Court Opinion

ID: 9857098
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 07:15:36.454728+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:38:00.478657
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting.
The Court undertook its review of State v. Sivak, 105 Idaho 900, 674 P.2d 396 (1983), when oral argument was heard on February 1, 1983, the briefs of counsel having been received and perused earlier. The opinion of the Court in Sivak was released August 15, 1983, and rehearing was denied on December 27, 1983. The majority opinion at 105 Idaho 902, 674 P.2d 396 gives mention to Randall Bainbridge, saying in one short paragraph that Bainbridge and Sivak were identified as persons present at the murder scene and that the two had been seen together before and after the killing.4
Although the Court heard oral argument in Sivak on January 13,1984, the final opinion was not released until March 14, 1985. The records on appeal in the two cases were on a file in this Court at about the same time. The majority in Sivak upheld the imposition of the death penalty, following conviction by a jury. The majority opinion observed that I.C. § 19-2827 “requires us to determine if the sentence imposed is excessive or disproportionate to sentence imposed in similar cases.” 105 Idaho at 908, 674 P.2d at 404. The majority’s response to the statutory mandate was the simple expedient of declaring that “our review of similar cases involving the death penalty while necessarily limited by the lack of such cases ... does not reveal the presence of any particular excessiveness or disproportionality in this particular case.” 105 Idaho at 908,674 P.2d at 404.5
The majority had to be reminded by one of the dissenting opinions of two cases, then recent, which should have been — but were not — considered in that review, namely, State v. Major, 105 Idaho 4, 665 P.2d 703 (1983), and, of course, State v. Bainbridge, which was then before us and was undecided other than by Judge Rowett, who had imposed a sentence of life imprisonment. Major and Bainbridge, both being first degree murder cases, were discussed and compared to Sivak for the benefit of the majority at 105 Idaho 911-17, 674 P.2d 407-413. The majority, for whatever reason, obdurately continued ignoring those two recent and similar murder convictions and disparate sentences, which presently may be a problem for the attorney general in Sivak’s ongoing federal court habeas corpus proceedings. So much for Sivak. Today our focus is on Bainbridge, although Bainbridge cannot be effectively reviewed without considering Sivak in connection therewith, the two being companion cases arising out of the same homicide and resultant charges of first degree murder. There was definitely some *258inter-relation. For instance, Judge New-house at Sivak’s sentencing utilized a tape and/or transcript of an “interview” of Bainbridge conducted by two skilled officers, absolutely hearsay when being applied against Sivak, who was neither present nor represented. The Sivak majority approved, but not convincingly.
The majority opinion in Sivak found that the evidence before the trial court was more than sufficient to sustain finding d(6) of Judge Newhouse’s sentencing decision, “that the defendant dominates his codefendant, and is primarily responsible for all that occurred.” 105 Idaho at 906, 674 P.2d at 402. The codefendant was Randall Bainbridge, who was separately tried. Significant findings made by Judge Rowett in considering mitigating factors in Bainbridge’s case were these:
(a) Defendant has no previous conviction for the crime of murder, or any crime of violence. His prior offenses are property related.
(b) Defendant has demonstrated a propensity to being manipulated and used by other criminals; and although he participated in these crimes, he would be unlikely to initiate or perpetrate such crimes on his own.
(c) Although he had the opportunity and the encouragement of the co-defendant to do so, defendant did not himself inflict any death threatening wounds on the victim.
105 Idaho at 913, 674 P.2d at 409. Judge Rowett’s reason for not imposing upon Bainbridge a sentence of death was his finding “that the mitigating circumstances, particularly that defendant did not himself deliver any death threatening blows to the victim, outweigh the gravity of the aggravating circumstances here so as to make unjust the imposition of the death penalty on this defendant.” 105 Idaho at 914, 674 P.2d at 410. Extrapolating from the findings of the two district judges who became well-acquainted with all facets of the homicide, it has been judicially determined that:
(1)Sivak dominates Bainbridge and is primarily responsible for all that occurred.
