Court Opinion

ID: 9444983
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:17:29.743652+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:05.300249
License: Public Domain

HASTIE, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
As I read the record, defendant did not contend before trial or at trial that the very contents of the alleged signed confession would or might shed light on the question whether he had been coerced. At the trial, throughout the preliminary inquiry by the court to determine the admissibility of the document, the defendant maintained that nothing of its contents should be revealed. And even on this appeal the defendant does not indicate how pretrial disclosure might have helped him establish that he had been coerced. In the absence of any such showing it seems to me that the conclusion of the court cannot properly be avoided. But I think Judge STALEY has very correctly pointed out that, in other circumstances, a grave due process question may arise out of the very unsatisfactory practice of deciding upon the admissibility of an alleged confession without first revealing its contents to the defendant and affording him a reasonable opportunity to use the text itself in support of his claim of coercion.