Court Opinion

ID: 9469982
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:53:52.511176+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:39.636402
License: Public Domain

GODBOLD, Chief Judge,
dissenting:
I would hold that Massiah v. U.S., 377 U.S. 201, 205, 84 S.Ct. 1199, 1202, 12 L.Ed.2d 246 (1964), requires reversal as to Amos Lisenby. Massiah was indicted on a conspiracy to possess narcotics charge. He retained counsel and was released on bail. His co-defendant chose “to cooperate with the government agents in their continuing investigation of the narcotics activities” in which Massiah, a co-defendant, and others allegedly had been engaged. Id. at 202, 84 S.Ct. at 1200. The co-defendant’s car was wired, and Massiah and the co-defendant had a conversation in the car, to which an agent listened. At trial the listening agent testified to incriminating statements Massi-ah had made in the conversation. The Supreme Court held that the Sixth Amendment guarantee of counsel was violated “when there was used against [Massiah] at his trial evidence of his own incriminating words, which federal agents had deliberately elicited from him after he had been indicted and in the absence of his counsel.”
In this case, shortly after his arrest Ob-lisk agreed to cooperate with the government. He was given the mission of getting the Lisenbys to persuade their uncle, Deral Holman, to pay to him [Oblisk] money allegedly owing to Oblisk from the marijuana conspiracy and to turn this money over to government agents for fingerprinting. For this purpose Oblisk made numerous calls to Cody Lisenby, and a meeting between Ob-lisk and the two Lisenbys was set up. Ob-lisk’s calls were recorded and agents secretly watched and taped the meeting. After the meeting Holman made a partial payment. The meeting occurred approximately two weeks after the indicted conspiracy defendants had been arrested and a like period since Amos had been arrested on the possession charge. Neither Amos nor Cody had been indicted on the conspiracy charge, but about a week before the meeting with Oblisk the government had decided to seek an indictment against Amos. At the time of the meeting Amos was out on bail on the possession charge. He had retained counsel, and the government knew it.
Approximately two weeks after the meeting with Oblisk both Lisenbys were indicted and arrested. The possession charge against Amos was dropped, whether before or after indictment we do not know. The tape of the meeting with Oblisk was key evidence in the government’s case against both Lisenbys.
Thus the statements made in this case were, as in Massiah, “[Amos’s] own incriminating words.” Government agents had “deliberately elicited” the words from him, after he had been arrested5 and in the absence of his counsel.
The government contends Massiah does not apply because Amos had been taken *1341into custody on a separate charge rather than the conspiracy charge that was under investigation and for which Amos was later indicted and tried, and the majority accept this argument. The majority rely on U.S. v. Missler, 414 F.2d 1293 (4th Cir.1969), Grieco v. Meachum, 533 F.2d 713 (1st Cir.1976) and U.S. v. Hoffa, 385 U.S. 293, 87 S.Ct. 408, 17 L.Ed.2d 374 (1966). In Missler, the defendant was indicted on a hijacking charge. He made a contract with a trigger man to kill a co-defendant who defendant thought had given police the details of the hijacking. The trigger man informed police, and a meeting was arranged, with police listening, at which the contract was confirmed. Defendant was indicted and convicted for obstruction of justice based upon the contract transaction. The court held Massiah was not applicable because the obstruction of justice offense was distinct and separate and committed after the hijacking indictment.
In Grieco, a prisoner named Casseno was charged with murder. A fellow inmate approached Glavin, also an inmate and under life sentence, and offered to pay Glavin to confess to the murder for which Casseno was charged. Glavin reported the offer to government agents and cooperated with them. They told him to pretend to go along with the plan and talk with Casseno himself. Glavin did so, and talked with Casse-no three times. At the trial of Casseno on the murder charge Glavin testified to statements made to him by Casseno in these conversations that confirmed the intermediary’s offer. Presumably the testimony was admitted as admissions of a defendant by conduct tending to show consciousness of past crimes. The First Circuit held that Massiah was not applicable because Casse-no’s statements were “primarily uttered in the commission of another substantive offense, subornation of perjury, and were only incidentally admissible in his trial on the pending indictment.”
Similarly, in U.S. v. Hoffa, 385 U.S. 293, 87 S.Ct. 408, 17 L.Ed.2d 374 (1966), the alleged intrusion upon the defendant’s relationships with his attorney came in connection with a charge of jury tampering that had arisen from events occurring during Hoffa’s trial on Taft-Hartley law charges.
The present case dpes not belong within the exception to Massiah established by these “separate offense” cases. The factual relationship between the conspiracy umbrella and the more specific charge against Amos for simple possession is apparent. Amos’s arrest arose out of events that occurred at the Panama City warehouse where the shipment of marijuana from Jamaica was stored overnight, and on the night that the marijuana was taken from the warehouse and delivered to Carlisle. The arrest resulted from observations of a marine patrol officer watching the warehouse as part of the investigation of the marijuana stored there. A van pulled up and the officer saw Amos get out of the van looking hot and sweaty. The officer approached the van and saw what appeared to be marijuana residue on the bumper, searched the van, and found more residue inside. Amos was arrested the following afternoon.
