Court Opinion

ID: 9451231
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:10:43.163184+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:37.392919
License: Public Domain

ANDERSON, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I dissent from the majority opinion because I interpret Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478, 78 S.Ct. 1758 (1964) to mean that, under the circumstances of this case, when Agent Giovino at about noon on September 17, 1962, started to question Robinson, Robinson’s Sixth Amendment right to the assistance of counsel attached. Because Giovino failed to warn Robinson of his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent, to advise him that anything he said might be used as evidence against him and to warn him of his Sixth Amendment right to the assistance of counsel, and because Robinson was interrogated without actually having the assistance of counsel, which he had not waived and to which he was then constitutionally entitled, Robinson’s inculpatory statement, that some of the money used by his co-defendant Anita Daniels to purchase the narcotics was his, should have been excluded.
At that point Robinson had been in police custody and under arrest for an hour and twenty minutes. He had been taken to the police station. The search of his person and his baggage had been concluded. There was sufficient evidence for a finding of probable cause for the arrest of Robinson and his presentation before a commissioner. The investigation was continued through the questioning by Agent Giovino, in the presence of Serg’t Gavin, neither of whom had participated in Robinson’s arrest or the search of his person or baggage. The questions were not incidental to the arrest or the search but were a process -of interrogation the purpose of which was to get an admission from Robinson of his financial participation in the purchase of the narcotics. Gavin testified concerning the questioning of Robinson by Giovino as follows:
“Q. Could you tell us what the conversations were ? A. Agent Giovino asked Robinson whose money was used in New York City to purchase the narcotics that were found on Anita. George said it was hers.
Q. Pardon? A. Robinson said it was her money.
* -x * * *• *
Q. What else was said, if anything? A. Giovino then asked the *117question, ‘Do you mean to tell me that you went all the way to New York and back with her, and none of your money was in there?’ Robinson replied, ‘Some of the money was mine.’ ”
The general principle for which Escobedo stands is stated at the end of the opinion where the Court said, “[w]e hold only that when the process shifts from investigatory to accusatory — when it is focused on the accused and its purpose is to elicit a confession — our adversary system begins to operate, * * The Court then went on to say that under the facts and circumstances of the case before them the accused, Escobedo, should have been permitted to consult with his lawyer. We cannot very well limit the significance of Escobedo to recurrences of exactly the same facts and ignore the statement of the general principle or pretend it isn’t there. The problem is, of course, to apply the principle to differing fact situations.
It is particularly difficult to determine in a specific case the precise time when the right to the assistance of counsel takes hold. After it has, unless the suspect “competently and intelligently” waives his rights, any statements resulting from the interrogation must be excluded at the trial; and in most cases, if the suspect has not been properly warned, there is nothing in the evidence to show that he had knowledge of the rights he is supposed to have waived. In considering when the right to counsel attaches, the words “when the process shifts from investigatory to accusatory” invoke the mental concept of the complete cessation of one clearly conceived kind of interrogation and the adoption of another kind, equally clear, but quite distinct in nature and purpose. The duty of the police to investigate, however, commences with notice that a crime has been committed and only ends at the close of the evidence in the trial itself, although pertinent interrogation of an accused who does not have the assistance of counsel terminates at his preliminary examination mandated under Rule 5, Fed.R. Crim.P., or his acquisition of counsel, whichever first occurs. Moreover, whatever the subject matter of the questioning may be, or whatever course it may take, the investigators are undoubtedly hopeful and desirous of obtaining a quick solution of the crime by getting a full confession or admission of inculpatory facts, and the intent to accomplish this is never far below the surface. In this sense all interrogation of a suspect or of one arrested for crime is a process “that lends itself to eliciting incriminating statements,” but this is not in itself reprehensible and is consistent with the investigator’s duty. Neither of these considerations, standing alone, brings a case within the scope of Escobedo. Under its rationale as Judge Waterman and I understand it, the Sixth Amendment right to counsel attaches somewhere between the arrest and the Rule 5 proceedings, just when and where, depends on the circumstances of each case. It attaches after sufficient evidence has been uncovered to constitute probable cause and after supplemental questioning of a casual nature (i. e., short of “a process of interrogation” characterized as a grilling) incidental to the arrest or a search and seizure, and close to it in time and place. It attaches when, thereafter, the interrogation becomes accusatory. Escobedo holds that the coúrse of the questioning becomes accusatory when it is directed at the suspect with the assumption that he is the guilty person, and the nature and tone of the questions or the surrounding circumstances make it reasonably clear that the investigator is trying to get him to confess that he is the guilty person. It is then that “[the] adversary system begins to operate * * Although Escobedo had not been indicted or even formally charged, the Supreme Court said that he “had become the accused.” That is to say, he had become the accused in the eyes of his interrogators. Likewise, it is apparent from the questions directed at Robinson by Giovino, that in the eyes of *118Giovino, Robinson had become the accused.