(2) Bainbridge has no previous conviction for the crime of murder, or any crime of violence. His prior offenses are property related.
(3) Although Bainbridge had the opportunity and the encouragement of Sivak to do so, Bainbridge did not himself inflict any death threatening wounds on the victim.
(4) Bainbridge has the propensity for being manipulated and used by criminals, and although he has participated he would be unlikely to initiate or perpetrate such crimes on his own. There are, of course, other findings in both cases, but the findings particularized above are uniquely of concern in proceedings at the second trial which followed on reversal of Bainbridge’s first conviction. The record also amply sustains a finding that Bainbridge’s intellectual level was below average, another important factor to be given thorough consideration in understanding how easily he was manipulated by Sivak. Likewise, given his low intelligence and the ease with which he is manipulated, any reasonable person would take a dim view of the conduct of the two officers in seizing Bainbridge, interrogating him at his home, and continuing to interrogate him after taking him to their own offices. This, too, is found in Sivak, 105 Idaho at 917, 674 P.2d at 413 (Bistline, J. dissenting). It is legitimately there, that as responsive to the Sivak majority’s statement where in upholding the Sivak findings in sentencing, the majority upheld the district court’s utilization of “[a]n in-depth interview of [Bainbridge which] was conducted, and was included in the [Sivak] presentence report.” Sivak, 105 Idaho at 906, 674 P.2d at 402. This “interview” was analyzed and discussed at 105 Idaho 917, 674 P.2d 413. This so-called “interview” was in fact a lengthy and stringent interrogation, and exactly that type of custodial interrogation which Justice McDevitt today analyzes and holds impermissibly conducted. He concludes, as did I more than six years ago, that Bainbridge was “seized” by the officers. Not just seized but essentially held prisoner and subjected to lengthy and manipulative interrogations, notwithstanding his protestations that he did not want to *259talk with the officers until he could first talk to an attorney, and also to his probation officer. There should be no challenge to Justice McDevitt’s holding that the seizure of Bainbridge’s person was consummated by the officers’ intentional conduct. It is not possible to draw a meaningful distinction between arresting a person and seizing a person. In either event that person is not at liberty to go about his business as he pleases. The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that the people will be secure in their persons against unreasonable searches and seizures. A person is ‘seized’ within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when he is accosted by a police officer who restrains his freedom to walk away. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 16, 88 S.Ct. 1868,1877, 20 L.Ed.2d 889, 903 (1968):
There is some suggestion in the use of such terms as “stop” and “frisk” that such police conduct is outside the purview of the Fourth Amendment because neither action rises to the level of a “search” or “seizure” within the meaning of the Constitution____ It is quite plain that the Fourth Amendment governs “seizures” of the person which do not eventuate in a trip to the station house and prosecution for crime — “arrests” in traditional terminology. It must be recognized that whenever a police officer accosts an individual and restrains his freedom to walk away, he has “seized” that person.
Id. (Emphasis added).
The word ‘arrest’ is derived from the French word ‘arreter,' meaning to stop or stay and signifies restraint of the person, depriving him of his own mil and liberty. People v. Mirbelle, 276 Ill. App. 533, 540 (1934); Alter v. Paul, Sheriff, 101 Ohio App. 139, 141, 135 N.E.2d 73, 74 (1955); 5 C.J. Arrest, § 1, p. 385, n. 2(b). Judge Kaufman reminds us that ‘... the Fourth Amendment may be construed as encompassing “seizure” of an individual____’ United States v. Bonanno, 180 F.Supp. 71, 78 (S.D.N.Y. 1960).