At least until it found itself in difficulty in a Massiah hearing the government contended that the possession charge and the conspiracy charge were either overlapping or congruent. After Amos was indicted on the conspiracy charge he asked for a bill of particulars, and the government responded with a copy of the complaint on which Amos had been arrested on the possession charge. And as we have already pointed out, before the meeting with Oblisk occurred, the government already was seeking an indictment against Amos on the conspiracy charge.
At trial the Massiah hearing was conducted outside the presence of the jury. The judge considered the admissibility of both the marijuana found in the van and the tapes. In support of its position that the “van marijuana” was admissible the government contended that it was related to the conspiracy, i.e., that the residue’s presence in the van near the warehouse on the night of the delivery circumstantially linked the residue to the marijuana within the warehouse. The judge pointed out to the government that it could not have it both ways, that is, it could not put the van marijuana in evidence on the ground it was part of the conspiracy and put the tapes in evidence on the ground the conspiracy was *1342a separate offense from the possession offense on which Amos was represented by-counsel. The judge concluded that he would suppress the van marijuana but “in view of the fact that this was an ongoing criminal conspiracy, I am going to permit the tapes to be played.”
Of course, whether a conspiracy was ongoing and an investigation ongoing were two different matters. The existence of an ongoing investigation as a justification for intruding into the Sixth Amendment right of the accused to counsel was raised and rejected in Massiah itself.
The Solicitor General, in his brief and oral argument, has strenuously contended that the federal law enforcement agents had the right, if not indeed the duty, to continue their investigation of the petitioner and his alleged criminal associates even though the petitioner had been indicted. He points out that the Government was continuing its investigation in order to uncover not only the source of narcotics found on the S.S. Santa Maria, but also their intended buyer. He says that the quantity of narcotics involved was such as to suggest the petitioner was part of a large and well-organized ring, and indeed that the continuing investigation confirmed this suspicion, since it resulted in criminal charges against many defendants. Under these circumstances the Solicitor General concludes that the government agents were completely ‘justified in making use of Colson’s cooperation by having Colson continue his normal associations and by surveilling them.’
We may accept and, at least for present purposes, completely approve all that this argument implies, Fourth Amendment problems to one side. We do not question that in this ease, as in many cases, it was entirely proper to continue an investigation of the suspected criminal activities of the defendant and his alleged confederates, even though the defendant had already been indicted. All that we hold is that the defendant’s own incriminating statements, obtained by federal agents under the circumstances here disclosed, could not constitutionally be used by the prosecution as evidence against him at his trial.
377 U.S. at 205-06, 84 S.Ct. at 1202-1203.
With respect to an ongoing conspiracy as a predicate for an exception to Massiah, the marijuana had been seized and numerous participants in the conspiracy arrested two weeks before the Oblisk-Lisenby meeting. The conspiracy was ongoing only to the extent that the government arranged for it to continue by instructing Oblisk to deal with the Lisenbys in pursuit of Holman. Thus, this court must consider whether, after Amos’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel guaranteed under Massiah had been triggered, the government could bring itself within the “separate and distinct offense” exception to Massiah by, first, arranging for an informer to meet with Amos in the absence of his counsel and then asserting that the occurrence of that meeting and the statements made there were part of an ongoing conspiracy. It would be anomalous indeed if the government could create a “separate and distinct offense” exception to the requirement of the presence of counsel by dealing with the suspect in the absence of his counsel. But this is what the government says it can do. “It is the position of the government that these statements [by Amos to Oblisk] are admissible because they were made as a result of an investigation of a different crime than the defendant had been arrested on and because the statements themselves were a part of the charged conspiracy.” Government brief p. 23. This manipulation of Massiah should not be permitted.
The government has cited to us no case comparable to this one. In Grieco the incriminating statements uttered by the accused in the absence of his counsel were merely incidental to the charge on which he was on trial. Here, the statements were used as key evidence in the charge on trial, and they were not secured in the commission of an offense separate from that on trial but in alleged commission of that very offense. Missler and Hoffa are like this case in that the statements heard in the absence of counsel related to the charge on trial, but in each case the charge on trial was truly separate from that on which defendant had retained counsel, hijacking versus killing a witness in Missler, Taft-Hart-ley versus jury tampering in Hoffa. In both cases the “uncounselled statement offense” was neither congruent with nor overlapping of the essential facts of the “counselled offense.” Here, the “counselled offense” and the “statement in absence of counsel offense” are congruent or overlapping in fact, were treated by the government to be so, and were considered by the district court to be so.
*1343However well intentioned the government’s investigative efforts may have been, they cannot override Amos’s Sixth Amendment right that the government may not intrude upon his relation with his attorney by inspiring interrogation of him in the absence of his counsel.

. It is not significant that the arrest was pursuant to a complaint rather than an indictment. See Clifton v. U.S., 341 F.2d 649 (5th Cir.1965).