Court Opinion

ID: 9425611
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:15:14.591088+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:56.580880
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Marshall,
dissenting.
As the Court’s per curiam opinion indicates, there is a tension between the Sixth Amendment right to ap*247pointed counsel for indigent defendants and the Fifth Amendment comparable to the tension between the Fourth and Fifth Amendments recognized in Simmons v. United States, 390 U. S. 377 (1968). The situation presented in United States v. Branker, 418 F. 2d 378 (CA2 1969), is instructive. There, in truthfully revealing his financial situation at the pretrial indigency hearing, the defendant disclosed that he had received $250 from a coconspirator. In order to assert his Sixth Amendment right to counsel, in other words, he was forced to provide potentially incriminating evidence.
As I view the matter, this tension between the Fifth and Sixth Amendments could be resolved in one of two ways. The first alternative is to permit the defendant seeking counsel as an indigent to lie about his financial situation wherever the truth might be incriminating. As a second alternative, we could require the defendant seeking appointment of counsel to tell the truth at the indigency hearing, and subject him to sanctions for his willful and knowing failure to do so, but bar use of any incriminating information so revealed.
I, for one, do not consider the first alternative to be acceptable. Nor did the Court of Appeals in this case, for it conceded that if the defendant willfully misrepresented his assets at the pretrial hearing, he could be prosecuted for perjury or false statement. 479 F. 2d 290, 292 n. 3 (CA2 1973). See, e. g., United States v. Birrell, 470 F. 2d 113 (CA2 1972). Likewise, respondent's Memorandum in Opposition disclaims any “right to lie” at the pretrial hearing.
In view of its concession that the defendant can be penalized for willfully and knowingly falsifying information at a pretrial suppression hearing, I cannot understand the Court of Appeals' conclusion that this sanction can only take the form of a separate prosecution for per*248jury. If the defendant’s willfully false statement can be used against him at a subsequent perjury trial, I see no reason why it cannot be used against him at his pending criminal trial.
My Brother Douglas raises the possibility that a defendant will fail to exercise his Sixth Amendment rights for fear that a court may later find the Sixth Amendment claim not bona fide or his statements not made in good faith. This reasoning would not only control the present case, however, but would also bar the Government from bringing a perjury prosecution against a defendant who knowingly and willfully lies under oath at his pretrial hearing. For it could likewise be argued that a defendant will fail to exercise his Sixth Amendment rights for fear that a jury may later determine that he committed perjury at the indigency hearing.
The problem is not a frivolous one, but its solution does not lie, in my view, in permitting the defendant to perjure himself and remain free from sanction. Rather, it lies in procedures to ensure that the imposition of sanctions in appropriate cases will not in fact discourage good-faith assertions of Sixth Amendment claims. With respect to a subsequent perjury prosecution, the discouragement of legitimate Sixth Amendment claims is minimized by the requirement that the Government convince a jury that the defendant willfully and knowingly gave false testimony. I would provide a similar protection where the Government seeks to use a defendant’s allegedly false pretrial statement as evidence against him at his pending criminal trial. Where such statement was purportedly given in furtherance of a Sixth Amendment right, I would bar the Government from introducing it in evidence unless the Government proved and the trial court found that the defendant had knowingly and willfully provided false information.
*249The solution, then, to the tension between the Fifth and Sixth Amendments is to require the defendant seeking appointment of counsel to tell the truth at his indigency hearing, and to bar use of any incriminating information so revealed. This approach is fully consistent with our Fifth Amendment cases. “[A] witness protected by the privilege may rightfully refuse to answer unless and until he is protected at least against the use of his compelled answers and evidence derived therefrom in any subsequent criminal case in which he is a defendant.” Lefkowitz v. Turley, 414 U. S. 70, 78 (1973). Where the Government requires the defendant to speak in order to assert his Sixth Amendment rights, it must shelter him with the, immunity provided by the Fifth Amendment for such compelled testimony. Cf. United States v. Branker, supra.
Applying these principles to the present case, I believe respondent's conviction was properly reversed by the Court of Appeals. At trial, Kahan claimed to have understood that the Totten trust accounts he opened belonged to his children, with himself merely the custodian. See 479 F. 2d, at 292 n. 3 and 296 n. 3. The District Court never made a finding, .before admitting evidence of Kahan’s pretrial statements, that Kahan had willfully misrepresented his financial situation and in fact knew that the funds in the Totten trusts were his. The court found sufficient proof that the statements were false to warrant their admission, but this finding does not satisfy the test I would apply. The mere fact that a false statement was made is not enough. Statements which turn out to be false are often made in the good-faith but mistaken belief they are correct, cf. New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254 (1964), and we should be cautious not to penalize good-faith assertions of Sixth Amendment rights.
I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.