The term ‘seizure’, both in legal understanding and common parlance, connotes the taking of one physically or constructively into custody and detaining him, thus causing a deprivation of one’s ‘freedom’ in a ‘significant way.’ Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 444, 86 S.Ct. 1602 [1612], 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). It involves a real interruption of one’s liberty of movement, as a result of such detention. Henry v. United States, 361 U.S. 98, 103, 80 S.Ct. 168 [171], 4 L.Ed.2d 134 (1959); Moran v. United States, 404 F.2d 663, 666 (10th Cir.1968); People v. Williams, 56 Misc.2d 837, 840, 290 N.Y.S.2d 321, 323 (1968); Sobel, ‘Search & Seizure,’ p. 64.
Accordingly, there are essentially two elements to a technical arrest. The first such element is that an accused ‘individual’ — a human being — is involved as the subject of the action, and not the generic ‘person,’ which under legal definition may include a corporation [P.L. § 10.00(7)]. Secondly, there must be present a ‘seizure’ of such individual. As hereinabove defined, that term means essentially the subjugation to restraint or submission to custody of the accused individual. Long v. Ansell [69 F.2d 386 (D.C.Cir.1934) ], supra; United States v. Bonanno, supra; State v. Terry, 5 Ohio App.2d 122,127-128, 214 N.E.2d 114, 119 (1966); 39 N.Y.U. L.Rev. 1093, 1096 (1964).
People v. P.A.J. Theater Corp., 72 Misc.2d 354, 339 N.Y.S.2d 152, 155 (emphasis added). Anyone knows that an arrest is a seizure. A person who has been arrested is no more free to move about that than a person who has been seized, and vice versa. A distinction without a difference is that the officer may come forth with the utterance, “You are under arrest,” whereas in a seizure that formality is dispensed with.
With that in mind, after agreeing with Justice McDevitt to that extent, I now go down a ready path which has been traveled before by two Idaho jurists for whom the bench and bar, including myself, have always had the utmost respect for because of their adherence in criminal cases to statutory requirements and constitutional principles. First, we turn to a decision authored *260by Judge Towles of the First Judicial District seven years ago which was reversed in State v. LaMere, 103 Idaho 839, 655 P.2d 46 (1982). The facts in LaMere are only slightly different from those we have before us in Bainbridge, and no different in regard to a person being arrested rather than seized, or vise versa. As here, in Bainbridge’s circumstance, LaMere initially was not charged with a crime, but was at 5:00 a.m. “arrested” and thus deprived of his liberty so that he could be questioned. LaMere was read his Miranda rights by the officers but not handed a printed form. He was questioned by different officers and put in a cell. Later, at 4:35 p.m., he was brought out and further interrogated. He was transported by the officers from Kellogg, Idaho, to Wallace, Idaho, a distance of some eleven miles, and finally arraigned at 5:05 p.m. Bainbridge was first confined in his own home, questioned there, and then taken in a police car for a drive to police headquarters where he was further interrogated. Not just interrogated, but pumped full of police officer suggestions as to the advantages of cooperating.
Another similarity between LaMere and Bainbridge was the officers’ use of tape recording machines, the on/off switches of which they controlled. In suppressing the statements obtained from LaMere under those conditions, Judge Towles laid out the law on the procedures which officers are required to apply:
Defendant contends that the failure to comply with I.C. § 19-853(e) invalidates the statements made by the defendant while in police custody on October 23rd, 1978, and furthermore, the delay in taking the defendant before a Magistrate in violation of Idaho Code Section 19-615 and Idaho Criminal Rule 5(a) deprive such statements of the necessary voluntariness required by the constitution and statutes of the United States and this state.
When an arrest is made without a warrant by a peace officer or a private person the person arrested must, without unnecessary delay, be taken before the nearest or most accessible magistrate in the county in which the arrest is made, and an information, stating the charge against the person must be laid before such magistrate. I.C. § 19-615.
As to the requirements of notifying the defendant of his right to counsel, Idaho Code Section 19-853 provides in part as follows:
If a person who is being detained by a law enforcement officer, or who is under formal charge of having committed, or is being detained under a conviction of a serious crime, is not represented by an attorney under conditions in which a person having his own counsel would be entitled to be so represented, the law enforcement officers concerned, upon commencement of detention, or the court, upon formal charge, as the case may be shall: (1) clearly inform him of his right to counsel and of the right of a needy person to be represented by an attorney at public expense; and (2) if the person detained or charged does not have an attorney, notify the public defender or trial court concerned, as the case may be, that he is not so represented....
