Court Opinion

ID: 9759805
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:28:38.767186+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:04.915526
License: Public Domain

LEIBSON, Justice,
dissenting.
Respectfully, I dissent. Where the United States Supreme Court has held that certain evidence is constitutionally impermissible, we are not free to hold otherwise. Such is the case here.
In its brief the Commonwealth concedes the following:
“... appellant was brought to District Court for the bond hearing_ The District Judge entered a plea of not guilty; set a preliminary hearing for March 26, 1982; set bond at $10,000; and appointed the law firm of Francis and Francis to represent appellant.” Brief for Appellee, p. 6.
At this point according to numerous decisions in the United States Supreme Court, appellant’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel had attached and “further police-initiated custodial interrogation even if he has been advised of his rights” is constitutionally impermissible. Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 484, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 1885, 68 L.Ed.2d 378 (1981). The exchange that occurred upstairs at the jail when the Sheriff brought the appellant back from the arraignment was a “police-initiated custodial interrogation.” If not a direct question, the Sheriff’s statement to the appellant was at the least “designed to elicit information from the accused,” and thus the appellant’s statement was inadmissible “regardless of whether there is a formal interrogation.” Brewer v. Williams, 430 U.S. 387, 97 S.Ct. 1232, 51 L.Ed.2d 424 (1977).
“(A) confession may not be introduced where ‘the Government has interfered with the right to counsel of the accused by ‘deliberately eliciting' incriminating statements.’ ” United States v. Henry, *851447 U.S. 264, 272, 100 S.Ct. 2183, 2188, 65 L.Ed.2d 115 (1980).
Here the statement by the Sheriff to the accused before he confessed and the circumstances in which it was made is a violation of this rule.
The only evidence to convict the appellant other than this brief but damaging confession was the testimony of his 9-year old daughter, mentally deficient and mildly retarded. Whether the appellant would have been convicted without his statement given at the Sheriffs urging is subject to question.
Much as I abhor and condemn a crime of this nature, confronted by the mandate of the United States Supreme Court and a case where the error may have contributed to the verdict, we should reverse and remand for a new trial.