Court Opinion

ID: 9844518
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:04:03.049485+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:36.632618
License: Public Domain

TRAYNOR, J.
I concur in the judgment, but wish to set forth my reasons for concluding that defendant was not deprived of the right to counsel.
*157Defendant was arrested in Arizona on September 18, 1959. On that day, shortly after an alleged failure by the police to comply with his request for counsel, he made two statements in response to questioning. The first included damaging admissions and the second a confession. He made another confession on the following day, and the questions put to him and his answers were recorded by a court reporter. On September 21 defendant reenacted the crime for the police. On September 22 he was arraigned, and counsel was appointed for him. He voluntarily began a fourth confession on October 5, but did not complete and sign it until approximately 1 p. m. on October 6. Later that afternoon he and his wife made a joint confession. The grand jury had returned an indictment against him on October 6, shortly before he had completed the fourth confession. He contends that the last two confessions were inadmissible on the ground that since they were taken in the absence of counsel he was deprived of the right to counsel.
Defendant invokes the recent decisions of the New York Court of Appeals in People v. Di Basi, 7 N.Y.2d 544 [166 N.E.2d 825], and People v. Waterman, 9 N.Y.2d 561 [175 N.E.2d 445], which require the exclusion of admittedly voluntary post-indictment confessions on the sole ground that defendant’s counsel was not present when defendant made his statements. (But see State of Oregon v. Kristich, 226 Ore. 240 [359 P.2d 1106, 1111], in which the Oregon Supreme Court expressly rejected the Di Biasi rule.) The New York Court of Appeals relied on the concurring opinions of four Justices of the United States Supreme Court in Spano v. New York, 360 U.S. 315, 324, 326 [79 S.Ct. 1202, 3 L.Ed.2d 1265]. Those opinions indicate that at least under some circumstances due process requires the exclusion of a post-indictment confession made when the defendant’s counsel is not present. In an opinion by the Chief Justice the court reversed the conviction on another ground and expressly refused to decide the right to counsel issue. The Chief Justice, however, together with three of the concurring Justices in the Spano case, had joined in earlier dissenting opinions to state that a defendant has a right to counsel immediately after arrest and that denial of his request for a lawyer should result in exclusion of his confession. (Crooker v. California, 357 U.S. 433, 441 [78 S.Ct. 1287, 2 L.Ed.2d 1448] ; Cicencia v. Lagay, 357 U.S. 504, 511 [78 S.Ct. 1297, 2 L.Ed.2d 1523].)
*158The Spano, Di Biasi and Waterman cases must be considered in some detail, since they present some of the practical considerations relevant to the solution of the constitutional problem.
Defendant Spano was indicted for first degree murder. Although he had not then been taken into custody, he surrendered three days later in the company of his attorney, who cautioned him not to answer any questions. ITe underwent substantial interrogation and was denied his request to speak to his attorney. Thereafter he confessed. The United States Supreme Court reversed the judgment on the ground that the confession was involuntary, viewing absence of counsel as one of various factors relevant to voluntariness. In a concurring opinion Justice Douglas, joined by Justices Black and Brennan, stated that in a capital case, where the accused was formally charged and was questioned without compliance with his request for counsel’s presence, his constitutional rights were violated as seriously as in Chandler v. Fretag, 348 U.S. 3 [75 S.Ct. 1, 99 L.Ed. 4], in which the trial court had denied a continuance to allow defendant to obtain counsel. Justice Stewart, joined by Justices Douglas and Brennan, emphasized the distinction between “questioning a suspect in the course of investigating an unsolved crime” and questioning a man who has formally been accused by indictment, stating, “the absence of counsel when this confession was elicited was alone enough to render it inadmissible under the Fourteenth Amendment. . . . Our Constitution guarantees the assistance of counsel to a man on trial for his life in an orderly courtroom, presided over by a judge, open to the public, and protected by all the procedural safeguards of the law. Surely a Constitution which promises that much can vouchsafe no less to the same man under midnight inquisition in the squad room of a police station.”