(e) Information given to a person under this section is effective only if: (1) it is in writing or otherwise recorded; (2) he records his acknowledgement of receipt and time of receipt, or, if he refuses to make this acknowledgment, the person giving the information records that he gave the information and that the person informed refused to acknowledge it; and (3) the material so recorded under (1) and (2) is filed with the court next concerned.
Contrary to the State’s contention I.C. § 19-853 clearly pertains to any defendant, whether needy or not, and is one of the warnings mandated by Miranda. The Idaho statute adds an additional requirement to the Miranda case and was designed to ensure the fact that the warning could be proved as well as the *261acknowledgment and understanding by the defendant.
As to the statement taken from the defendant at or about 4:35 p.m., on October 23rd, 1978, it is apparent that the Miranda Warning and acknowledgement of the warning was contained on the taped statement and that the tape of such statement was filed with the Court next concerned at the time of the suppression hearing.
However, it certainly would be more preferable for a written Miranda Warning to be acknowledged in accordance with the statute to further support the voluntariness of such statement. The original interview by the Chief of Police and Officer Wadsworth, of course, did not comply with the statutory requirement in any fashion, and as a result, such statement must be suppressed.
The next serious question involves the delay between the arrest and presenting the matter to a Magistrate for arraignment.
The voluntary character of a confession obtained prior to arraignment is placed in doubt when there is an unreasonable delay between arrest and arraignment, however, the confession is not per se inadmissible. State v. Wyman, 97 Idaho 486 [547 P.2d 531 (1976) ].6
As to the delay in arraignment, it is the Court’s opinion that there was no reasonable excuse nor was the delay itself reasonable. If the police officer had probable cause to arrest the defendant, he also had sufficient probable cause to present the facts to a Magistrate for the issuance of a Warrant of Arrest and to permit the Magistrate to fix bond, if appropriate. Therefore, the excuse that the officers were too busy or were gathering additional evidence and therefore could not taken the defendant before the Magistrate, is not credible. If further evidence needed to be secured, the arrest should not have been accomplished.
This lends credence to the defendant’s argument that the delay was for the purpose of obtaining a statement more than for any other reason, and cannot be condoned by the Court as a clear violation of the duty of a police officer to present an accused before a neutral and detached Magistrate forthwith. ’ The day in question was a Monday and the Court was open and available.
The Court therefore concludes that any statement volunteered by the defendant at the time of the initial booking would not be suppressed, but the violation of I.C. § 19-853 would invalidate the subsequent interrogation of the defendant by the Chief of Police and Officer Wadsworth, and the delay in taking the defendant before a Magistrate would dictate a finding that the taped interview at 4:35 p.m. was not voluntary on the part of the defendant, and hence, may not be used at the time of the trial.
State v. LaMere, 103 Idaho at 874-75, 655 P.2d at 81-82 (1982) (appendix to opinion of Bistline, J., concurring in part and dissenting) (emphasis added).
Bainbridge’s rights under Idaho law, putting aside constitutional questions, were violated far more than were LaMere’s. To so seize a person, manipulate him, and interrogate him when all the while he should be taken before a magistrate was impermissible, highly prejudicial, and tainted the ensuing interrogations — no matter where conducted. The case here is also reminiscent of State v. Monroe, 101 Idaho 251, 611 P.2d 1036 (1980), vacated by 451 U.S. 1014, 101 S.Ct. 3001, 69 L.Ed.2d 385 (1981), where it required intervention by the Supreme Court of the United States to deter this Court from allowing such tactics of interrogation in a coercive setting. State v. Monroe, 103 Idaho 129, 645 P.2d 363 (1982). In any reasonable view Bain*262bridge’s conviction based on tainted evidence cannot be allowed to stand.
