Court Opinion

ID: 9449632
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:17:27.680849+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:54.980269
License: Public Domain

LUMBARD, Chief Judge
(concurring).
Following the mandate of the Supreme Court expressed in Haynes v. Washington, 373 U.S. 503, 83 S.Ct. 1336, 10 L.Ed.2d 513 (1963) and earlier cases discussed in Judge SMITH’S opinion, we are compelled to nullify the administration of criminal justice by the State of New York whereby Samuel Tito Williams was found guilty of murder in the first degree in beating to death a 15-year old girl who discovered him burglarizing the bedroom in which she and her younger brother were sleeping. A reading of the record amply confirms the opinion of Mr. Justice Black, expressed when this case was before the Supreme Court on another question, that: .“The evidence proved a wholly indefensible murder committed by a person engaged in a burglary,” 337 U.S. 241 at 243, 69 S.Ct. at 1081, 93 L.Ed. *701337 (1949). It is almost certain that as a result of our action, taken more than 16 years after the murder, Williams will escape justice for the taking of a life; worse still, he may be set free to endanger others.
We prohibit New York from using Williams’ confession because it has been established by the Supreme Court that Williams’ right to due process at the hands of the state prohibits the use of a confession obtained only after some 18 or 19 hours of detention and continuous questioning by the police. The undisputed circumstances of such detention and questioning are now considered to be so inherently coercive as to support by themselves the claim that Williams’ confession was not voluntary. It follows that the state may not use the confession in a criminal proceeding.
Cases such as this raise a very serious question, whether the states are powerless to make the kind of inquiry which will bring to justice those who rob at night and murder their victims leaving no witness who can identify them. As a judge who must pass upon these cases where federal court intervention is sought, I cannot concur without pointing out that the courts have been left to make rules and apply constitutional standards with little, if any, real knowledge or guidance regarding the difficulties which face the police in solving such crimes in our crowded metropolitan centers. Moreover, Congress and the legislatures have failed to make appropriate inquiry and statutory provision to meet the situation.
Statistics issued by highly respected agencies of federal, state and city governments constantly remind us that there has been and continues to be a disturbing increase in crimes of violence, especially in the large cities, and that an increasing percentage of these crimes remains unsolved and unpunished. Is the increase in crime due in part to the fact that an increasingly smaller percentage of serious crimes is being solved? Why is it becoming more and more difficult to protect the public against such crimes of violence? Is it because it has become more difficult in recent years to obtain sufficient evidence of guilt? Have federal court decisions protecting individual constitutional rights made it unduly difficult for law enforcement agencies?
We should not continue to disregard these and similar pertinent problems. No society organized under law would be worthy of the name if it could not afford adequate protection against crimes of violence to its law-abiding citizens. In the long run no community will tolerate a situation where its citizens are fearful of going upon the streets alone at night, where a knock on the door strikes terror in defenseless householders and where a citizen feels that to protect himself and his family he must be prepared to take the law into his own hands. Before any self-respecting community permits such a condition to develop it will re-examine its administration of criminal justice, and even constitutional safeguards as the courts have construed them, lest in the desire to protect individual rights the larger and greater rights of all the people to be secure in their persons and in their homes becomes secondary.
Is it not possible for the states to study and adopt measures which would better protect suspects against coercive and improper police conduct during detention and at the same time give the police adequate time and proper means for investigating serious crimes, particularly murder?
Here a night prowler entered a backyard sometime after 1 A.M. on April 20, 1947, armed himself with an iron bar, forced open a window and entered the Graff apartment on the ground floor of 143 East 96th Street in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. He was ransacking the bedroom when 15-year old Selma Graff woke up and grappled with him. He took the 2-foot iron bar and beat her into unconsciousness; she died a few hours later. Although Selma’s 10-year old brother knew what was happening in the darkened room he could not identify the assailant. The killer fled, leaving behind the iron bar, a flashlight wrapped *71in orange paper, and a twig tom from a bush in the yard and used to hold down the window shade.
More than four months after the murder, at 2:30 A.M. on September 8, 1947, a police patrol operating about one-half mile from the Graff neighborhood noticed Williams coming from a back alley off Howard Avenue. The police had earlier been informed that a prowler had been seen in this vicinity. Since there had been many unsolved robberies in these neighborhoods, as is apparent from the record, particularly from cross-examination of Williams at his trial, and since Williams’ explanation of his presence on Howard Avenue was apparently unsatisfactory, the police took him into custody and found a pencil flashlight in his possession.1
Williams was then taken to the apartment where he was boarding, at 122 Sut-ter Avenue, where the police apparently found in his room numerous articles which supported their suspicions. Williams had no employment at the time and had not been working for many weeks. The police took him to a nearby station house where he was questioned by patrolmen and by detectives. Apparently numerous people were called to the station house to see whether they could identify Williams or some of the objects found in his room. This procedure took many hours as the persons involved had to be located at home or at their places of work. It was the strategy of the police— quite understandable under the circumstances — first to question Williams about other burglaries before asking him about the entry of the Graff apartment, and it was not until sometime after 7:00 P.M. that any questions about the Selma Graff murder were put to Williams.
