Court Opinion

ID: 9452583
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:45:13.483174+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:16.564062
License: Public Domain

McGOWAN, Circuit Judge.
Appellant and another were indicted under 18 U.S.C. § 500 which is addressed to various fraudulent transactions in respect of postal money orders. The co-defendant was charged with falsely altering the face amounts of four such orders; and appellant, together with the co-defendant, was charged with falsely uttering such orders at four different liquor stores in the District of Columbia. Reversal of appellant’s conviction is sought here on two grounds deriving from the admission in evidence of both oral and written confessions. One such ground is an asserted deprivation of a Sixth Amendment right to counsel; and the other is founded in Rule 5(a), Fed.R. Crim.P. It is the latter which we think merits examination in some detail hereinafter.1 Our conclusion is that, on this record, the conviction may stand.
*287I
The Government’s case was initially developed by testimony showing that the four money orders had been issued on April 25, 1964, in the face amount of $2 each. When presented at the liquor stores, alteration had been effected by the insertion of a digit before the “2”. The sender was shown to be a “Mrs. Rosia Lorenzo,” and the recipient was listed as “Angelo C. Lorenzo.” Each order had been endorsed in the latter name, the utteror having introduced himself as Angelo Lorenzo and having used as identification a Maryland driver’s license issued to Angelo Lorenzo.
The four liquor store owners testified. Three felt they could not positively identify anyone and could not be sure whether the forger was in the courtroom. Only one was completely positive in his courtroom identification of appellant as the man who had cashed the orders. This witness testified on cross-examination that a few days after the discovery of the forgery a postal inspector had visited his store and exhibited to him a “display” ■ of pictures.2
At this point in the trial the jury was dismissed and the prosecution called Postal Inspector Ohrvall. He testified that the forged money orders came to his attention around April 29, and that on July 9, in company with Inspector Diserod, he went to Baltimore to see appellant who was in the custody of the Maryland authorities on another criminal charge. Appellant was brought to an office-like room in the jail to meet his visitors. Ohrvall identified himself and his companion, stated the purpose of their call to be that of inquiring about forged money orders, and produced the orders.3 Ohrvall’s testimony was that, upon being shown the orders, appellant immediately said that he had passed them and that the *288endorsements were his. Ohrvall thereafter asked appellant if he would “give a written statement” to the same effect, and appellant said he would. This statement was, so it is said, written by appellant in his own hand in a half-hour or less.
With this testimony taken in the hearing out of the presence of the jury, the prosecutor suggested to the court that defense counsel should indicate the basis of his objections to admissibility in order that relevant evidence might be introduced. Counsel replied that he was going to object on voluntariness grounds in that the admissions were coerced by reason of promises to see to it that appellant would be sent to the federal facilities at Lexington, Kentucky, and also because of appellant’s incompetency in terms of his physical or mental condition. Counsel further stated that “these statements were made before he was formally charged with any crime, before he was indicted, while he was incarcerated, had been incarcerated for about ten days on another charge, and as a result thereof, he was under the Mallory 4 logic, and so forth. These were the fruit of an illegal detainment in so far as these charges were concerned and a speedy trial did not result therefrom and, therefore, they cannot be produced for that.”
The taking of testimony with the jury absent was then resumed. Upon the completion of the examination of Inspector Ohrvall, the defense called a psychiatrist from St. Elizabeths to support the claim of incompetency. Appellant then took the stand and testified at length. His direct examination was concerned with matters bearing upon the alleged coercion by promises and the asserted incompeteney. In the course of his testimony, he did say that he had agreed to talk with Inspector Ohrvall on the occasion of the latter’s visit to the Baltimore jail, that he had at that time admitted passing the money orders, and that he had complied with a request to write down that admission. He stated from the stand that these pre-trial admissions were true.
With the evidence on admissibility in, the judge asked defense counsel to state, in the light of that evidence, his precise objections to admissibility. Counsel’s response was:
Your Honor, counsel for the Government has quite clearly defined the two bases upon which we request that the confession be suppressed. Number one, that it was involuntary because a promise was given and other external influences were working upon the mind of the Defendant at the time that he gave these statements; and secondly, that he was suffering from a mental defect or a mental illness at the time.
