Court Opinion

ID: 9455025
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:06:38.105893+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:25.138673
License: Public Domain

MERRILL, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
I concur.
I do not, however, feel that we need speculate on what an attorney’s presence at the critical moment might have accomplished. Such an inquiry may be pertinent in cases where it is not otherwise readily apparent that the accused at the time was in need of legal advice as to his rights. It may be necessary in cases such as Wade v. United States, 388 U.S. 218, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149 (1967) (and perhaps Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201, 84 S.Ct. 1199 (1964)), where some role for the attorney other than his traditional one of legal adviser is found to exist. Such is not the case here, where the need for legal counsel was obvious.
Under Arizona law Schantz had a right to refuse to submit to examination. Whether or not he should have waived this state right was a decision he should not be expected to have made without the advice of his attorney. That decision could have had important results on trial. It was a lawyer’s decision. Defendant was, then clearly entitled to advice of counsel in making the decision and to the presence of counsel at the time he was asked to make it.
Whatever the motive for defendant’s refusal of examination then, unless his right under the Sixth Amendment was waived (which obviously it was not), the refusal of examination was protected by that Amendment. Following Massiah, it *15can be said that the basic protection of the Sixth Amendment would be denied by permitting trial testimony as to what occurred in absence of counsel to be used against the defendant. Id. at 206, 84 S.Ct. 1199.