In the capital case involving Di Biasi the defendant was likewise not taken into custody until after the indictment. He had been hiding for some six and a half years, but surrendered on the advice of his attorney. There was no showing, however, that he requested the attorney’s presence before making his responses to interrogation. In summarizing the concurring opinions in Spano v. New York and applying them to the case, the New York Court of Appeals laid down the rule that “after indictment the right of an accused to the assistance of an attorney is absolute and that questioning him after indictment in the absence of his attorney is a violation of his *159right to counsel.” (166 N.E.2d at p. 828.) (Italics added.) The statements made by Di Biasi were therefore inadmissible, and the judgment was reversed.
This holding was extended in People v. Waterman to a non-capital case in which the accused had no counsel. The defendant was apprehended immediately after the crime and made two voluntary statements during interrogation after indictment. They were excluded because “Waterman was without coimsel at the time of the alleged confession. He was not ashed . . . if he had retained or teen assigned counsel. The fact that defendant Waterman was without counsel at the time of the questioning, when he was known to the interrogator to be an accused, should not deprive him of the benefit of the principle announced in People v. Di Biasi. . . .” (208 N.Y.S. 2d at p. 598.) (Italics added.) The decision was affirmed and its reasoning approved by the Court of Appeals. (9 N.Y.2d 561 [175 N.E.2d 445].)
In the foregoing eases, the confessions were obtained during police interrogation after indictment. In the present case there was no interrogation during or immediately preceding the fourth confession and relatively little interrogation during the making of the joint confession. Under People v. Di Biasi, however, exclusion does not turn on the extent of the interrogation. After indictment a defendant is entitled to counsel’s advice at any time he is talking to the authorities. The Di Biasi rule would therefore seem to require exclusion of Garner’s fourth confession as well as the one made jointly with his wife.
People v. Downs, 8 N.Y.2d 860 [168 N.E.2d 710], would not compel a different conclusion. There was no opinion in the Bowns case. As the New York Court of Appeals has noted, however, “The Bowns decision turned on the special circumstances there present. Thus, Downs was explicitly advised that he was not required to make any statements and that he could consult an attorney; his first confession was actually volunteered before any questions were put to him; and at the trial he gave testimony on direct examination in his own defense, as forecast by his counsel in his opening to the jury, which was virtually identical with the statements he made to the authorities before trial.” (People v. Waterman, 175 N.E.2d at pp. 448-449 ; see Rothblatt & Rothblatt, Police Interrogation : The Right to Counsel and to Prompt Arraignment, 27 Brooklyn L. Rev. 24, 55-57.)
*160The language in the New York cases and in the concurring opinions in Spano v. New York indicates a concern to strike a balance “between the competing interest of society in the protection of cherished individual rights, on the one hand, and in effective law enforcement and investigation of crime, on the other.” (People v. Waterman, 175 N.E.2d at p. 447.) The balance was struck by attempting to draw a line between neutral inquiry by the police aimed at discovering the facts of the crime and interrogation of a person suspected of committing the crime. It is a formalistic assumption that indictment is the point when a defendant particularly needs the advice and protection of counsel.1 Often a defendant is arrested under highly suspicious circumstances and from the time he is apprehended his guilt is a foregone conclusion in the minds of the police. Frequently too, suspicion falls upon him at some intermediate point before indictment. In some cases the evidence against the accused may be stronger at the moment of arrest than it may be in other cases when the indictment is returned. It is hardly realistic to assume that a defendant is less in need of counsel an hour before indictment than he is an hour after. If the neutral inquiry-suspicion distinction is to be read into the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, it would be preferable to do so forthrightly as in the English Judge’s Rules. (Set forth in Devlin, The Criminal Prosecution in England, 137.)
The Judge’s Rules provide: “1) When a police officer is endeavoring to discover the author of a crime, there is no objection to his putting questions in respect thereof to any person or persons, whether suspected or not, from whom he thinks that useful information can be obtained.
“2) Whenever a police officer has made up his mind to charge a person with a crime, he should first caution such person before asking any questions or any further questions, as the ease may be.
“3) Persons in custody should not be questioned without the usual caution being first administered.”
