Court Opinion

ID: 9736964
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:11:06.493654+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:23:55.721869
License: Public Domain

Levin, J.
(dissenting). The Court of Appeals was within its authority in ordering an evidentiary hearing on the questions whether Ray voluntarily waived his right to remain silent and to have his counsel present at the postpolygraph interrogation. The Court of Appeals has broad authority, no less so than this Court, to order an evidentiary hearing whenever in its judgment such a hearing is necessary or appropriate to enable it to discharge its reviewing function.1
The circumstances of this case indicate that there is reason to question the voluntariness of *280Ray’s "waiver.” The "admission” or "confession”2 at issue was made in response to questioning that occurred after the polygraph examination was completed. The "waiver” document states that the questioning before, during, and after the examination "cannot be conducted with a lawyer actually present in the examination room . . . .” Whatever may be the rationale for declaring that Ray’s lawyer could not be present for questioning before and during the polygraph examination,3 there is no apparent rationale for excluding his lawyer from the postpolygraph questioning.
The apparent overbreadth of the "waiver” and ambiguity noted by the Court of Appeals4 justify its decision to order an evidentiary hearing on the questions whether Ray voluntarily waived his right to remain silent and to have his counsel present at the postpolygraph interrogation.
In all events, there is no need to express an opinion concerning the admissibility of statements made during the polygraph examination itself as no such question is raised by the instant case.
*281We would affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals.
Cavanagh, J., concurred with Levin, J.

 The majority in the Court of Appeals spoke of "clear error” in holding "that the magistrate and the acting circuit judge should have been alerted to the need for a Walker hearing.” People v Ray, 156 Mich App 31, 44, 46-47; 401 NW2d 296 (1986).
Ray’s lawyer moved in the circuit court to suppress evidence of the statement, "Right,” stating that evidence of the statement had been introduced at the preliminary examination, that such a statement to be admissible in evidence must be voluntary, and that Ray’s constitutional rights were violated because, among other things, the officer did not repeat the Miranda warnings after the conclusion of the polygraph examination. The motion asked the court to "suppress the Defendant’s statement, or in the alternative, order an evidentiary hearing on this matter.”
The acting circuit judge did not order an evidentiary hearing, but rather reviewed the preliminary examination transcript and found that the defendant freely and voluntarily made the statement. At the trial, the circuit judge, referring to the motion heard by the acting circuit judge, said "[tjhey, obviously, did not have to make a separate record” and declared that the "Court sustains the ruling made by the lower court, apparently in review of the suppression material.”
The defendant’s lawyer thus sought an evidentiary hearing. The motion to suppress the evidence was decided on the basis of the testimony at the preliminary examination which was not focused on the issue of the voluntariness of the statement, raised by defendant’s motion filed after the preliminary examination. It thus appears that the issue was preserved by defendant’s lawyer and that the circuit court erred in deciding the voluntariness issue without an evidentiary hearing.

 During the polygraph examination, Ray denied culpability. After the examination, the police sergeant who administered the examination told Ray that she thought that Ray and a friend set the fire. Ray responded, "Right.”

 The rationale asserted for excluding defense counsel from questioning before and during the polygraph examination is that in both periods the examinee is linked to the machine, and the presence of persons other them the examiner and the examinee may distort the physiological responses monitored by the polygraph device. See Reid & Inbau, Truth and Deception: The Polygraph ("Lie-detector”) Technique (2d ed). (Physiological responses would not, however, be distorted by counsel observing through a one-way window.) But see Furedy & Liss, Countering confessions induced by the polygraph: Of confessionals and psychological rubber hoses, 29 Crim LQ 91, 103 (1986) (no scientific basis for assertion that the examiner must be alone with the examinee). During postexamination questioning, however, the rationale for exclusion is inapplicable because physiological responses are no longer being monitored.

 The Court of Appeals said, "Defense counsel says the polygraph waiver was ambiguous and that the parties never understood defense counsel was waiving his right to be present at a post-polygraph interrogation.” People v Ray, n 1 supra, p 47.