Court Opinion

ID: 9450222
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:38:56.027569+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:12.164804
License: Public Domain

BURGER, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
Appellant’s admission that he shot the complaining witness came within 30 minutes after his arrest. There is no evidence in this record, and we have no basis for noticing judicially, what length of time was reasonably required in this case to complete the formalities described as “booking.” These are not idle formalities; nothing could be more dangerous than to have people taken into custody without promptly making a complete record of the fact of detention, the name and address of the person, his nearest relatives, his employment and some statement of why he is in custody. This may take more time in some circumstances than in others, depending upon variable factors. I agree that “unnecessary delay” cannot be measured solely by the-clock, but I also insist that these steps' before preliminary hearing are essential and cannot be dispensed with or truncated.
The maj'ority seems to conclude, as I read the opinion, that any time lapse is-bad if, during that time, an arrested-person makes damaging admissions; it is not time but talking which is considered wrong. But to me a twenty to-thirty minute time lapse, in which an admission is made, does not seem per se-inordinate or unreasonable, and on this record we have no way of knowing that the “delay” was in fact unnecessary. For' this reason I would not reverse but remand so that a record can be made as to precisely what was done, what was “necessary” and what, if anything, was “unnecessary.” On such a record the District Judge could separately evaluate the-admissibility of both the oral and the-written statement. We would then have-an adequate basis for review.
It should be clear that under the-relevant holdings of the Supreme Court and this court the interrogation of a-person in custody by police, however desirable and logical it may seem for the-solving of crimes, is now drastically limited. It should be equally clear that under the relevant decisions it is impermissible to prolong the formalities or “booking” process or form filling for the purpose of engaging in questioning on the substantive facts of a real or suspected criminal act, once it is clear that there is probable cause to charge a crime.1
But we cannot assume, as I suggest the court often does, that the evaluation of *288probable cause is a simple matter like measuring the length of the suspect’s shoe or the caliber of a pistol cartridge. This is especially so when the courts frequently change and raise the standards. It is no simple process in every case for a police officer to be absolutely sure at a given point that he indeed has adequate grounds.
The matter of processing a detained person for presentment to a magistrate has been unnecessarily confused by such irrelevancies as loose talk about “midnight hearings” and “24-hour magistrate service.” The heart of the problem, as I see it, is that once it can fairly be said that there is probable cause to charge a detained person, he is not to be interrogated. He may be held to await the reasonable availability of a judicial officer. If the arrest occurs at midnight, it is absurd to talk of calling a Judge or Commissioner out of his bed to conduct a hearing which may take only 10 minutes and can as readily be held in regular business hours the following morning. Moreover, police officers or other witnesses may not be available outside regular business hours. But during the interval while the detained person is awaiting presentment before a judicial officer, substantive interrogation must, under the controlling authorities, be suspended. It is not delay per se which is prohibited by Mallory; it is the interrogation process which is restricted.
Once probable cause is established, as it may have been by the time officer Hall returned to the Precinct Station 20 or 30 minutes after the arrest, formalities of booking should be disposed of promptly and the suspect taken to the judicial officer for his warning and hearing.
Police precinct stations, on a July Sunday evening, are often very busy places. People and officers come and go; officers are likely to be interrupted by a multiplicity of demands on their attention. The process of securing information for “booking” cannot be as formal and orderly as a housewife, interviewing a much sought after cook who, because of her preferred position, is able to command the exclusive attention of the interviewer. We ought to act on facts, not conjecture and surmise. Since we know that Judges and Justices of the United States Courts often labor in study and conferences for days, weeks and even months in an appraisal of probable cause or reasonable grounds for an arrest, a warrant or a charge, it hardly seems rational to me to deny police officers, who are not profoundly trained in law, a period of 45 minutes, more or less, for the combined process of evaluating and articulating the grounds for charging a criminal act.
There may or may not be some explanation which would satisfy us either that the delay and police activities during the interim were unnecessary or that they were not. I would not act without an adequate record developing all the facts.

. When a spontaneous threshold confession is made or when admissions follow from appropriate limited inquiry, see Heideman v. United States, 104 U.S.App.D.C. 128, 259 F.2d 943 (1958), cert. denied, 359 U.S. 959, 79 S.Ct. 800, 3 L.Ed.2d 767 (1959), it is not merely proper but highly desirable to reduce such statements to writing promptly. See Metoyer v. United States, 102 U.S.App.D.C. 62, 64-65, 250 *288F.2d 30, 32-33 (1957). But tlie function of the written statement should be making a record of the substance of tbe oral utterances.