A Home Office Circular of 1930 stated: “Rule 3 was never intended to authorize the questioning or cross-examination *161of a person in custody after he has been cautioned, on the subject of the crime for which he is in custody. ...” Police departure from the Rules may in the discretion of the trial judge result in excluding the confession. (Devlin, op. cit. supra, at p. 42.) A decision to exclude depends on all the facts in the case. (See Regina v. Bass [1953] 1 Q.B. 680, 684 ; Regina v. Straffen [1952] 2 Q.B. 911, 914 ; Rex v. Voisin [1918] 1 K.B. 531, 538 ; Regina v. Wattam, 36 Crim. App. Rep. 72, 77 ; Rex v. Grayson, 16 Crim. App. Rep. 7, 8.) “ [Whenever the evidence in the possession of the police has become sufficiently weighty to justify a charge, the charge is for this purpose treated as having been made and the suspect is thereafter treated as the accused.” (Devlin, op. cit. supra at p. 35.) The police are held to an objective standard in determining when the evidence has become sufficient to justify a charge.2 (Id. at p. 36.)
It is urged in support of the Di Biasi rule that once the indictment is brought, the trial has in effect begun. (See People v. Waterman, 175 N.E.2d at pp. 447-448.) It would be just as reasonable, however, to view the judicial process as beginning at some other time as after arrest or after arraignment.
In any event there are serious objections to reading into the Fourteenth Amendment the neutral inquiry-suspicion distinction. “It may seem strange [to the police] that they should be supposed not to ask questions of the one person who is central to the investigation.” (Williams, Questioning by the Police: Some Practical Considerations [1960] Crim. L.Rev. 325, 340.) Although questioning may sometimes be an easy substitute for scientific police work, it is also often *162essential to the solution of a crime and the conviction of the guilty. There may be no witnesses other than the accused, or the witnesses may be dead or unavailable. Thus, as Justice Frankfurter stated in Culombe v. Connecticut, 367 U.S. 568 [81 S.Ct. 1860, 6 L.Ed.2d 1037] : “Despite modern advances in the technology of crime detection, offenses frequently occur about which things cannot be made to speak. And where there cannot be found innocent human witnesses to such offenses, nothing remains—if police investigation is not to be balked before it has fairly begun—but to seek out possibly guilty witnesses and ask them questions, witnesses, that is, who are suspected of knowing something about the offense precisely because they are suspected of implication in it.
“The questions which these suspected witnesses are asked may serve to clear them. They may serve, directly or indirectly, to lead the police to other suspects than the persons questioned. Or they may become the means by which the persons questioned are themselves made to furnish proofs which will eventually send them to prison or death. ’' (Id. at p. 1040 [6 L.Ed.2d ] ; See Watts v. Indiana, 338 U.S. 49, 57-62 [69 S.Ct. 1347, 93 L.Ed. 1801] (concurring opinion).) Although at one time English courts excluded confessions obtained in violation of the Rules, they apparently do not do so now, and police questioning has become quite common. “Perhaps the truth is that the Rules have been abandoned, by tacit consent, just because they are an unreasonable restriction upon the activities of the police in bringing criminals to book.” (Williams, op. cit. supra, at p. 332; see Confessions and Police Detention, Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary, Senate, 85th Cong., 2d Sess. 15 [Statement of Professor Harry Street, University of Manchester] ; cf. Cicencia v. Lagay, 357 U.S. 504, 509 [78 S.Ct. 1297, 2 L.Ed.2d 1523].) The Home Secretary’s circular of 1930, quoted above, is a “dead letter.” (Williams, op. cit. supra, at p. 330 ; see Barth, The Price of Liberty 64-65 ; see generally, Regina v. Bass [1953] 1 Q.B. 680, 684 ; Regina v. Straffen [1952] 2 Q.B. 911, 914.)
