Court Opinion

ID: 9649971
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:16:26.737997+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:19:51.047941
License: Public Domain

Brune, C. J.,
filed the following dissenting opinion.
The question which this case poses is whether or not a confession concededly voluntary under usual and long established tests of voluntariness, is to be excluded from evidence if made by the defendant while under unlawful arrest. Defense counsel has candidly and, I think, correctly submitted the case on this basis. He has made no concession or admission which would put his client in a worse position than he would have been in without this explicit recognition of the problem, for there appears to be no dispute at all with regard to the facts concerning the circumstances under which the confession was made.
The rules developed by the Supreme Court of the United States relating to the exclusion of confessions seem to me to be fourfold. I shall attempt to state them briefly. First, there *496is the general rule barring involuntary confessions exemplified, among recent cases, by such cases as Culombe v. Connecticut, 367 U. S. 568, and Rogers v. Richmond, 365 U. S. 534 (the latter rejecting the trustworthiness test as opposed to the voluntariness test). (This rule is firmly established in Maryland.)
Second, there is the so-called McNabb-Mallory rule, based upon McNabb v. United States, 318 U. S. 332, and Mallory v. United States, 354 U. S. 449, barring the use of confessions obtained during a period of unlawful detention. This rule has been applied to federal prosecutions. In its original formulation, the Supreme Court found it unnecessary to decide any constitutional issue, and the doctrine was laid down as one of federal procedure and federal rules of evidence, and as an exercise of the supervisory powers of the Supreme Court over the administration of justice in the federal courts. (Considering it only as such, this Court has held it not applicable to prosecutions in Maryland state courts, and this Court has rejected a comparable doctrine as a matter of state law. The majority opinion adheres to prior decisions of this Court so holding. Contrast the view of Judge Fuld in his concurring opinion in People v. Lane, 10 N. Y. 2d 347, 179 N. E. 2d 339).
Third, there is a rule based upon the denial of the right to counsel which excludes evidence of an admission of guilt made without the benefit of the advice of counsel in the course of a preliminary hearing prior to trial, at least in a capital case. White v. Maryland, 371 U. S. 909, 83 S. Ct. 1050, reversing the judgment of this Court in White v. State, 227 Md. 615, 177 A. 2d 877. Whether the rule of the White case and of Hamilton v. Alabama, 368 U. S. 52 (lack of counsel at arraignment) applies beyond capital cases is, perhaps, not yet clear; but if Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335, overruling Betts v. Brady, 316 U. S. 455, may be considered a guidepost on this question (as I think it should be) this rule, I should also think, would not be limited to capital cases. See also the case entitled Patterson v. Warden, 372 U. S. 776, 83 S. Ct. 1103, vacating, per curiam, the judgment of this Court in Patterson v. State, 227 Md. 194, 175 A. 2d 746, and remanding the case for further consideration in the light of Gideon, In a *497collision with such a rule as that of Hamilton and White, prejudice or the absence thereof is of no importance. (Cf. present Maryland Rule 719 b and its predecessor, Maryland Rule 723 b, relating to arraignment and the right to counsel in serious cases and Hill v. State, 218 Md. 120, 145 A. 2d 445. Both the past and present forms of Rule 719 b were adopted after Betts v. Brady and before Gideon v. Wainwright.)
Fourth, there is the rule long established in the federal courts which excludes evidence which is the product of an unlawful search or seizure. This rule was not generally followed in the state courts, though it gained adherents over the years. Maryland adhered to the rule admitting evidence, if relevant, regardless of the legality or illegality of the means by which it was procured. See Lawrence v. State, 103 Md. 17, 63 A. 96, Meisinger v. State, 155 Md. 195, 141 A. 536, and many later decisions in cases involving felonies or otherwise excepted from the operation of the Bouse Act referred to below. The rule was adhered to in Meisinger by a closely divided court (4-3), over the vigorous and able dissent of Judge Parke, in which he was joined by Chief Judge Bond and Judge Digges. It was modified by a statute commonly known as the Bouse Act, originally enacted as Ch. 194 of the Acts of 1929, since amended on a number of occasions. See Code (1957), Art. 35, §§ 5 and 6 (the latter having been added by Ch. 59 of the Acts of 1952 and amended by Ch. 53 of the Acts of 1959), and Code (1957), Art. 27, § 299, exempting prosecutions under the narcotics laws from its operation. In general, the Bouse Act and its successors prohibit the use of evidence illegally obtained in prosecutions for misdemeanors, but did not apply to prosecutions for felonies.