That which Justice Bakes wrote in dissent in State v. Wyman, 97 Idaho 486, 547 P.2d 531 (1976), applies like a glove to a hand in considering the manipulative exploitation of Bainbridge. He wrote carefully in applying the prevailing statutory law and constitutional holdings to the facts before the Court:
The defendant was not taken forthwith before a magistrate after he was taken into custody at 3:00 a.m. Instead he was alternately questioned or confined in a cell for the following sixteen hours, at which time he was then formally arrested. He was not presented before a magistrate then, either, but waited approximately another 40 hours before he was brought before a magistrate. Thus, I think it is clear that although the defendant had not been formally arrested before 7:00 p.m., December 2, he had been under arrest since 3:00 a.m. that morning, and under the terms of the statute and the rule he was entitled to be brought before a magistrate, whose duty under I.C.R. 5(d) would have been to determine whether there was probable cause to believe that the defendant had committed a crime, and to advise the defendant of his rights and provide him with counsel to advise him concerning those rights.
Furthermore, the defendant had a right under the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States to be brought before a judicial officer to determine whether there was probable cause to believe that he had committed an offense. This right was explained in the recent case of Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 95 S.Ct. 854, 43 L.Ed.2d 54 (1975).
[O]nce the defendant is arrested, whether the officer has made a mistake or not, the Fourth Amendment requires that the defendant be taken before a magistrate. Furthermore, our rule and statute require that it be done and a complaint filed ‘forthwith’ and ‘without unnecessary delay.’
When the stakes are this high, the detached judgment of a neutral magistrate is essential if the Fourth Amendment is to furnish meaningful protection from unfounded interference with liberty. Accordingly, we hold that the Fourth Amendment requires a judicial determination of probable cause as a prerequisite to extended restraint on liberty following arrest.
420 U.S. at 113, 95 S.Ct. at 863 [emphasis in original].
Thus, while the police officers were certainly justified in taking the defendant into custody, the defendant’s prolonged detention without being brought before a magistrate was a violation of his rights under I.C.R. 5, I.C. § 19-615, and the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The majority opinion recognizes this violation and scolds the police for failure ‘to comply with I.C. § 19-615 and I.C.R. rule 5(a).’
The purpose of I.C.R. 5 and of the Fourth Amendment is to prevent an arrestee from being held in an extended illegal confinement____ The arrestee’s constitutional right under the Fourth Amendment to a probable cause hearing following a warrantless arrest [or seizure] cannot be protected if the admissibility of statements the arrestee has given during the illegal confinement which are a product of the illegal confinement is tested solely against the Fifth Amendment’s test of voluntariness. The United States Supreme Court, which we are required to follow, has chosen not to evaluate violations of Fourth Amendment rights purely on the basis of voluntariness. Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 45 L.Ed.2d 416 (1975). By analyzing the admissibility of statements taken during an unlawful detention solely in terms of the arrestee’s Fifth Amendment interests, the majority has failed to consider the critical questions before us.
*263In Brown [v. Illinois, supra], the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Miranda warnings were not a cure-all which made statements taken following an illegal arrest [or seizure] admissible into evidence. In Brown, the Supreme Court of the United States characterized the lower court holding in the following manner:
The court, in other words, appears to have held that the Miranda warnings in and of themselves broke the causal chain so that any subsequent statement, even one induced by the continuing effects of unconstitutional custody, was admissible so long as, in the traditional sense, it was voluntary and not coerced in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.
422 U.S. at 597, 95 S.Ct. at 2258.
The Court then went on to hold that a confession or statement obtained by the exploitation of an illegal arrest [or seizure] is not admissible merely because it follows a Miranda warning and a waiver of Miranda rights.
[T]he Miranda warnings, alone and per se, cannot always make the act sufficiently a product of free will to break, for Fourth Amendment purposes, the causal connection between the illegality and the confession. They cannot assure in every case that the Fourth Amendment violation has not been unduly exploited.
