Court Opinion

ID: 9421843
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:00:08.439328+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:32.780055
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Douglas,
with whom Mr. Justice Black and Mr. Justice Brennan join, concurring.
While I join the opinion of the Court, I add what-for me is an even more important ground of decision.
We have often divided on whether state authorities may question a suspect for hours on end when he has no lawyer present and when he has demanded that he have the benefit of legal advice. See Crooker v. California, 357 U. S. 433, and cases cited. But here we deal not with a suspect but with a man who has been formally charged *325with á crime. The question is whether after the indictment and before the trial the Government can interrogate the accused in secret when he asked for his lawyer and when his request was denied. This is a capital case; and under the rule of Powell v. Alabama, 287 U. S. 45, the defendant was entitled to be represented by counsel. This representation by counsel is not restricted to the trial. As stated in Powell v. Alabama, supra, p. 57:
“during perhaps the most critical period of the proceedings against these defendants, that is to say, from the time of their arraignment until the beginning of their trial, when consultation, thoroughgoing investigation and preparation were vitally important, the defendants did not have the aid of counsel in any real sense, although they were as much entitled to such aid.during that period as at the trial itself.”
Depriving a person, formally charged with a crime, of counsel during the period prior to trial may be more damaging than denial of counsel during the trial itself.
We do not have here mere suspects who are being secretly interrogated by the police as in Crooker v. California, supra, nor witnesses who are being questioned in secret administrative or judicial proceedings as in In re Groban, 352 U. S. 330, and Anonymous Nos. 6 & 7 v. Baker, ante, p. 287. This is a case of an accused, who is scheduled to be tried by a judge and jury, being tried in a preliminary way by the police. This is a kangaroo court procedure whereby the police produce the vital evidence in the form of a confession which is useful or necessary to obtain a conviction. They in effect deny him effective representation by counsel. This seems to me to be a flagrant violation of the principle announced in Powell v. Alabama, supra, that the right of counsel extends to the' preparation for trial, as well as to the trial itself. As' Professor Chafee once said, “A person accused of crime *326needs a lawyer right after his arrest probably more than at any other time.” Chafee, Documents on Fundamental Human Rights, Pamphlet 2 (1951-1952), p. 541. When ■he is deprived of that right after indictment and before ■trial, he may indeed be denied effective representation by counsel at the only stage when legal aid and advice would help him. This secret inquisition by the police when defendant asked for and was denied counsel was as serious an invasion of his constitutional rights as the denial of a continuance in order to employ counsel was held to be in Chandler v. Fretag, 348 U. S. 3, 10. What we said in Avery v. Alabama, 308 U. S. 444, 446, has relevance here:
“. , . the denial of opportunity for appointed counsel' to confer, to consult' with the accused and to prepare his defense, could convert the appointment of counsel into a sham and nothing more than a formal compliance with the Constitution’s requirement that an accused be given the assistance of counsel.”
I join with Judges Desmond, Fuld, and Van Voorhis of the New York Court of Appeals (4 N. Y. 2d 256, 266, 173 N. Y. S. 2d 793, 801, 150 N. E. 2d 226, 231-232); in asking, what use is a defendant’s right to effective counsel at-every stage of a criminal case if, while he is-held awaiting trial, he can be questioned in the absence of .counsel until he confesses? In that event the secret trial in the police precincts effectively supplants the public trial- guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.