Since the decision of the Supreme Court in Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643, the exclusionary rule prevailing in the federal courts extends to prosecutions in the state courts, and the distinctions between felonies and misdemeanors, or between misdemeanors generally and certain kinds of misdemeanors or certain kinds of misdemeanors committed in certain parts of the State, are no longer significant. The exclusionary rule of Mapp v. Ohio applies to evidence in all kinds of criminal cases. Belton v. State, 228 Md. 17, 178 A. 2d 409.
*498In Belton this Court clearly recognized (228 Md. at 20) that in the Mapp case the Supreme Court had held the exclusionary rule to be of constitutional origin. Mapp, it will be recalled, overruled Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U. S. 25, which had held the prohibitions against unreasonable searches and seizures of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States to be applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, but had refused to apply the federal exclusionary rule to a state prosecution.
In Henry v. United States, 361 U. S. 98, the Supreme Court pointed out that an illegal arrest falls within the scope of the Fourth Amendment, just as does an illegal search or seizure. The majority opinion, written by Mr. Justice Douglas, noted that the statutory authority of FBI officers and agents to make felony arrests without a warrant was restricted to offenses committed “in their presence” or where they have “reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing” a felony, and then said: “The statute states the constitutional standard, for it is the command of the Fourth Amendment that no warrants for either searches or arrests shall issue except 'upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.’ ”1 (361 U. S. 100.)
In Silverman v. United States, 365 U. S. 505, evidence of conversations obtained by the use of a listening device operating through a spike driven into a wall so as to make contact with the duct system of the building occupied by the defendants, was held inadmissible.
The most recent decision of the Supreme Court relevant to this case of which I am informed is Wong Sun v. United States, *499371 U. S. 471, decided in January, 1963. That is a federal narcotics case in which two defendants were convicted of fraudulent and knowing transportation of illegally imported heroin. One of them, James Wah Toy, was arrested in his home without a warrant or a search warrant or probable cause. The entry of the officers and Toy’s arrest were held unlawful, and a statement which he made at the time thereof was held inadmissible. So were narcotic drugs found in the possession of another as a result of information contained in Toy’s statement then made. Some days later, after Toy had been arraigned and released on his own recognizance, he returned to the office of the narcotics agents and made a confession. Without passing on its admissibility, the Supreme Court held that it was insufficient to support this defendant’s conviction because it was uncorroborated, his statement at the time of his arrest and the evidence obtained as a result thereof having been excluded, and a statement by his co-defendant made after arrest having also been held inadmissible against Toy. The other, Wong Sun, was also held to have been illegally arrested. The agents had no warrant for his arrest and were held not to have had probable cause upon which to arrest him without a warrant. Wong Sun, too, was released after arraignment on his own recognizance and he also returned to the narcotics agents several days later and gave them an oral confession. There was no challenge to its voluntary character. It was held admissible because the lapse of time between the arrest and the unlawful confession had rendered the connection between the unlawful arrest and the confession so attenuated as to remove the “taint.” (The case against Wong Sun was remanded for a new trial on a ground not here relevant — the possible effect of the consideration as against him of the confession of a co-defendant which was not admissible against him).
Wong Sun is not a typical McNabb-Mallory rule case since the confessions were not obtained during or as a result of undue prolongation of a detention which was originally lawful; nor does the case, as I understand it, purport to rest on the McNabb-Mallory rule. In Henry v. United States, supra, that rule was not involved, but this passage from an article on it by Hogan and Snee, entitled The McNabb-Mallory Rule: *500Its Rise, Rationale and Rescue, 47 Georgetown L. J. 1, 22, was quoted with approval (361 U. S. at 101): “Arrest on mere suspicion collides violently with the basic human right of liberty.” The same article is also referred to in a footnote to Wong Sun.
