long been recognized. See In re Janitor, 35 Wis. 410 (1874); Stevenson v. Milwaukee County, 140 Wis. 14, 121 N.W. 654 (1909); State v. Cannon, 196 Wis. 534, 221 N.W. 603 (1928); In re Cannon, 206 Wis. 374, 240 N.W. 441 (1932); Integration of the Bar, 273 Wis. 281, 77 N.W.2d 602 (1956); Lynn Laufenberg & Geoffrey Van Remmen, Inherent Power and Administrative Court Reform, 58 Marq. L. Rev. 133 (1975); Gallagher, supra. It is not my purpose to try to define the scope of inherent power, except to agree that the court's "power must necessarily be expansive enough to facilitate the performance of constitutional mandates." Laufenberg & Van Remmen, supra, at 157.
¶ 155. It should be obvious, however, that neither the court's inherent power nor its "administrative authority over all courts" can reasonably be employed in *220the circumstances of this case, and that is why the court has relied upon an amorphous "supervisory" power. Majority op., ¶¶ 3, 58. If the majority opinion represents a proper use of the court's "superintending. . . authority," then, logically, there is no practical reason why the court could not dictate any aspect of police investigative procedure that is designed to secure evidence for use at trial. The people of Wisconsin have never bestowed this kind of power on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
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¶ 156. The majority outlines the advantages it sees in adopting a rule that custodial interrogation of a juvenile must be electronically recorded if the state seeks to use any statement by the juvenile in court. Majority op., ¶¶ 51-57. In doing so, it cites an American Bar Association resolution urging that such a rule apply to all custodial interrogations of crime suspects. This formulation obviously includes adults. Id., ¶ 56. As Bob Dylan would put it, "You don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows."3
¶ 157. The court's new rule is not required by any constitutional provision and is not "absolutely essential" to the administration of justice. See Kading, 70 Wis. 2d at 518. Promises that "This court will not use its superintending power where there is another adequate remedy," Arneson v. Jezwinski, 206 Wis. 2d 217, 226, ¶ 4, 556 N.W.2d 721 (1996), have been replaced with frank rejection of "the State's leave-it-to-the-legislature approach." Chief Justice Abrahamson's concurrence, ¶ 4.
*221¶ 158. The new rule undeniably leaves many questions unanswered. What is "custodial interrogation" under the rule? Are the exceptions to what is "custodial" and what is "interrogation" under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), still valid? How does the rule apply to a student's interview in a school principal's office? In an era of tiny portable recorders, when is electronic recording not "feasible"? Must the subject of interrogation be notified that his words will be recorded? May a subject waive recording? Does the "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine apply to unrecorded statements?
¶ 159. I share the majority's conclusion that electronic recording of juvenile confessions is a worthwhile policy goal. However, developing the details of a rule is demanding work. The legislature might not answer all the questions better than this court, but in drafting legislation, it would at least have to try. At a minimum, the court should delay the implementation of its new rule to give law enforcement agencies time to prepare for it. In addition, I urge the legislature to promptly address the issue of electronic recording of statements by juveniles and adults, so that law enforcement will have clear guidelines to follow.

 1n her answer to Justice Roggensack's concurrence/dissent and this concurrence/dissent, Chief Justice Abrahamson *213points to writings in State ex rel. Umbreit v. Helms, 136 Wis. 432, 118 N.W. 158 (1908), as a vindication of The Attorney General v. Blossom, 1 Wis. 277 [*317] (1853), and a repudiation of State ex rel. Fourth National Bank of Philadelphia v. Johnson, 103 Wis. 591, 79 N.W. 1081 (1899), and Seiler v. State, 112 Wis. 293, 87 N.W. 1072 (1901). The issue in Helms was very narrow: whether the Supreme Court had the authority under its constitutional "general superintending control over all inferior courts" to issue a writ of mandamus ordering a circuit court to reinstate a criminal complaint that the circuit court had dismissed. The court determined that it had this specific power under the constitution but it unanimously declined to use it, saying there was no justification under the facts of the case. Chief Justice Winslow, writing separately, bowed to the views of most of his colleagues that the court had the power to "review" a lower court's judicial error under circumstances where the Court of Ring's Bench would not have done so. 136 Wis. at 464 (Winslow, C.J., concurring). The court's well-mannered discussion of its "superintending control" power to issue a writ to a circuit judge in a specific fact situation is simply light years away from the concept that "The court's superintending power is as broad as necessary to meet the needs of changing circumstances." See Chief Justice Abrahamson's concurrence, ¶ 11.

 The majority in In re Honorable Charles E. Kading, 70 Wis. 2d 508, 235 N.W.2d 409 (1975), overstated the breadth of Justice Marshall's characterization of the superintending power. Justice Marshall discussed the superintending power in light of the court's authority "to control litigation" and believed that, as of 1908, the court had left "nothing to be said to further define the superintending power." State ex rel. Umbreit v. Helms, 136 Wis. 432, 447, 458, 118 N.W. 158 (1908) (Marshall, J., concurring). The Kading court's holding required it to act contrary to Justice Marshall's advice by "further defin[ing]" the superintending power in a matter unrelated to "control[ling] litigation."

 Bob Dylan, Subterranean Homesick Blues, on Bringing It All Back Home (Columbia Records 1965).