While we therefore reject the per se rule which the Illinois courts appear to have accepted, we also decline to adopt any alternative per se or “but for” rule____ The Miranda warnings are an important factor, to be sure, in determining whether the confession is obtained by exploitation of an illegal arrest. But they are not the only factor to be considered. The temporal proximity of the arrest [seizure] and the confession, the presence of intervening circumstances, ... and, particularly, the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct are all relevant____ The voluntariness of the statement is a threshold requirement____ And the burden of showing admissibility rests, of course, on the prosecution.
422 U.S. at 603-04, 95 S.Ct. at 2261-61 (footnotes omitted).
I believe the same rule should be applicable during an extended confinement following an arrest without a warrant [or seizure] whenever the arrestee has not been brought before a magistrate without unnecessary delay and would adopt the holding of Commonwealth v. Futch, 447 Pa. 389, 290 A.2d 417 (1972).
[W]e think it appropriate to follow the federal approach and exclude all evidence obtained during ‘unnecessary delay’ except that which ... has no reasonable relationship to the delay whatsoever.
290 A.2d at 419.
I cannot agree that no lengthy interrogations took place. The defendant was regularly interrogated from 5:00 a.m. Saturday morning to 4:30 p.m. Saturday afternoon. He had not eaten or slept for nearly twenty hours before questioning began, and did not eat or sleep during the next twelve hours over which he was interrogated. The record indicates that he was bereaved at the loss of June Diggs, an intimate friend for five years. He had consumed five beers and three or four shots of whiskey on an empty stomach prior to the shooting. The appellant was in no condition to make a knowing and intelligent waiver of his rights and could easily be intimidated in such a situation____ I think it is clear as a matter of law that the defendant did not give his statements after a knowing and intelligent waiver of his rights. I believe the case of Commonwealth v. Eiland, 450 Pa. 566, 301 A.2d 651 (1973), which the majority has cited in footnote 9 of its opinion, points to the result which we should reach in this case.
[T]his Court has emphasized that when “[t]he questions in the voluntariness area have passed beyond the physical
*264coercion stage to the much more difficult area of psychological coercion ... a close analysis of all the surrounding circumstances is necessary.” Commonwealth ex rel. Butler v. Rundle, [429 Pa. 141, 239 A.2d 426 (1968) ], and that “the test for any involuntary confession, must concern itself with those elements impinging upon a defendant’s will.” Commonwealth v. Baity, 428 Pa. 306, 315 n. 7, 237 A.2d 172, 177 n. 7 (1968). Thus in the instant case we must weigh all the factors influencing appellant’s will at the time he made his statement. The record evinces uncontradicted evidence that appellant, a 20-year-old with a tenth grade education, was isolated for several periods of time; that upon his initial interrogation he refused to admit involvement in the shooting; that eleven hours later when told by the police he would get more lenient treatment if he confessed, he signed an incriminating statement; and that he was not arraigned until some twenty-five hours after arrest.
The combination of all these factors based on the Commonwealth’s uncontradicted evidence constituted a subtle but nonetheless powerful form of impermissible psychological coercion____ We conclude that appellant’s signed statement was involuntary and should therefore have been suppressed.
301 A.2d at 654-655 (emphasis added). The reasoning of the Pennsylvania Court is applicable in this case. At the time of his arrest the defendant was bereaved and possibly in a state of intoxication; he was questioned and refused to admit any connection with the shooting; he was then told that his first story was a lie and that the truth was wanted; he was then intermittently questioned over a ten hour period during which time he had gone without food or sleep for up to thirty hours. The defendant was not a habitual arrestee familiar with the techniques of questioning and knowledgeable of his rights. Given all these factors, the circumstances were inherently coercing, and his waiver was not knowing and intelligent. Accordingly, I would hold that his written statements and the tape recorded oral statements were inadmissible.