 The court then ruled that the evidence did not establish these objections.5 Before calling the jury back in, however, the court asked defense counsel if he were abandoning his Mallory contentions. Counsel’s first response was that he was not abandoning, but merely relying upon what he considered to be his strongest points. Pressed further by the court, counsel closed the colloquy by saying that he was still resting upon Mallory because, as he put it, the admissions were made in July and appellant was not in-*289dieted until September or November.6 The judge then ruled that the evidence before him did not establish a violation of Rule 5(a); and he stated again his adverse rulings on the objections of incompetency and coercion. He concluded by noting that the issue of involuntariness would in due course be presented to, and passed upon by, the jury.
After the trial resumed before the jury, defense counsel notified the court that he had decided to defend upon the ground of insanity alone, and that he did not want the court to instruct the jury that it could consider the question of the voluntariness of the admissions. Counsel expressly reaffirmed this position after the evidence was all in and instructions were being discussed. He also told the jury in his opening statement, made after the Government had rested, that the defense was insanity, and, in his closing argument, he said:
In my opening statement earlier, yesterday, as counsel for the Government suggested, we conceded, based upon the overwhelming evidence, that the Defendant LaShine did commit the alleged crimes. I didn’t come out and say this. I suggested this. At this time we will concede it. He did commit these crimes. But your duty is to consider the defense and the defense that we have raised is insanity.
II
As indicated earlier, we find no warrant in the record for overturning the trial court’s findings and conclusions with respect to the central objection of voluntariness, in terms of both coercion by promise and competency, initially lodged against the admissions, if indeed that issue was still in the case after the decision by the defense not to pursue it before the jury. We also put to one side the not insubstantial question of whether the essential purposes of Rule 5(a) are irretrievably compromised when there is a judicial admission to both court and jury of a fact which has earlier been claimed to be the subject of an improper extra-judicial statement.
We do think, however, that the tactical course pursued by the defense after the hearing out of the jury’s presence illuminates the motivations with which that hearing was sought in the first place, and goes far towards explaining why the presentation by appellant of facts relevant to Rule 5 (a) was meagre indeed. The question we decide is whether, on the record made at that hearing, the judge demonstrably erred in finding that exclusion was not dictated by Rule 5(a). The evidence before him did not establish that, when Inspector Ohrvall set out for Baltimore, he had probable cause to arrest appellant. All that we know from the record is that one liquor store owner had apparently been visited theretofore by some otherwise unidentified postal inspector and had apparently picked appellant’s picture out of a group of pictures exhibited to him. There is nothing in the record as to whether the same exhibition was made to the other three victims, although it is interesting to note that they were the three who could not positively identify appellant in the courtroom; if they had similarly failed in a photograph display, there would be all the more reason to approach appellant directly by way of investigation. In any event, that is precisely what Ohrvall did, and with appellant’s conceded consent. One question was enough to elicit the all-important admission of guilt by appellant when confronted with the money orders.7 Certainly as to this oral confession, we can*290not say that the judge erred in his determination of admissibility.8
Neither in this court nor in the trial court has there been a differentiation by the defense between the oral confession, on the one hand, and the written statement, on the other. Although the latter appears to contain more details, the oral admission is unequivocal and complete in its impact on the issue of guilt or innocence. If the oral admission was forthcoming without a violation of Rule 5(a), then the admission of the written statement does not compel reversal unless the latter itself was either involuntary 9 or the fruit of an unnecessary delay within the time limitations of Rule 5(a). The trial judge’s findings on voluntariness remain undisturbed; and it is not true that Rule 5(a) is automatically violated by the reduction to writing of an oral admission. The particular circumstances of that reduction may, on occasion, verge into the area of delay forbidden by Rule 5(a), in which event the admission of the written statement in addition to the oral will normally necessitate reversal. Cunningham v. United States, 119 U.S.App.D.C. 262, 340 F.2d 787 (1964); Watson v. United States, 98 U.S.App.D.C. 221, 234 F.2d 42 (1956). But such circumstances are not shown by this record.
The record, we remind, is unusual to the point of novelty, both in the conduct of the defense after the non-jury hearing and in the degree to which the defense in that hearing was preoccupied with its non-Mallory objections. The two things are not unrelated, and the net impression is one of a defendant who, from the outset, was more interested in establishing the defense of insanity than in resisting the proof of his commission of the acts charged.
Affirmed.