The perpetrator of a crime is normally the one who knows most about it, and his confession, voluntarily made, is often the best evidence of his guilt that can be obtained. (See Commonwealth v. Dillon, 4 Dall. (U.S.) 116, 117 [1 L.Ed. 765] ; Commonwealth v. Agoston, 364 Pa. 464 [72 A.2d 575, 583] ; People v. Valletutti, 297 N.Y. 226 [78 N.E.2d 485, 488] ; Haley v. Ohio, 332 U.S. 596, 614 [68 S.Ct. 302, 92 L.Ed. 224] *163[dissenting opinion].) Only overwhelming social policies can justify the exclusion of such vital evidence. In the ease of coerced confessions, the evidence may be unreliable; even if reliable, a free society cannot condone police methods that outrage the rights and dignity of a person whether they include physical brutality or psychological coercion. (See Spano v. New York, 360 U.S. 315, 320-321 [79 S.Ct. 1202, 3 L.Ed.2d 1265] ; Maguire, Evidence of Guilt 109.) When a confession is voluntary, however, courts are reluctant to exclude it. “Interrogation per se is not, while violence per se is, an outlaw.” (Ashcraft v. Tennessee, 322 U.S. 143, 160 [64 S.Ct. 921, 88 L.Ed. 1192] [dissenting opinion] ; see Lyons v. Oklahoma, 322 U.S. 596, 601 [64 S.Ct. 1208, 88 L.Ed 1481] ; Lisenba v. California, 314 U.S. 219, 239-241 [62 S.Ct. 280, 86 L.Ed. 166].)
As many commentators and courts have recognized, there is a “compulsion to confess” to crime. Wigmore states the point colorfully: "The nervous pressure of guilt is enormous ; the load of the deed done is heavy; the fear of detection fills the consciousness; and when detection comes, the pressure is relieved; and the deep sense of relief makes confession a satisfaction. At that moment, he will tell all, and tell it truly. To forbid soliciting him, to seek to prevent this relief, is to fly in the face of human nature.” (Wigmore on Evidence, 3d ed. § 851 at p. 319 ; see, e.g., Commonwealth v. Agoston, 364 Pa. 464 [72 A.2d 575, 581, 583].) A psychiatrist explains the phenomenon of confessions in terms of subconscious but overpowering guilt feelings and desire for punishment. “There is . . .an impulse growing more and more intense suddenly to cry out his secret in the street before all people, or in milder cases, to confide it at least to one person, to free himself from the terrible burden. The work of confession is thus that emotional process in which the social and psychological significance of the crime becomes preconseious and in which all powers that resist the compulsion to confess are conquered.”3 (Reik, The Compulsion to Confess, p. 267.)
*164So long as the methods used comply with due process standards, it is in the public interest for the police to encourage confessions and admissions during interrogation.4 (See Culombe v. Connecticut, 367 U.S. 568 [81 S.Ct. 1860, 6 L.Ed. 2d 1037, 1040 n. 2, 1044 n. 17] ; State v. Smith, 32 N.J. 501, 534 [161 A.2d 520] ; Commonwealth v. Agoston, 364 Pa. 464 [72 A.2d 575, 581] ; Haley v. Ohio, 332 U.S. 596, 614 [68 S.Ct. 302, 92 L.Ed. 224] [dissenting opinion].)
It may be argued that if the Hi Biasi rule is adopted, the police will still have time to interrogate and encourage confessions before an indictment is returned or an information filed. In some cases, however, as in Spano v. New York and in People v. Di Biasi, an indictment may be returned in advance of the defendant’s apprehension. In such eases there could be no interrogation of the suspect at all, except in the presence of his attorney. Moreover, if the suspect is in custody before indictment, the police could easily frustrate the rule by delaying the indictment or the information. Thus, the rule would operate only occasionally and arbitrarily. Again, it is never certain when the suspect will be in the proper frame of mind to confess. The psychological struggle between a guilty person’s conscious desire to protect himself and his subconscious guilt feelings may not be resolved in favor of confession until some time after the crime. (See Reik, op. cit. supra at p. 266.)
