Court Opinion

ID: 9672633
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:58:18.080855+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:17.600887
License: Public Domain

OPINION
ODOM, Judge.
This is a post-conviction habeas corpus application filed pursuant to Art. 11.07, V.A.C.C.P. The application was ordered filed and set for submission “on the allegations that the admission of Dr. Grigson’s testimony violated the applicant’s rights under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the United States Constitution.”
Petitioner was convicted of capital murder and the death penalty was assessed. On appeal the conviction was affirmed. Chambers v. State, 568 S.W.2d 313. It is now contended that the psychiatric testimony used during the punishment phase of the trial was improperly obtained through an interview of appellant by Dr. *484Grigson without appellant having been advised of his Fifth Amendment privilege. Reliance is placed on Estelle v. Smith, 451 U.S. 454, 101 S.Ct. 1866, 68 L.Ed.2d 359, which was decided after appellant’s trial and appeal. In Smith the Court held:
“The considerations calling for the accused to be warned prior to custodial interrogation apply with no less force to the pretrial psychiatric examination at issue here. Respondent was in custody at the Dallas County Jail when the examination was ordered and when it was conducted. That respondent was questioned by a psychiatrist designated by the trial court to conduct a neutral competency examination, rather than by a police officer, government informant, or prosecuting attorney, is immaterial. When Dr. Grigson went beyond simply reporting to the court on the issue of competence and testified for the prosecution at the penalty phase on the crucial issue of respondent’s future dangerousness, his role changed and became essentially like that of an agent of the State recounting unwarned statements made in a post-arrest custodial setting. During the psychiatric evaluation, respondent assuredly was ‘faced with a phase of the adversary system’ and was ‘not in the presence of [a] person [ ] acting solely in his interest.’ [Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436] at 469, 16 L.Ed.2d 694, 86 S.Ct. 2602, [at 1625] 10 Ohio Misc. 9, 36 Ohio Ops.2d 237,10 A.L.R.3d 974. Yet he was given no indication that the compulsory examination would be used to gather evidence necessary to decide whether, if convicted, he should be sentenced to death. He was not informed that, accordingly, he had a constitutional right not to answer the questions put to him.
“The Fifth Amendment privilege is ‘as broad as the mischief against which it seeks to guard,’ Counselman v. Hitchcock, 142 U.S. 547, 562, 35 L.Ed. 1110, 12 S.Ct. 195 [197] (1892), and the privilege is fulfilled only when a criminal defendant is guaranteed the right ‘to remain silent unless he chooses to speak in the unfettered exercise of his own will, and to suffer no penalty ... for such silence.’ Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1, 8, 84 S.Ct. 1489 [1493,] 12 L.Ed.2d 653 (1964). We agree with the Court of Appeals that respondent’s Fifth Amendment rights were violated by the admission of Dr. Grigson’s testimony at the penalty phase.”
When the district court originally ruled on the application for habeas corpus, it found appellant had not made a trial objection on the matter, and alternatively found that Estelle v. Smith should not be given retroactive application. On the basis of these findings the district court recommended that relief be denied.
This Court in other post-Smith cases involving trials occurring before the Smith decision has found the failure to object did not constitute a waiver, and has given retroactive application to the Smith decision. Mays v. State, 653 S.W.2d 30; Ex parte Demouchette, 633 S.W.2d 879. We therefore rejected the findings upon which the district court recommended that relief be denied. The record before us, however, did not clearly reflect whether or not the requirements of Estelle v. Smith were violated in this case. We therefore directed the district court to conduct a hearing to develop the facts on the matter, and then to enter findings of fact. A hearing has been held and the record and new findings by the trial court have been received by this Court.
In again recommending that relief be denied, the trial court relies on the fact that during consultation with petitioner, at some indefinite date before he was interviewed by Dr. Grigson, his trial attorneys advised him to speak to no one except counsel, and specifically instructed him not to talk to any psychiatrists because such evidence could be used against him. We do not agree that such consultation with counsel at some indefinite date prior to the interview with Dr. Grigson satisfies the requirements of Estelle v. Smith, supra. Advising a client not to talk is not the same as informing him at the beginning of *485interrogation that he has “a constitutional right not to answer the questions put to him.” Estelle v. Smith, supra. The testimony of Dr. Grigson at the hearing in the trial court is uncontradicted: petitioner was not advised that he had a constitutional right not to answer the questions put to him by Dr. Grigson. See Mays, supra.
Relief is granted. The conviction is set aside and petitioner is ordered remanded to custody of the Sheriff of Dallas County to answer the indictment pending against him in Cause No. F75-4282-K.
It is so ordered.