Court Opinion

ID: 9457669
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:29:28.108686+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:27.549961
License: Public Domain

LUMBARD, Circuit Judge
(concurring):
While I agree in all respects with Judge Mansfield’s opinion, I believe some comment is in order regarding Judge Oakes’s view that the district court should hold a hearing and make findings regarding whether counsel ought to be provided for all prisoners prior to interrogation even if no request for counsel has been made.
Only the real probability of continued physical abuse or harassment can justify the issuance of an injunction by a federal court to forbid and prevent such illegal conduct. An entirely different kind of question is presented with respect to how the state is to conduct its investigation of the killing of 32 inmates and 11 guards and the injuries suffered by scores of others. It is quite apparent that the Governor, the Commissioner of Corrections and the Special Deputy Attorney General are well aware of the difficulties and requirements of such an investigation and any prosecution which may result therefrom.
Neither Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), nor any other decision of the Supreme Court, or of this court, holds that the state must conduct its investigation in any particular way or that certain warnings must be given to any or all persons who may be interrogated by those investigating crimes which were or may have been committed at Attica. All that Miranda holds is that a defendant’s statement may not be used against him in a criminal prosecution or otherwise unless he has first been given certain warnings and he has knowingly elected to speak with or without advice of counsel. A conviction will not stand if it has been obtained through the use at trial of a statement made by a defendant who has not been warned substantially as Miranda specifies. Miranda is a rule of evidence.
For whatever reasons the state may find sufficient, the state may well elect to give Miranda warnings to some and not to others. Any investigation must rely on witnesses and the investigators must make a choice as to who would better serve as a witness and who might be a defendant. Obviously only a minority of prisoners can be defendants and those examined as witnesses will far outnumber those who ultimately become defendants.
An injunction applicable to every prisoner who might be questioned not only would go far beyond the proper province of a federal court, but would seriously impede the investigation which ought to move forward with all the speed the state can summon.
If and when a claim is made by a prisoner that the state is using against him a statement made by him, without his being given the Miranda warning, it will then be time for the appropriate state tribunal to adjudicate that claim in the usual way, with the United States Supreme Court as the ultimate court of appeal.
*26No prisoner has any right to have a federal court determine under what circumstances, and with or without what warnings, he is to be questioned by state officers and under what circumstances he must not be questioned at all. It is enough that a failure to observe the Miranda teachings carries the sanction of invalidating any use, except for purposes of impeachment, by the state of a prisoner’s statement obtained contrary to the Miranda mandate.