Concededly, a rule that the police allow counsel to be present during questioning of a person either after his arrest, as suggested in the dissenting opinion in Crooker v. California and Cicencia v. Lagay, supra, or after suspicion has focused upon him would greatly aid in protecting him from his own folly and from his ignorance of the law. (See Memorandum on the Detention of Arrested Persons and their Production Before a Committing Magistrate in Chaffee, Documents on Fundamental Human Rights, Pamphlet 2 (1951-1952), p. 541.) It would also discourage police mistreatment of persons in *165custody. The attorney’s function, however, would hardly be confined to preventing the third degree and explaining to the accused the legal significance of the questions posed. Rather, in the words of Mr. Justice Jackson, “To bring in a lawyer means a real peril to solution of the crime, because, under our adversary system, he deems that his sole duty is to protect his client—guilty or innocent—and that in such a capacity he owes no duty whatever to help society solve its crime problem. Under this conception of criminal procedure, any lawyer worth his salt will tell the suspect in no uncertain terms to make no statement to police under any circumstances.” (Watts v. Indiana, 338 U.S. at p. 59 [dissenting opinion] ; Commonwealth v. Agoston, 364 Pa. 464 [72 A.2d 575, 583] ; State v. Bunk, 4 N.J. 461, 470 [73 A.2d 249] ; Williams, op. cit. supra at p. 344.)
Recognition of a defendant’s right to consult with counsel at the pretrial stages of the criminal action does not signify that counsel must be present during interrogation. In California, a defendant is guaranteed the right to counsel (Pen. Code, § 686, subd. 2). Moreover, “after . . . arrest, any attorney . . . may at the request of the prisoner or any relative of such prisoner, visit the person so arrested.” (Pen. Code, § 825.) Willful prevention of consultation with an attorney makes an officer guilty of a misdemeanor and liable in a civil action for damages. (Ibid.) Before arraignment, an impecunious defendant is entitled to appointment of assigned counsel or of a public defender. (Pen. Code, § 987; Gov. Code, §§ 27700-27711.) These code sections, designed to assure a defendant effective representation by counsel, do not preclude questioning him when his counsel is not present.
The indigent defendant poses another problem under the Di Biasi rule, particularly in jurisdictions that are less liberal than California in providing counsel at public expense. Giving an accused who has the means and foresight to retain an attorney (frequently the “professional criminal”) a right to counsel’s presence during interrogation, would widen the gulf between the rights of a person with and one without counsel. (People v. Di Biasi, 7 N.Y.2d 544, 552 [166 N.E.2d 825] [dissenting opinion] ; see 36 N.Y.U.L. Rev. 737, 741-742.) A defendant who has obtained the advice of counsel would be less in need of the protection offered by the Di Biasi rule than would the indigent defendant. To avoid this discrimination the New York courts held that an indigent defendant must be provided counsel before a post-indictment interrogation can *166take place. As yet, however, the United States Supreme Court has not made appointment of counsel an absolute constitutional requirement in noncapital eases even at trial. (See e.g., Betts v. Brady, 316 U.S. 455 [62 S.Ct. 1252, 86 L.Ed. 1595].) Until it does, it can hardly impose the Di Biasi rule as a constitutional requirement without creating additional discrimination against the indigent.
The right to counsel means that the defendant must be given effective assistance of counsel to prepare and present his defense. This court has zealously protected that right. (In re Turrieta, 54 Cal.2d 816, 821-822 [356 P.2d 681] ; People v. Mattson, 51 Cal.2d 777, 790 [336 P.2d 937] ; In re Levi, 39 Cal.2d 41, 46-47 [244 P.2d 403] ; In re James, 38 Cal.2d 302, 310-313 [240 P.2d 596], and cases cited.) It has insisted that counsel have adequate opportunity to prepare the defense (In re Newbern, 53 Cal.2d 786, 790 [350 P.2d 116] ; Cornell v. Superior Court, 52 Cal.2d 99, 102-103 [338 P.2d 447] ; In re Ochse, 38 Cal.2d 230, 231 [238 P.2d 561] ; People v. Sarazzawski, 27 Cal.2d 7, 17 [161 P.2d 934]), expanded the scope of criminal discovery (People v. Estrada, 54 Cal.2d 713, 716 [7 Cal.Rptr. 897, 355 P.2d 