. The right to counsel point was never raised by the defense at the trial. Although the Mallory objection was both subordinate and obscure in its articulation, we are not disposed to treat it, the Government to the contrary, as not having been raised at all. By no stretch of the imagination, however, can it be expanded to include a Sixth Amendment claim. A reference to Escobedo v. United States, 378 U.S. 478, 84 S.Ct. 1758, 12 U.Ed.2d 977 (1964), was volunteered by the trial court, in the course of its final rulings at the close of the hearing out of the jury’s presence, by way of observation that no Escobedo problem had been disclosed by the evidence just heard. In any event, we think this comment, although not necessitated by any defense objection, is not inaccurate in the light of the Supreme Court’s characterization of Escobedo in Johnson & Cassidy v. State of New Jersey, 384 U.S. 719, 86 S.Ct. 1772, 16 L. Ed.2d 882 (1966). This court has declined to give retroactive effect to Miranda v. State of Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602 (1966); and we see no compelling reason to do so here. See Coleman v. United States, 125 U.S.App.D.C. ■ — ■, 371 F.2d 343 (1966), cert, denied 385 U.S. 1027, 87 S.Ct. 979, 17 L.Ed.2d 875 (Feb. 27, 1967) ; and see Luckett v. United States, No. 19,911, decided July 12, 1966, argued before Miranda and in which we received a supplemental memorandum requesting its application. In this latter case, we affirmed by order, citing Johnson & Cassidy.

. It was thus approximately two weeks after the forgery that the store owner was given the opportunity to identify appellant.

. Appellant alleges that the warning given him by the postal inspectors was insufficient, as a matter of law, to properly apprise him of his rights. A careful reading of the transcript does not support this allegation. During the course of a hearing out of the presence of the jury, Inspector Ohrvall testified, albeit somewhat ambiguously, that he first orally warned the defendant that he did not have to make a statement and then produced a typewritten card purporting to advise appellant concerning all of his rights, which the appellant read and acknowledged understanding. Any doubt concerning the timing of these warnings is dispelled by the Inspector’s testimony in the presence of the jury where he made clear that he immediately advised the appellant that no statement need be made:
Q. Will you tell the ladies and gentlemen what you said to the defendant when you met him for the first time?
How did the conversation start?
A. I identified myself as a United State Postal Inspector; I displayed my commission; introduced Inspector Diserod; and I told Mr. LaShine that I wanted to interview him with regards to these money orders which were in my possession and under investigation.
I advised him that he did not have to make a statement and produced a piece of paper on which was typewritten a statement to that effect.
Q. All right. Did you show him that statement?
A. Yes, sir.
The statement on the card referred to by Inspector Ohrvall read:
I make this statement of my own free will in order that the truth be known. No threats, promises or inducements have been made to me. I have been advised of my right to counsel and I am aware that this statement may be used in a court of law.
That LaShine understood the import of what he read is perfectly clear from his own testimony:
Q. Mr. LaShine, you told us that the Inspector brought out a card that he had in his wallet, is that correct?
A. He showed me a card.
Q. And did you read it?
A. Yes, I read it.
Q. Calling on your recollection, can you tell the Judge today what was on that card? I don’t mean word-for-word. We don’t expect you to do that, but can you tell the Judge generally what was on it?
A. That anything I might say may be brought against me and that I was *288advised of my rights of counsel and there has been no promises or inducements made.
ij: sis * * sfs
Q. Now do you recall very clearly that when you read that you were advised of your right to counsel, don’t you?
A. Yes, It was on there.

