Court Opinion

ID: 9429631
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:27:24.348972+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:04.596824
License: Public Domain

Justice Marshall,
dissenting.
The majority misreads the development of Sixth Amendment doctrine when it states that “our cases have long recognized that the right to counsel attaches only at or after the initiation of adversary judicial proceedings against the defendant.” Ante, at 187. As Justice Stevens demonstrates, ante, at 198-197, we have recognized that in certain situations an individual’s right to counsel is triggered before the formal initiation of adversary judicial proceedings. See, e. g., Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U. S. 478, 485-492 (1964). This recognition has stemmed from an appreciation that the government can transform an individual into an “accused” without officially designating him as such through the ritual of arraignment. Moreover, I agree with Justice Stevens that the government treats an individual as an accused when that individual “is deprived of liberty in order to aid the prosecution in its attempt to convict him, and when the deprivation is likely to have the intended effect. . . .” Ante, at 197.
Unlike Justice Stevens, however, I reject the judgment as well as the reasoning of the Court. Justice Stevens concurs in the judgment of the Court because, in his view, the transfer of respondents from the general prison population to the far harsher constraints of administrative detention1 did not in any way serve “an accusatorial function” but served instead to further the security interests of the correctional institution and the welfare of respondents themselves. Ibid. My reading of the record and of the factfinding of *200the courts below leads me to a different conclusion. With respect to respondents Mills and Pierce, the District Court stated, in the portion of its opinion entitled “Factual Background,” that by the time they were committed to administrative detention, “the finger of suspicion” had already been pointed at them. App. to Pet. for Cert. 45a-46a. This finding is corroborated by prison officials’ own notation that respondents were to be detained in administrative detention “pending investigation or trial for a criminal act,” App. 138-139, and by the odd course of events that transpired after respondents’ detention: the Government’s delay in seeking indictments alongside the unusually long period during which respondents were confined to their cells. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 42a-47a. The District Court was therefore justified in concluding that respondents’ “commitment to [administrative detention] was neither a form of prison discipline nor an attempt to ensure prison security,” but was instead “part and parcel of a sequence of prosecutive acts integrally related to the application of criminal sanctions.” Id., at 47a-48a. The District Court’s findings and conclusion were noted and affirmed by the Court of Appeals. 704 F. 2d 1116, 1125 (1983). This Court has repeatedly stated that it “‘cannot undertake to review concurrent findings of fact by two courts below in the absence of a very obvious and exceptional showing of error.’” See Berenyi v. District Director, INS, 385 U. S. 630, 635 (1967), quoting Graver Mfg. Co. v. Linde Co., 336 U. S. 271, 275 (1949). In this case no such showing of error has been made.
We do not have the benefit of a trial judge’s explicit factual findings with respect to respondents Reynoso, Segura, Ramirez, and Gouveia. However, we do have the Government’s admission that one reason all of the respondents were kept in administrative detention was “because of the pend-ency of the criminal investigation . . . .” Brief for United States 26. This admission further supports the Court of Appeals’ conclusion that “each [respondent] was held in *201[administrative detention] at least in part as a result of pending criminal charges.” 704 F. 2d, at 1125.
Because of their disposition of the Sixth Amendment issue, neither the majority nor Justice Stevens reaches the other issue posed by this case: whether the Court of Appeals erred by dismissing the indictments against respondents. The Government claims that dismissing the indictments was inconsistent with this Court’s decision in United States v. Morrison, 449 U. S. 361 (1981). In Morrison, we reversed the dismissal of an indictment in a case in which it was assumed, arguendo, that a Sixth Amendment violation had occurred and in which the defendant “demonstrated no prejudice of any kind ... to the ability of her counsel to provide adequate representation . . . .” Id., at 366. We stated that, in right-to-counsel cases, dismissal of an indictment is inappropriate “absent demonstrable prejudice, or substantial threat thereof,” id., at 365, because a presumption of prejudice would contravene “the general rule that remedies should be tailored to the injury suffered . . . and should not unnecessarily infringe on competing interests.” Id., at 364.
The Court of Appeals concluded that dismissal of respondents’ indictments was warranted under both the Morrison standard and a presumption-of-prejudice standard that it found to be appropriate to the facts of this case. The Court of Appeals felt compelled to articulate an alternative to the Morrison standard because, in its view, this case was “fundamentally different” insofar as the right-to-counsel violation affected inmate-suspects held in administrative detention. 704 F. 2d, at 1126. The Court of Appeals concluded that in such a setting a presumption of prejudice would be appropriate “because ordinarily it will be impossible adequately either to prove or refute its existence.” Ibid. I disagree with the Court of Appeals; its own application of Morrison to the facts of this case demonstrates that even in the context of a Sixth Amendment violation affecting prisoners, the usual process of case-specific inquiry will be adequate to determine *202whether dismissal of an indictment is warranted. The Court of Appeals concluded that even without an assumption of prejudice “there is evidence that ‘substantial prejudice’ may have occurred” in this case. 704 F. 2d, at 1126. This conclusion satisfies the Morrison requirement that persons seeking dismissal of their indictments must show either “demonstrable prejudice, or substantial threat thereof. . . .” 449 U. S., at 365 (emphasis added). Moreover, it is a conclusion amply supported by the record.2
Because I agree with the result reached by the Court of Appeals, though not with all of its reasoning, I respectfully dissent.

 Subjection to administrative detention meant that respondents were confined in individual cells except for short daily exercise periods, that their participation in various prison programs was curtailed, and that they were denied access to the general prison population. See 704 F. 2d 1116, 1118 (1983).

 The conclusion that respondents Mills and Pierce were prejudiced is especially reliable due to the District Court’s specific finding that “[b]ecause the passage of time has resulted in the irrevocable loss of exculpatory testimony and evidence, the government’s failure to take steps to preserve the defendants’ right to prepare a defense cannot be remedied other than by dismissing the indictment [with prejudice].” App. to Pet. for Cert. 50a.