Court Opinion

ID: 9628709
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:30:02.163886+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:10.182032
License: Public Domain

GRAY, Justice
(dissenting).
I am not persuaded that the confession of the defendant ought to be clothed with *95the mantle of voluntariness. There are circumstances present which give rise to serious doubt. I will agree at the outset that the facts here in certain respects can be distinguished from the precise holding of the United States Supreme Court in Escobedo v. State of Illinois, 378 U.S. 478, 84 S.Ct. 1758, 12 L.Ed.2d 977—which is with us — and that the important new safeguards laid down in Miranda v. State of Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694—decided subsequent to the instant trial — need not retroactively be applied. Johnson v. State of New Jersey, 384 U.S. 719, 86 S.Ct. 1772, 16 L.Ed.2d 882. Nevertheless, in this case the court went on to say, “the nonretroactivity of these decisions [Escobedo and Miranda] will not preclude persons whose trials have already been completed from invoking the same safeguards as part of an involuntariness claim,” 86 S.Ct. 1779, and that the defendant has done. Thus, as I understand it, the approach here, in view of the factual situation, is to treat the impact of those cases as a factor to be considered, along with others, in testing the voluntariness of the confession. See also Davis v. State of North Carolina, 384 U.S. 737, 86 S.Ct. 1761, 1764, 16 L.Ed.2d 895.
To me the rationale of the foregoing cases, and other cases recently decided by that court, make it clear that the critical question before us is whether or not the State met its burden of establishing that defendant voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently waived her constitutional right to the assistance of counsel and her right to remain silent under police interrogation. That, in my view, is the decisive factor of defendant’s claim. In the quest for a solution to this problem there is first to be put aside, as of little probative force, the ritualistic recital of defendant’s constitutional rights as set forth in the printed material on each page of the confession. Haynes v. State of Washington, 373 U.S. 503, 83 S.Ct. 1336, 1342, 1343, 10 L.Ed.2d 513; Miranda v. State of Arizona, supra, 86 S.Ct. 1637. The testimony of the sheriff that he also advised defendant in ritualistic fashion of her rights is likewise of little assistance on the question of waiver; but he did go further and say that he asked her if she would like to have an attorney or make a telephone call and she answered, “No.” Also, that he asked her if she would like to make a statement “pertaining to the incident” and the defendant answered that she “would like to have someone to talk to and get it off her mind.” The taking of the confession was commenced some forty-seven minutes thereafter. No doubt these circumstances, standing alone, could constitute a waiver. Miranda v. State of Arizona, supra, 86 S.Ct. 1628. Here, however, those circumstances do not stand alone. It is claimed that defendant because of shock and intoxication at the time was without capacity understandingly and intelligently to waive her rights.
While the claim of intoxication of the confessor in the early days of confessions received rather short shrift as grounds for excluding a confession, 23 C.J.S. Criminal Law § 828, pp. 227, 230, and received rather short shrift at the hands of the triers of the fact here, it is my view, nevertheless, that a more meticulous inquiry must now be made into the matter to the extent it bears upon the issue of waiver. In this I think we are no. longer free to apply our own rules and accept as binding the disposition made of the issue by the trial judge or a jury based upon conflicting testimony. We are duty bound to examine the entire record and to make our own independent determination on the ultimate issue. Davis v. State of North Carolina, supra, 86 S.Ct. 1761, 1764. That is not to say, of course, that findings below are not entitled to some weight. Haynes v. State of Washington, supra, 83 S.Ct. 1344.
Inasmuch as we must look to the totality of the circumstances, it will be necessary rather fully to set forth the evidence pertaining to the matter of waiver. No special effort will be made to distinguish between the testimony offered at the separate voluntariness hearing before the trial judge *96and that adduced in the trial before the jury. In all fairness to the trial judge, however, it is pointed out that the only testimony he had before him in contravention of the State’s evidence on the question of sobriety was defendant’s own statement that she was drunk at the time the statement was taken and remembered little about it, except she did talk to the sheriff. Perhaps it would be well here to set forth the gist of her testimony. When asked about the circumstance she said, “Mr. Bates, I don’t know a thing. I don’t remember one thing I said to the man. I was asleep. I was drunk. I had been drinking for three solid days when he picked me up. I don’t remember a thing in the world about it.” Later she testified that she started drinking the evening of the twenty-second. She remembered being put in jail and that she “went to sleep.” She had no idea how long, but they awakened her and gave her some coffee and the sheriff said “he wanted to take a statement.” She did not, to her knowledge, discuss anything about attorneys or her constitutional right concerning use of the statement.
Turning now to the continuity of the testimony on defendant’s drinking, I start with defendant’s uncontradicted statement that she started drinking the evening of the day preceding the day of the shooting. She had some beer the next morning and that afternoon went to a private club in Rawlins. The bartender testified that he served her a couple of beers; that she was drunk; that she staggered; and at about 4:00 p. m., after she had gone out to the car and had come back, he refused to serve her more because he thought “she might go out in the car and sit down there and get sober.” The wife of the bartender was there and said defendant was “intoxicated” and it was “noticeable.” She went out to the car with defendant and offered to take her home or to a motel but defendant refused. The witness observed four or five cans of beer in a six-pack on the floor of the car. The defendant’s conversation was not exactly “intelligent.”