. Mallory v. United States, 354 U.S. 449, 77 S.Ct. 1356, 1 L.Ed.2d 1479 (1957).

. There was ample record evidence for the judge’s finding that no promises or inducements were given to the appellant. During the hearing outside the presence of the jury, appellant, under questioning by the Assistant United States Attorney, reaffirmed that he gave the statement voluntarily:
Q. Going back to where it says, “No threats, promises or inducements have been made to me,” when you wrote that on there, Mr. LaShine, was that a true statement?
A. I believed it to be true.
Q. It was true?
A. Yes.

. This circumstance has no relevance to Rule 5(a), and is of a piece with the failure of the defense to try to develop a record relevant to Mallory.

. Appellant displayed a willingness to confess that is startling at first glance. His motives are more adequately revealed by a close examination of his testimony:
Q. * * *
Now, you gave the Postal Inspector this statement and you told him you committed these crimes because you wanted to tell him the truth, didn’t you?
A. Because I wanted to go to Lexington, Kentucky, [the federal hospital *290for drug addicts] and I thought that is the way I would go there.
Q. You thought you would get to Lexington if the Federal Government brought a prosecution?
A. Right.
Q. You were really hoping to be prosecuted by the Federal Government?
A. If the Government prosecuted me.

. Appellant, in his brief, cites us to a number of cases which he says demand reversal. In Greenwell v. United States, 119 U.S.App.D.C. 43, 336 F.2d 962 (1964), on which he principally relies, the arrest was made on the authority of an outstanding federal warrant. There could be no question of probable cause. In the other decisions appellant urges as controlling, probable cause was apparent, and an arrest was in fact made. See Alston v. United States, 121 U.S.App.D.C. 66, 348 F.2d 72 (1965); Spriggs v. United States, 118 U.S.App.D.C. 248, 335 F.2d 283 (1964); Coleman v. United States, 115 U.S.App.D.C. 191, 317 F.2d 891 (1963); Mitchell v. United States, 114 U.S.App. D.C. 353, 316 F.2d 354 (1963). In affirming appellant’s conviction, we in no way indicate that we accept the Government’s contention that, once a suspect is legally detained by another arm of government, he can be questioned at will concerning other crimes without being taken before a committing magistrate. See Edmonds v. United States, 106 U.S. App.D.C. 373, 273 F.2d 108 (en banc 1959); United States v. Coppollo, 281 F.2d 340 (2d Cir. en banc 1960), aff’d, 365 U.S. 762, 81 S.Ct. 884, 6 L.Ed.2d 79 (per curiam 1961). Compare Jones (Short & Jones) v. United States, 119 U.S.App.D.C. 284, 342 F.2d 863 (en banc 1964).

. In Haynes v. State of Washington, 373 U.S. 503, 513, 83 S.Ct. 1336, 1343, 10 L.Ed.2d 513 (1963), Mr. Justice Goldberg, writing for the Court, stated: The uncontroverted portions of the record thus disclose that the petitioner’s written confession was obtained in an atmosphere of substantial coercion and inducement created by statements and actions of state authorities. We have only recently held again that a confession obtained by police through the use of threats is violative of due process and that “the question in each case is whether the defendant’s will was overborne at the time he confessed,” Lynumn v. State of Illinois, 372 U.S. 528, 534, 83 S.Ct. 917, 920, 9 L.Ed.2d 920, 922. “In short, the true test of admissibility is that the confession is made freely, voluntarily, and without compulsion or inducement of any sort.” Wilson v. United States, 162 U.S. 613, 623, 16 S.Ct. 895, 40 L.Ed. 1090. See also Bram v. United States, 168 U.S. 532, 18 S.Ct. 183, 42 L.Ed. 568.