The police now have little or no guide either under New York law or federal court decisions from which they can determine with any safety how long they may detain and question a suspect under such circumstances as we find here. That there was good reason to detain and question Williams is abundantly clear. Anyone prowling in a back alley at 2:00 A.M., with a pencil flashlight, some distance from his own home, in a neighborhood where numerous robberies have been reported, ought to be detained and questioned. The process of questioning is futile unless it can be done in some privacy, and where all relevant information is available, so that the suspect may be confronted with minimum delay. Such measures are necessary to *72apprehend violators and indeed in order to clear suspects of suspicion.
Law enforcement authorities ought to be empowered to question, to test, to confront and to identify witnesses and suspects for some reasonable period of time. Anything less than such means of inquiry would render the police powerless to protect the public.
Of course one who chooses not to speak may not be compelled to do so. However, the fact is that with but rare exceptions even those with criminal records or associations usually are willing to answer questions put to them by police authorities.2 Even answers which are false or only partly truthful may be of great value in the process of investigation, just as they are useful in cross-examination upon trial.
There is nothing immoral or unreasonable in expecting that many suspects, when confronted with incriminating evidence, or with someone who identifies them will admit their transgressions. All of the world’s great religions teach in one form or another that confession is good for the soul and that by making confession one may be absolved, in part at least.3 Ever since 42 B.C. it has been a maxim that “Confession of our faults is the next thing to innocency.” 4 A duty to confess is ingrained in all of us to some extent, so much so that to many people telling the truth and “coming clean” satisfies a basic spiritual need of one who has transgressed and provides a measure of relief. Nor is it improper or immoral for police officers, under a duty to solve a crime, to urge a suspect to tell what he knows. These considerations give strong support to allowing law enforcement officers to question a suspect and to letting him know the case against him or the matters needing explanation, so that the witness or suspect may explain if he can. They may appeal to such person to assist them in the solution of a crime by telling what he knows even though he may incriminate himself. The Fifth Amendment does not command that no one shall be asked or permitted to answer questions because he might thereby incriminate himself; the Amendment merely prohibits the government from compelling anyone to incriminate himself.
Reasonable means of detention and private interrogation should be permitted where, as here, there is probable cause to believe that the person detained has been engaging in certain specific criminal activity. At the same time perhaps even this much ought not to be permitted unless the suspect be protected from undue pressures and improper treatment. Experience has taught us that all too often we cannot trust law enforcement agencies themselves to be fair judges of what is proper detention and treatment of persons who are completely within their power and without means of summoning aid or even someone to witness their situation. Usually the only witness for the suspect is himself. While there' is good reason to believe that objectionable third-degree practices are not as widespread now as they were in 1947 and earlier, it would seem that no detention or questioning beyond a few hours is desirable without the supervision of some independent quasi-judicial authority.5 Obviously in murder cases and *73under the circumstances here attendant there would be good reason for a commissioner or magistrate to authorize further detention of a suspect such as Williams, perhaps requiring some careful record of police activity during continued detention and even the presence of some appropriate impartial observer.
Here there is no doubt that Williams’ claims of brutality and torture were greatly exaggerated. But at the least it is difficult to believe that the conduct of the police did not place him in very real fear of brutality and ill treatment, sufficient to raise a serious question regarding the voluntariness of his confession. It is far safer for society to resolve the doubt in such cases in favor of the detainee and to bar his confession; without such a rule of law there would be little or no protection against coerced confessions. But this does not mean that our law enforcement agencies must remain powerless to make adequate investigations.
In my opinion there is reason to believe'that careful exploration of means to reconcile the requirements of due process and the necessity adequately to investigate and solve an increasing number of crimes of violence would produce methods far more satisfactory than those in present use. Were the state legislatures and the Congress to conduct such inquiries and enact appropriate measures the courts would be under a duty to favor them with a strong presumption of propriety and to abstain from substituting their own untutored ideas and personal views about what is proper and necessary in law enforcement. At least it would seem that methods worked out by the legislative branch of the government would be entitled to a fair trial period.
My concurrence in our action is reluctant for another reason. Whether or not Williams is guilty of the charge of murder, there is surely grave doubt in view of his record and past medical history that he should be at liberty and free possibly to molest and injure others, to rob homes and to assault those who may resist him. I doubt whether New York State now has available means adequately to safeguard the public by detaining persons like Williams until it is reasonably clear that they will not repeat prior infractions. There have been altogether too many instances where unconditional release of a dangerous criminal or a person of criminal tendencies has had disastrous consequences to other innocent law-abiding citizens.
If it is desirable and possible to bring any proceeding to commit Williams6 — which, of course, must take into account his history during the 16 years since his arrest in September 1947 — it may be that the state should be permitted — at least so far as possible federal court intervention is concerned — to use as evidence Williams’ confessions which we have barred the state from using in this criminal proceeding. If it can be shown that Williams is a disturbed person whose freedom is fraught with danger to others, his detention in an appropriate institution would not be for the purpose of punishing him for crime. In that case his detention pursuant to state lav/ would be to protect the public and, indeed, to protect Williams himself from the consequences of further criminal acts. While the use of such evidence in a commitment proceeding would be for the determination of the New York courts in the first instance, I know of no specific federal court case holding which would preclude the state from using Williams’ confessions to impose restraints on him in state proceedings which do not seek criminal sanctions.