For all of these reasons I would remand for a new trial. Wyman, 97 Idaho at 496-501, 547 P.2d at 541-546 (Bakes, J., dissenting) (emphasis added).
When reviewing the circumstances of the seizure of Bainbridge in light of the extensive discussion of applicable law made by Justice Bakes and Judge Towles, much of which is in accord with that which Justice McDevitt has written, it is abundantly clear that Bainbridge was not only seized, but held by the officers for an inordinate period of time during which they interrogated him at will, and subjected him to inherently coercive tactics. It is equally clear from the record that he did not make an intelligent and knowing waiver of his constitutional rights, and that the officers made no attempt at ascertaining that he understood the rights set out on the printed form which they caused him to initial.
Rating the manipulation to which Bainbridge was twice exposed on a scale of one to ten, giving Sivak a rating of one would entitle the officers in Bainbridge to a ten. The statutory law was purposefully ignored, and constitutional requirements of the United States Supreme Court might as well have not been written. The officers implicitly alternately threatened Bainbridge and held out promises in attempting to obtain his “cooperation.” Had they disdained such tactics and treated him as the Idaho statutes require and the Constitution demands, there is no reason to believe that they could not have yet prevailed in obtaining a statement from him which would establish that Sivak had been present at the murder site and administered the death-dealing wounds.
Counsel for Bainbridge, Mr. Stewart Morris, has also provided the Court with an excellent account of the seizure and cloistered interrogation of Bainbridge, interposing it with the applicable law as noted by Justice Bakes and Judge Towles, and, as of *265today, Justice McDevitt. Excerpts from that brief are attached as Appendix A.
Having agreed with what Justice McDevitt has written regarding the seizure and much of the interrogation of Bainbridge, I am unable to agree that, on consideration of the totality of the entire scenario, the causal connection between the illegal seizure and the acquisition of evidence has been broken. Majority Op. p. 235. The quote from Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 488, 83 S.Ct. 407, 417, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963), which follows that principle is here inapplicable simply because the “exploitation of illegality” in the manipulation of Bainbridge never ceased.
Justice McDevitt, at that point, inserts into his opinion three paragraphs from Brown v. Illinois, 442 U.S. 200, 99 S.Ct. 2248, 60 L.Ed.2d 824 (1979), the same Brown which Justice Bakes discussed in his Wyman opinion. One cannot read Brown and disregard it, and disregard United States v. George, 883 F.2d 1407 (9th Cir.1989), and reasonably come to the conclusion that the officers’ long and calculated delay in producing Bainbridge’s parole officer so that the two of them could converse in private (with the police tape recorder recording all that was said) was the “additional significant factor that distinguishes the circumstances of the case from Brown.”
Totally incomprehensible to my mind is that the majority opinion even goes so far as to see nothing amiss in the quoted statements by the officers as they set the stage for the “private visit.” Those remarks not only would have a telling effect upon Bainbridge, but on the parole officer as well. Unmentioned and put out of mind in the majority opinion is any consideration of the long delay in bringing the parole officer together with Bainbridge, and the lack of any explanation, reasonable or not, for the delay. Equally missing is any disclaimer by the parole officer and the two officers that there was no discussion between them as to what best for the prosecution would come out of the “private visit.” Equally not discussed in the majority opinion is that Bainbridge’s diminished mental capacity made him easy prey for any and all manipulative exploitations. Not an iota of thought is given to Bainbridge also having made known that he would like to talk to an attorney.
The trial court’s reason for not suppressing the evidence, as pointed out in my Bainbridge I opinion, 108 Idaho 273, 299, 698 P.2d 335, 461 (1985), was “clearly predicated on the basis that notwithstanding a request to have counsel, Bainbridge thereafter waived that right, and that it was a waiver intelligently and knowingly made.” The trial court’s equivocal ruling was set out immediately preceding the foregoing:
Therefore, even accepting the testimony of Mr. Bainbridge, he at best made an equivocal request for counsel. The record indicates that he was primarily desirous of having his parole officer present, and only wanted an attorney if his parole officer couldn’t be there. He did not clearly assert a right to counsel prior to that interview on the 8th. R., p. 192.
