Court Opinion

ID: 9471612
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:37:02.241202+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:29.891038
License: Public Domain

WINTER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent.
Were this case before us on appeal from a jury verdict, I would have no problem whatsoever in affirming the conviction. The first bait bill was admissible for reasons stated in Judge Friendly’s opinion. The subsequent written confession and incriminating evidence produced by Hall’s wife were admissible in light of the valid *1061intervening Miranda warning. Tanner v. Vincent, 541 F.2d 932 (2d Cir.1976), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1065, 97 S.Ct. 794, 50 L.Ed.2d 782 (1977). Given the admissibility of overwhelming evidence of guilt, the conclusion that use of Hall’s initial oral confession was harmless error beyond a reasonable doubt would be well-nigh unassailable. See United States v. Moody, 649 F.2d 124, 127-28 (2d Cir.1981).
However, this eminently sensible rationale is denied to us because the district court accepted a conditional plea of guilty which artificially structures the issues before us. Because the plea was conditioned upon Hall’s right to withdraw if any portion of the district court’s decision on the motion to suppress was disturbed on appeal, whether or not the particular error was harmless, we cannot dispose of this appeal without determining the admissibility of the initial oral confession. I believe it was an abuse of discretion for the district court to accept such a plea.
The plea agreement left Hall free to withdraw his plea if any one of four distinct evidentiary offerings (oral confession, bait bill, written confession, evidence produced by Hall’s wife) was found to be inadmissible. There was, therefore, no “single pretrial issue that all sides recognized would be dispositive of the entire case,” United States v. Lace, 669 F.2d 46, 57 n. 7 (2d Cir.) (Newman, J., concurring), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 854, 103 S.Ct. 121, 74 L.Ed.2d 106 (1982), and “[pjleading guilty with a reservation of appellate rights ... [was] a device to circumvent the harmless error rule.” Id. This case is thus exactly the one feared by Judge Newman in his concurrence in Lace, which has been favorably cited in United States v. Burns, 684 F.2d 1066, 1071 (2d Cir.1982), cert. denied, -U.S. -, 103 S.Ct. 823, 74 L.Ed.2d 1019 (1983), and in United States v. Thibadeau, 671 F.2d 75, 79-80 (2d Cir.1982). I would not treat those decisions as empty rhetoric.1 We can hardly expect district courts to heed their admonitions when we disregard them in practice.
Burns and Thibadeau fully rehearsed the dangers of misuse of conditional pleas, 684 F.2d at 1071-73 and 671 F.2d at 79-81, and I will not repeat them here other than to note their complete applicability to the present case. Resolving the admissibility of the initial oral confession is necessary only because of the terms of the conditional plea. Since the evidence as to whether Hall heard and thus understood the Miranda warning was in equipoise, the issue, when unpacked, involves the weight a fourteen year old conviction should carry in determining whether a suspect knows and understands those rights. This is not an issue with an obvious result, and, while Judge Friendly’s opinion is not unpersuasive, it is unprecedented. Since the question arises only because of the conditional plea agreement, I would not reach it.

. That the majority “strongly endorse[s]” Bums and Thibadeau does not alter the fact that they do not follow them. Acceptance of the plea was of course in Hall’s favor but that observation dodges rather than responds to my point. A plea agreement is always in a defendant’s favor else it would not be executed. In the present case, for example, the agreement enabled Hall to focus his attack upon the weakest link of the government’s case, namely the oral confession. My point is that such agreements ought not be accepted where they allow the parties to structure the issues artificially.