. Williams was specifically questioned about several robberies all of which he denied. Of course the state had to tread very lightly on this subject. For this reason the record is very bare of details regarding the police activities and matters concerning which Williams was questioned in the 16-hour interval between arrest and the time when reference was first made to the entry of the Graff apartment. The district attorney’s brief at page 30, spells out what the record strongly hints at:
“Williams was apprehended under suspicion of having committed a number of burglaries. The police were occupied during the daytime hours of September 8th in the investigation of these burglaries. The sole clue which they had concerning his commission of the Graff murder was the orange paper-covered flashlight. It was therefore not only normal, but excellent, police procedure to refrain from questioning him concerning the murder until they had other evidence, — conclusive evidence, — with which to confront him in relation to the major crime. This course of procedure, however, could not be disclosed by the prosecution on the trial.”
Of course all the circumstances surrounding the arrest, detention and questioning of Williams, and further investigation and confrontation relevant thereto, might have been very material on the question of the reasonableness of Williams’ detention and why he was not sooner arraigned. The district attorney could have asked the district judge to take evidence as to these matters, or the district judge might himself have requested testimony and evidence on this subject. If in the light of our opinions the district attorney feels that evidence may still be adduced as to these matters and that there is a possibility that the result would be different, I, for one, would favor remanding the case for that purpose, meanwhile withholding decision on the writ.

. See, for example, United States v. Bufalino, 285 F.2d 408 (2 Cir., 1960), where, of 58 persons who were stopped for questioning about their meeting at Joseph Barbara’s estate in Appalachin, Now York, in 1957, only one refused to answer any questions at all. Of the 58, about 25 had police records. See also United States v. Vita, 294 F.2d 524 (2 Cir., 1961), cert. denied, 369 U.S. 823, 82 S.Ct. 837, 7 L.Ed.2d 788 (1962).

. Romeo and Juliet, Act II, sc. 3, line 56. See also Psalms 32:5; James 5:16; I John 1:8.

. Maxims of Publilius Syrus, No. 1000, Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 13th ed. 1955, page 46b.

. See New York Code of Criminal Procedure § 165, which requires that the defendant be taken before the magistrate “without unnecessary delay.” Only a few *73states have statutory provisions which set out more extensive requirements for arrest procedure. See Warner, The Uniform Arrest Act, 28 U.Va.L.Rev. 315 (1942); N.H.Laws, 1941, c. 163; R.I. Pub.Laws, 1941, c. 982.

. See New York Mental Hygiene Law §§ 71 et seq., 87, 121 et seq. It is doubtful whether any law enforcement authorities have the power to institute such. . proceedings themselves.