Court Opinion

ID: 9568410
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:03:19.341743+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:24:43.397870
License: Public Domain

Brickley, C.J.
(concurring). I agree with the result arrived at in the opinion for affirmance, but write separately to express my reasons for doing so.
This case rather clearly implicates both the right to counsel (Const 1963, art 1, § 20) and the right against self-incrimination (Const 1963, art 1, § 17). I conclude that rather than interpreting these provisions, it would be more appropriate to approach the law enforcement practices that are at the core of this case in the same manner as the United States Supreme *621Court approached the constitutional interpretation task in Miranda v Arizona, 384 US 436; 86 S Ct 1602; 16 L Ed 2d 694 (1966); namely, by announcing a prophylactic rule. See Michigan v Tucker, 417 US 433; 94 S Ct 2357; 41 L Ed 2d 182 (1974).
The right to counsel and the right to be free of compulsory self-incrimination are part of the bedrock of constitutional civil liberties that have been zealously protected and in some cases expanded over the years. Given the focus and protection that these particular constitutional provisions have received, it is difficult to accept and constitutionally justify a rale of law that accepts that law enforcement investigators, as part of a custodial interrogation, can conceal from suspects that counsel has been made available to them and is at their disposal. If it is deemed to be important that the accused be informed that he is entitled to counsel, it is certainly important that he be informed that he has counsel.
As Justice Souter explained in Withrow v Williams, 507 US 680, 691; 113 S Ct 1745; 123 L Ed 2d 407 (1993):
“Prophylactic” though it may be, in protecting a defendant’s Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination Miranda safeguards “a fundamental trial right.” The privilege embodies “principles of humanity and civil liberty, which had been secured in the mother country only after years of struggle” and reflects
“many of our fundamental values and most noble aspirations: . . . our preference for an accusatorial rather than an inquisitorial system of criminal justice; our fear that self-incriminating statements will be elicited by inhumane treatment and abuses; our sense of fair play which dictates ‘a fair state-individual balance by requiring the government to leave the individual alone until good cause is shown for dis*622turbing him and by requiring the government in its contest with the individual to shoulder the entire load’; our respect for the inviolability of the human personality and of the right of each individual ‘to a private enclave where he may lead a private life’; our distrust of self-deprecatory statements; and our realization that the privilege, while sometimes ‘a shelter to the guilty,’ is often ‘a protection to the innocent.’ ” Murphy v Waterfront Comm of New York Harbor, 378 US 52, 55 [84 S Ct 1594; 12 L Ed 2d 678] (1964) (citations omitted).
Nor does the Fifth Amendment “trial right” protected by Miranda serve some value necessarily divorced from the correct ascertainment of guilt. “ ‘[A] system of criminal law enforcement which comes to depend on the “confession” will, in the long run, be less reliable and more subject to abuses’ than a system relying on independent investigation.” Michigan v Tucker, supra [417 US] 448, n 23 (quoting Esco-bedo v Illinois, 378 US 478, 488-489 [84 S Ct 1758; 12 L Ed 2d 977] [1964]). [Some citations omitted.]
I agree that we invite much mischief if we afford police officers “engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime” the discretion to decide when a suspect can and cannot see an attorney who has been retained for a suspect’s benefit. Giordenello v United States, 357 US 480, 486; 78 S Ct 1245; 2 L Ed 2d 1503 (1958).
At the same time, I do not agree with the dissent that our ruling today necessarily hampers police officers in the performance of their duties. It would have been simple in this case for the police to have complied with the rule we presently announce. To the extent that the burdens may be increased in future cases, I take comfort in the knowledge that, before the United States Supreme Court’s ruling in Moran v Burbine, 475 US 412; 106 S Ct 1135; 89 L Ed 2d 410 (1986), many states adhered to the rule we adopt *623today and others continue to follow it. Yet, as the majority points out, there is no suggestion that those jurisdictions have been any less successful obtaining confessions than those following the Moran rule.
However, even if contrary evidence existed, I am convinced that our decision more fully comports with our most closely guarded legal traditions. Nearly fifty years ago, Justice Jackson discussed the problem we presently face and concluded that our system of criminal justice requires us to err on the side of protecting the constitutional rights of the accused:
I suppose the view one takes will turn on what one thinks should be the right of an accused person against the State. Is it his right to have the judgment on the facts? Or is it his right to have a judgment based on only such evidence as he cannot conceal from the authorities, who cannot compel him to testily in court and also cannot question him before? Our system comes close to the latter by any interpretation, for the defendant is shielded by such safeguards as no system to law except the Anglo-American concedes to him. [Watts v Indiana, 338 US 49, 59; 69 S Ct 1357; 93 L Ed 1801 (1949) (Jackson, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).]
In my view, the rule we adopt today requiring police to inform suspects that counsel has been retained for them insures that our system of criminal justice remains accusatorial and not inquisitorial in nature. Perhaps more importantly, it demonstrates that experience has taught us that the good will of state agents is often insufficient to guarantee a suspect’s constitutional rights.
Levin, Cavanagh, and Mallett, JJ., concurred with Brickley, C.J.