641] ; Cash v. Superior Court, 53 Cal.2d 72, 75 [346 P.2d 407] ; Powell v. Superior Court, 48 Cal.2d 704, 707-709 [312 P.2d 698] ; People v. Riser, 47 Cal.2d 566, 584, 588 [305 P.2d 1]), protected counsel from unjustified contempt citations (Cooper v. Superior Court, 55 Cal.2d 291, 302-303 [10 Cal.Rptr. 842, 359 P.2d 274] ; Gallagher v. Municipal Court, 31 Cal.2d 784, 795-797 [192 P.2d 905]), and precluded the prosecution from obstructing the securing and presenting of defense evidence. (People v. Kiihoa, 53 Cal.2d 748, 751-754 [349 P.2d 673] ; People v. McShann, 50 Cal.2d 802, 808 [330 P.2d 33] ; see People v. Carter, 48 Cal.2d 737, 747-748 [312 P.2d 665] ; People v. Kidd, 56 Cal.2d 759, 769-770 [16 Cal.Rptr. 793, 366 P.2d 49].) The right to counsel does not imply, however, that a defendant lawfully in custody must be insulated from the police. If the police abuse their right to interrogate, the remedy is to exclude the involuntary confessions or admissions produced. (People v. Brommel, 56 Cal.2d 629, 632 [15 Cal.Rptr. 909, 364 P.2d 845] ; People v. Trout, 54 Cal.2d 576, 583 [6 Cal.Rptr. 759, 354 P.2d 231] ; People v. Atchley, 53 Cal.2d 160, 170 [346 P.2d 764] ; People v. Berve, 51 Cal.2d 286, 292 [332 P.2d 97] ; People v. Jones, 24 Cal.2d 601, 608-611 [150 P.2d 801].)
Peters, J., and Dooling, J., concurred.

The distinction between formal accusation and preliminary investigation has also been used in other contexts to justify requiring or denying presence of counsel. (See e.g., In re Groban, 352 U.S. 330 [77 S.Ct. 510, 1 L.Ed.2d 376] ; Bowles v. Baer, 142 F.2d 787 ; United States v. Levine, 127 F.Supp. 651 ; Rights of Witnesses in Administrative Investigations, 54 Harv.L.Rev. 1214 ; cf. Hannah v. Larche, 363 U.S. 420 [80 S.Ct. 1502, 1514-1520, 4 L.Ed.2d 1307].)

”In practice, what happens is this. The police officer in the witness box is given evidence of a statement made by the accused before caution. He comes to a part of it which counsel for the defense wishes to keep out if he can; if counsel thinks it an arguable point, he will object on the ground that before the incriminating part was reached, the accused ought to have been cautioned, for, he will say, by this stage surely the police officer must have made up his mind to charge the accused. Counsel for the defense is then allowed to cross-examine the police officer to establish, if he can, that there are good grounds for his objection, the officer’s narrative of evidence being for this purpose interrupted. If the evidence which the police had up to this point was strong and clearly pointed to the accused, the officer will find it difficult to maintain under cross-examination that he had not yet made up his mind to charge the accused. In practice, the judge tends to make his own assessment of the evidence; and if he thinks it strong enough, he will not put much value on assertions by the police officer that he was still in doubt.” (Devlin, op. cit. supra at pp. 35-36.)

He continues: "The whole emotional expenditure in confession in many cases weighs only little compared with the work of confession, that painful performance in which something has to be overcome and as little as the punishment weighs compared with the suffering that originates in the superego. No earthly judgment will attain the strictness of the superego in many persons. Describing the work of confession in the expressions of ego-factors, it can be conceived of as the effort that succeeds in having the superego allow the ego the benefit of confession. The masochistic pleasure of suffering and of torture through the super*164ego, during the period in which the work of confession takes place, can easily be recognized afterwards. The work of confession itself affords a partial gratification of that masochistic need for punishment. Only in this way—through the preceding suffering—does it become understandable that the criminal, with little anxiety, awaits the real punishment after the confession.” (Id. at p. 268.)

Questioning suspects has been declared “indispensable in law enforcement” (People v. Hall, 413 Ill. 615, 624 [110 N.E.2d 249, 254], quoted in Culombe v. Connecticut, 6 L.Ed.2d at p. 1044). It is noteworthy that on retrial, when his voluntary admissions were excluded from evidence, Di Biasi was acquitted. (See New York World-Telegram and Sun, March 2, 1961, p. 13 col. 1 ; 61 Colum.L.Rev. 748 n. 32.)