All of the essential factors upon which the Escobedo decision rested1 are present in this case with the exception of one, and that is that “the suspect has requested and been denied an opportunity to consult with his lawyer.” It seems very unlikely that the Supreme Court intended that the absence of this factor would render the holding inoperative. The constitutional right to counsel does not depend on a formal request. Carnley v. Cochran, 369 U.S. 506, 514, 82 S.Ct. 884, 8 L.Ed.2d 70 (1962); Harvey v. State of Mississippi, 340 F.2d 263, 269 (5 Cir. 1965); U. S. ex rel. Russo v. State of New Jersey, 351 F.2d 429 (3d Cir. 1965). There could be no waiver because there was no warning and no evidence that Robinson was aware of his right to counsel.
In Williams v. United States, 345 F.2d 733, 735 (D.C.Cir. 1965), Judge Burger in a concurring opinion said,
“Its [Escobedo’s] concern is to exclude the incriminating statements of a defendant whose situation meets the carefully articulated tests set out above [footnote 1]: his own uncounseled incriminating words may not be used against him at trial if they were elicited by purposeful police interrogation without prior warning of his right to silence and right to counsel.”
In the case of United States v. Cone, decided today by this court, and in which I concurred in the result, there were a number of features which distinguish it from the present case of United States v. Robinson. In Cone the confession by the accused was made within a few minutes of the time when he was apprehended and arrested. It occurred a short distance from the place of arrest while the accused and the narcotics agents were waiting on the sidewalk for a government automobile to pick them up. When taken into custody, Cone had told the agents that someone must have put the bottle of marijuana in his coat; Cone also denied having seen the package, containing marijuana, which was under his chair at the place where he was arrested; he had denied all knowledge of both items of narcotics. While waiting on the sidewalk Agent McNeil spoke to Cone as follows:
“I asked him, I said, I told him that we knew that the package was for him. We had had information that it was, and we had delivered it to him, and it was delivered to him by one of the — by the party who had gotten it and he told us it was for him, and he says, Well, he said, ‘All right, I’ll admit it that it was for me,' that he had gone down to Panama just a couple of weeks, just prior to that, and he had made this arrangement to—
Q. Tell us, in his words. A. He said he had gone down to Panama with the express purpose of making a dollar out of this deal. He had gone down to Panama and he had set up before he went to send the packages to three people; that was Moser, Spencer and Kenneth Kaufman.
Q. Did he tell you how many packages he sent? A. He said he sent ten. It was eight, eight or ten, he wasn’t sure.
*119Q. Did he say anything else ? A. He said that there was several more packages in his apartment and he agreed that we go over there and get them.”
The agent was pointing out to Cone that the Government had information in direct contradiction to Cone’s disclaimer of any knowledge of the matter. It was a casual conversation induced by the accused’s own statements. It was incidental to the detention and arrest and does not fall within the proscription of Escobedo which does not prohibit the police from questioning a person detained to give him an opportunity to explain himself and to assure themselves that they have the right man. It was not “purposeful police interrogation” aimed at extracting from the accused incriminating statements, as was Agent Giovino’s questioning of Robinson. McNeil, Cone’s interrogator, had, unlike Giovino, participated in the arrest of Cone and knew first hand the circumstances of the arrest and what was said and done by Cone. The conversation between Agent McNeil and Cone was a natural outgrowth and response to those circumstances. Such a casual conversation, incidental to the arrest, and at a very early stage of the investigation, even though it resulted in a confession by the suspect, was not “a process of interrogation” which had become “accusatory” or signalized the beginning of “the operation of the adversary system.” ■ In the present case, however, the questioning of Robinson was. In the light of Escobedo he was entitled to the assistance of counsel, but he was neither advised of his right, nor did he have the opportunity to get counsel, nor did he, in fact, have one present. Under those circumstances his inculpatory statement should have been excluded.
The judgment of conviction should be reversed and the case should be remanded for a new trial. Judge Waterman concurs in this opinion.

. “We hold, therefore, that where, as here, the investigation is no longer a general inquiry into an unsolved crime but has begun to focus on a particular suspect, the suspect has been taken into police custody, the police carry out a process of interrogations that lends itself to eliciting incriminating statements, the suspect has requested and been denied an opportunity to consult with his lawyer, and the police have not effectively warned him of his absolute constitutional right to remain silent, the accused has been denied ‘the Assistance of Counsel’ in violation of the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution * * Escobedo v. Illinois, supra, 378 U.S. at 490, 491, 84 S.Ct. at 1765.