Court Opinion

ID: 9661313
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:35:09.31234+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:27.152506
License: Public Domain

*238ABRAHAMSON, J.

(concurring).

The majority opinion properly stresses the need for the probation officer to maintain supervision over the probationer and the duty of the probationer to keep the probation agent informed of his whereabouts. The court then balances this societal need — and the right of a probationer to speak in his own behalf at a probation hearing — with the defendant’s fifth amendment protection against self-incrimination.
The court concludes that the solution is to^ .exclude the defendant’s statements to his parole or probation officer from use at a criminal trial. This solution is a reasonable one, though not free from difficulties.1 The State obtains the information it needs for the operation of its parole and probation systems and can introduce at a criminal trial evidence it obtained through its own investigative efforts.
I wish to express two concerns about the majority opinion.
I.
The majority holds as admissible the testimony of a probationer or parolee (and any evidence derived therefrom) against the probationer or parolee in subsequent criminal charges “for purposes of impeachment or rebuttal where his testimony at the criminal proceeding is clearly inconsistent with the statements made previously. *239In such case the trial court may admit the revocation testimony or its fruits for the purpose of showing' the probability that the probationer or parolee has committed perjury. Cf. People v. Coleman, 13 Cal.3d 867, 533 P.2d 1024, 120 Cal. Rptr. 384 (1975) .”2
In the Coleman case, the California Supreme Court discussed the limitations on the prosecution’s use of defendant’s testimony at a probation revocation hearing for impeachment purposes at the criminal trial in order to ensure that the probationer’s privilege against self-incrimination is honored.3 Our court in Wold v. State, *24057 Wis.2d 344, 356, 204 N.W.2d 482 (1973), also limits the use of defendant’s statements on impeachment. In Wold the court was faced with defendant’s statement which was taken “in disregard of his constitutional rights against self-incrimination and to assistance of counsel.” Although the statements were inadmissible in the State’s case in chief, this court held them admissible for impeachment purposes under certain circumstances, one of which was expressed as follows:
“However evidence excluded on direct should not be used for impeachment unless the accused takes the stand and testifies to matters directly contrary to what is in the excluded statement. The foundation for the use of the impeaching statements must be found in prior testimony.”
I do not believe the majority’s failure to discuss the use of defendant’s statements for impeachment purposes more fully means the majority is deviating from the standards set forth in Wold, or repudiating the warnings and concerns expressed by the California Supreme Court.
II.
Although the majority opinion recognizes the State’s need for the probation officer to see the accused promptly, to get information and to initiate proceedings, the court’s opinion should not be read as eliminating the possibility of delaying the questioning by the probation officer and the holding of probation revocation proceedings after trial on the criminal charges. Delaying probation proceedings is another way of dealing with the problems raised by concurrent revocation and criminal proceedings. Delaying probation revocation proceedings has been recommended by the American Bar Asso*241ciation as “ordinarily” advisable where revocation is sought solely because of the probationer’s commission of a crime. See Standard 5.3 of the American Bar Association’s Standards Relating to Probation (Approved Draft 1970). In People v. Coleman, supra, the California Supreme Court stressed that the exclusionary rule it had fashioned was not designed to exclude the possibility of delaying probation revocation proceedings. The California Supreme Court noted — and I wish to emphasize here too — that while the procedure of delaying revocation is not without difficulties of its own,4 in some cases the most desirable method of .handling the problems of concurrent criminal and probation revocation jurisdiction may well be to postpone the probation proceedings and to give priority to the criminal prosecution.5

 For a discussion of the difficulties see Note, Revocation of Conditional Liberty for the Commission of a Crime: Double Jeopardy and Self-incrimination Limitations, 74 Mich. L. Rev. 525 (1976); Comment, The Supreme Court of California 1974,-1975, 64 Calif. L. Rev. 239, 516-531 (1976).
For a discussion of the practice of revocation of probation because of probationer’s criminal conduct see Dawson, Sentencing: The Decision as to Type, Length, & Conditions of Sentence, 151-155 (1969).

 It should he noted that the Coleman' Case limited the exclusionary rule to testimony of a probationer at the probation revocation hearing. The California Supreme Court refused to apply the exclusionary rule to testimony of a probationer adduced 'at the probationer’s preliminary “prerevocation” hearing. 120 Cal. Rptr. at 406.

 “It should be noted that the mere fact of the probationer’s taking the stand at his trial does not open the door to prosecutorial use of his revocation hearing testimony. The probationer may well have testified truthfully and ineriminatingly at his revocation hearing, and yet testify truthfully and exeulpatorily at his trial by carefully avoiding contradiction of his revocation hearing testimony. In such an instance, the prosecution cannot seek on cross-examination to go beyond the scope of the probationer’s direct testimony by asking him either to admit the truth of or perjuriously to deny his admissions at the revocation hearing. [Citations omitted.] To allow the prosecution to elicit expected denials of prior admissions as a strategem for placing before the trial court inculpatory evidence placed in the prosecution’s hands by the probationer himself at his revocation hearing, would eviscerate the ameliorative effect of the exclusionary rule announced herein. That rule seeks to encourage frank disclosures by a probationer at a revocation hearing by assuring him that such candor will not impair his full enjoyment of the policies and protections of the privilege against self-incrimination should the issues at his revocation hearing become the subject of criminal proceedings. Unless the probationer himself broaches the subject by express reference to or contradiction of his revocation hearing testimony, he is entitled to have those proceedings kept entirely separate from his *240trial on related charges. [Citations omitted.]” People v. Coleman, 13 Cal. 3d 867, 533 P.2d 1024, 120 Cal. Rptr. 384, 404-405 (1975).

 See authorities cited in note 1, supra.

 People v. Coleman, 120 Cal. Rptr. at 406.