Court Opinion

ID: 9448156
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:24:37.071377+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:18.808544
License: Public Domain

WATERMAN, Circuit Judge
(concurring) .
I concur in the affirmance of both convictions. However, as to Vita, I believe I should make a separate statement.
We all accept the trial judge’s determination that Vita voluntarily accompanied the Bureau’s agents to the FBI headquarters at Third Avenue and E. 69th Street, voluntarily remained there, and was free to leave there at any time from the moment of his arrival until he voluntarily confessed at 6:30 p. m. Hence there was no denial to him of any right that an accused person is entitled to under Rule 5(a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, the cases preceding that rule, or the cases subsequent thereto. Dunn v. United States, 5 Cir., 273 F.2d 470, certiorari denied 1960, 363 U.S. 848, 80 S.Ct. 1625, 4 L.Ed.2d 1731. We all agree that Vita’s “detention” began at 6:52 p. m. and that that was the moment when he was first held as an “accused,” and that after his confession was then promptly typed and signed he was not questioned further. Hence we all agree that the arraignment early the next morning was not an unreasonably delayed one. So we unanimously conclude that Vita’s appeal, an appeal based solely upon a claim that his confession was obtained during an unreasonable detention prior to arraignment, must fail.
It is quite unnecessary for decision here to discuss problems that might be of interest if, against his will, Vita had been taken into custody by the three FBI agents from the sidewalk at Broadway and 31st Street at 10 a. m.; and, against his will, had been transported 43 blocks to the FBI headquarters in an FBI vehicle; and, against his will, had been detained there, against his will put into lineups, against his will fingerprinted, and against his will subjected for some 8 hours to uncoercive questioning. Such a case is not the case before us, and such a case would have to be decided upon its own peculiar, particular facts, one of the most important of which would be the fact of non-cooperation.
Therefore, though I most assuredly concur in affirming Vita's conviction, I wish to make it clear that I disassociate myself from concurring in any portion of the opinion in which, arguendo, as an alternative ground to support an affirmance, it is sought to solve in vacuo the rights of a hypothetical Vita, unwilling to cooperate with the Bureau step by step as Vita cooperated. It is fundamental that collateral questions ought not to be reached by the courts unless absolutely necessary for a decision of the issues before it. See concurring opinion of Chief Justice Warren in Culombe v. Connecticut, 1961, 367 U.S. 568, 635, 81 S.Ct. 1860, 1897, 6 L.Ed.2d 1037.