Later that evening the defendant’s erratic driving of the car was brought to the attention of police officer Jacobson. According to the officer, he pulled up alongside defendant’s car at a “drive-in” and asked to see her driver’s license. Before she got it out he ascertained she was in no condition to drive and told her so. He testified, “She spoke loudly and incoherently,” he could smell alcohol, “her eyes were glazed,” and he smelled liquor. The inside of the car was a mess. There was food scattered around and a bottle of whiskey in the car, lying on the back seat. It was a half-pint and was half empty. He informed her she was under arrest for driving under the influence, but she paid no attention to him and also she paid no attention when he ordered her to get out and get into the police car. He said she then saw a car traveling east on the highway and told him the driver was a neighbor. He waved him over and it was a young man by the name of Smith. Smith said he knew the defendant and was a next-door neighbor, but defendant said she “didn’t want to go home, she’d rather go to jail.” Jacobson told her, “O.K., get in the police car,” but she didn’t move and finally he had the Smith boy drive the police car and he drove her car to the courthouse. The officer said when defendant got out of the car, “She couldn’t walk straight. She had to lean against the car.” He took her arm and helped her into the sheriff’s office and sat her down in the chair. He also said, “She was jabbering quite a bit but it didn’t make much sense,” and, “There was nothing tangible in what she was saying.”
She was booked in at the sheriff’s office at 7:40 p. m. for drunk driving. Deputy Cobb made out the arrest card and testified that while defendant was continually talking and kidding, “She spoke quite intelligently” and was not like most drunks that are brought in. The sheriff said he also talked to her at that time and “her speech was very clear. It wasn’t slurred.” At about 9:00 p. m. defendant’s husband arrived and put up bond; then defendant *97was released. They started for Sinclair in their car. According to the defendant the deceased stopped the car on the way and defendant got out and tried to “flag” down a car to take her back to Rawlins. This is verified by a call to the sheriff’s office at 9:20 p. m. Defendant met with no success and got into the back seat of the car. While defendant does not remember having taken a drink on the way, the half-filled bottle of whiskey was there so far as the evidence shows.
When the couple arrived at their home in Sinclair about 9:30 p. m. their next-door neighbor, Lois Smith, was in her yard and observed defendant getting out of the car. As she rather vividly described it, the defendant climbed out of the car; “supported herself for a minute”; and then “aimed herself for the house and took off.” She staggered on the way. Within some fifteen minutes defendant had shot her husband, and the sheriff and Leonard Meach-am, the warden of the penitentiary, arrived on the scene.
After a brief conversation with the wounded husband, the sheriff went into the house and told defendant “she was under arrest for shooting her husband.” The sheriff said defendant was nervous and talkative but he did not smell alcohol. Later he said she had been drinking but was not “intoxicated.” The witness Meacham said it was apparent to him that defendant had been drinking; that her breath had a “pronounced odor” but her speech “was very good actually”; and that she seemed to be steady on her feet and wasn’t “staggering.” At 10:05 p. m. defendant was again booked in at the sheriff’s office, and according to the arrest card was charged with “2nd Degree Murder,” which later was changed to “1st” Degree. While it is true the sheriff testified that the “charge” portion of the card was left blank at that time, his testimony discloses that his recollection of the matter was not clear. He first said the second degree charge was typed in by mistake of the radio operator, Deputy Cobb, and that the change by inter-lineation was made the next morning. Cobb, when called by the State, testified that the card was made out by him when the defendant was brought in and he said nothing about leaving any blanks on the card.
At 10:52 p. m. Miss Sanchez, the sheriff’s secretary, accompanied the sheriff up to the kitchen in the jail where the statement was taken. She hadn’t seen defendant when they brought her in and defendant was in a cell. She testified the sheriff brought the defendant out of the cell and took her into the kitchen. When asked if she observed defendant’s condition as to sobriety she answered, “I don’t know what that means, sir.” When asked what she observed, she said defendant was nervous, was shaky, and “Seemed like she had been crying,” and that “I did not know she had been drinking. She did not seem to be drunk at that time.” She stated, “She walked perfectly well I think.”
A psychiatrist called by the defense testified on cross-examination that “There is evidence in her history of drinking since her teens, and there is evidence of drinking for two or three days duration and a sort of irresponsible, don’t care what happens manner.”
From the foregoing it can be seen that even the matter of defendant’s intoxication was indeed a close question. Assuming, however, that the trier of the facts was nevertheless entitled to find that the defendant, at the time the statement was taken, was not “drunk” or “intoxicated” in the usual sense in which those terms are used, that to me does not furnish a completely satisfactory answer to the precise question before us. There remains to be determined the question of whether or not the defendant, apparently afflicted with alcoholism, was capable after the consumption of alcohol over the lengthy period of time shown of forming a rational judgment with respect to the exercise of the rights accorded her by the Constitution of the United States and the consequences of foregoing the assertion of those rights. *98That she was seems highly improbable, as I view it.
In the first instance the record does not show that defendant was ever before seriously involved in criminal matters or with the police or that she had any understanding of such matters. Thus, her undenied statement that she promptly fell asleep under the circumstances in which she found herself when placed in a cell and was awakened for purposes of making the statement is scarcely indicative of a person fully aware of all that her surroundings entailed. Bear in mind, also, the additional factor that she was simply asked for a statement “pertaining to the incident.” She was not told prior to the completion of the statement that her husband was dead, which surely became known to the authorities between 10:15 p. m., the time of death, and 10:52 p. m., and that she was booked into jail for his murder.
Under all of the circumstances, I am unable to agree that the State’s showing was sufficient to establish that the statement taken was voluntary and proceeded “from the spontaneous suggestion of the party’s own mind, free from the influence of any extraneous disturbing cause.” State v. Jones, 73 Wyo. 122, 276 P.2d 445, 455.
I would reverse the judgment and grant a new trial.