Bainbridge I, 108 Idaho at 299, 698 P.2d at 461. The trial court was thus presented with the opportunity to declare Bainbridge’s testimony incredible, or maybe just not as weighty as that of two officers, but to the court’s credit did not opt for that easy way out.
Justice McDevitt has written, and I am quick to agree, that properly warning Bainbridge of his fifth amendment/Miranda rights was not by itself sufficient to pure the taint of the impermissible “seizure.” Nor is the supposed “significant factor” all that significant. The arrival of and utilization by the two officers of the parole officer has all the earmarks of a hoax, all done at the expense of a person who had been illegally seized, kept for an extended period of time in close custody, denied on his expression of wanting the aid of an attorney, and illegally subjected to continued interrogation by professionals with exceptional ability. “In order to assure the effective assistance of counsel as required by the Sixth Amendment, the state should provide counsel at the earliest feasible time after the accused -is taken into custody.” *266State v. Wutkrich, 112 Idaho 360, 362, 732 P.2d 329, 331 (1987).
If the criminal justice system in Idaho is to be accorded any measure of respect, the integrity of the system can only be maintained here by finally giving this defendant a fair trial.
APPENDIX A
Their intention being to interview the Appellant about the murder, detective Killeen had placed a notification of rights/waiver form in his notebook, and brought it with him into Appellant’s house. The Appellant was presented with the rights/waiver form, and requested to complete and sign the form so that the detectives could talk to him. Apparently at that time, as well as in his subsequent interrogations at the law enforcement building that evening and the following day, Appellant’s rights were neither read nor explained to him verbally by the officers. Simply presenting a proposed interrogee with the rights form and requesting him to initial and sign it was the detective’s standard procedure for both advising and procuring a waiver of a suspect’s Miranda rights. (See, for example, the bottom of page 1 and top of page 2 of the Transcript of Appellant’s 4/9/81 interrogation, where Killeen tells the Appellant: ‘Okay, why don’t you take this and read your rights and go ahead and initial, just like you did yesterday.’ Also, Pfeiffer testified that he simply asked the Appellant to ‘complete the rights form’ at the house. 81 Tr., PTH,* P. 52).
At that time, the Appellant refused to sign the rights form, indicating that he did not want to talk to the detectives at that time. (Tr., Vol. VI, p. 1017,11,1-5) Killeen testified that the Appellant indicated he would ‘probably’ talk to him, but wanted to talk to his parole officer first. (Tr., Vol. VI, p. 1016, 11, 1-7; Tr., PTH, p. 154, 11. 14-25).

. The majority opinion did not explain that the two had been charged jointly and accordingly would have been codefendants at trial. Each had different counsel. Counsel representing Bainbridge filed a disqualification against Judge Robert Newhouse, who continued to preside in proceedings against Sivak. The charge against Bainbridge was tried with Judge Robert M. Rowett presiding.

. On the same page of the Sivak opinion is a reference to string citations of cases found in State v. Creech, 105 Idaho 362, 670 P.2d 463 (1985), which the court declared it had read for enlightenment in making the statutorily mandated proportionality review. Some of the cases cited in that string were not first degree murder cases. One involved only the charge of assault with intent to commit murder. Recently one member of the Court questioned the validity of such rote citation of obviously-not-reviewed older cases, many of which preceded non-jury involvement at capital sentencing. State v. Lankford, 116 Idaho 860, 781 P.2d 197 (1989). I have entertained that same thought.

. This paragraph acknowledges the existence of the Wyman holding, which was wholly unacceptable to Justice Bakes, joined by Justice McQuade. As will be shortly seen, it is obvious that Judge Towles found the views of Justice Bakes to be more in comport with Idaho statutory law and constitutional requirements than the views of the Wyman majority.

The suppression hearing.