In the majority opinion in Wong Sun Mr. Justice Brennan, after pointing out that the “exclusionary rule has traditionally barred from trial physical, tangible materials obtained either during or as a direct result of an unlawful invasion,” went on to say that “[i]t follows from our holding in Silverman v. United States, [supra] * * * that the Fourth Amendment may protect against the overhearing of verbal statements as well as against the more traditional seizure of ‘papers and effects.’ Similarly, testimony as to matters observed during an unlawful invasion has been excluded in order to enforce the basic constitutional policies. * * * Thus, verbal evidence which derives so immediately from an unlawful entry and an unauthorized arrest as the officers’ action in the present case is no less the ‘fruit’ of official illegality than the more common tangible fruits of the unwarranted intrusion. See Nueslein v. District of Columbia, [73 App. D. C. 85], 115 F. 2d 690. Nor do the policies underlying the exclusionary rule invite any logical distinction between physical and verbal evidence.” (371 U. S. 485-86.)
If the discussion of this matter had ended at that point, the applicability of Wong Sun to the instant case would be clearer to me than it is. The opinion then went on to refer to the policy considerations of deterring lawless conduct by federal officers and of closing the doors of federal courts to any use of evidence unconstitutionally obtained. (Italics mine.) Since Wong Sun was a federal prosecution, these considerations were clearly and directly relevant. There may, however, be some inference that these comments indicate that Wong Sun is limited in application to federal prosecutions. I cannot read its significance as being so limited when it is considered in conjunction with Mapp. The Mapp case, as I have already noted, ascribes a constitutional foundation to the exclusionary rule. It also makes it clear that the Supreme Court was closing the door upon different rules for the admissibility of evi*501dence obtained by an unlawful search or seizure depending upon whether a prosecution was in a federal or a state court.
It is, of course, true that Culombe v. Connecticut, supra, and Mapp v. Ohio, supra, were decided by the Supreme Court on the same day, and that the test of admissibility of a confession was held in Culombe to be voluntariness. The issue of an illegal arrest as the effective cause of a confession does not appear to have been directly passed upon in Culombe; nor do I read Culombe as actually holding that the arrest and dentention of the defendant was unlawful, though there was an extensive discussion of arrest or detention for investigation.
Wong Sun does, as I understand it, both as to the statements of Toy made immediately after his arrest and as to the confession of Wong Sun, adopt the view that an admission or confession which is the direct result of an unlawful arrest is to be excluded from evidence just as much, and for the same reasons, as tangible fruits of an unlawful search and seizure are to be excluded. Those reasons, as I understand Mapp, have their foundation in constitutional provisions. Wong Sun’s confession was held admissible because its “taint” arising from his unlawful arrest had become too attenuated to bar its use. The clear implication is that, but for such attenuation, it would have been barred.
The interpretation of Wong Sun which I have endeavored to set forth appears to be supported by a comment by Professor Kamisar in his book review of the Report and Recommendations of the Commissioners’ Committee on Police Arrests for Investigation and of a Memorandum thereon by the Chief of Police of the District of Columbia in 76 Harv. L. Rev. 1502, at page 1509. Professor Kamisar there states that “since the decision in Wong Sun v. United States, handed down some five months after the completion of the Report, the admissibility of any verbal evidence elicited from an illegally arrested person is jeopardized — especially verbal evidence obtained immediately after the unauthorized arrest.” In an interesting footnote to this passage, he discusses Wong Sun and cites it in support of the statement that “[ajlthough the great weight of authority, both state and federal, had been to the contrary [referring to another note and an article by Professor Kamisar therein *502cited published in 1961 U. Ill. L. R. 78, especially cases collected at p. 81, n. 16] it is now fairly clear that verbal evidence which derives ‘immediately’ from a unlawful arrest will be thrown out as the ‘fruit’ of police illegality.” He also refers to the dissipation of the taint by release between arrest and confession and to an unclear situation intermediate between the two stated, and the possible interplay between Wong Sum, and the McNabb-Mallory rule where applicable.
A similar result to that in Wong Sun was reached by the New York Court of Appeals in People v. Rodriguez, 11 N. Y. 2d 279, 183 N. E. 2d 651 (1962), decided some months before Wong Sun on the authority of Mapp. The defendant contended that certain statements of his were improperly received in evidence and that “he had been induced to confess to the killings after being confronted with a gun and other articles illegally obtained from his room.” The case was remanded for a new trial. Judge Fuld, with whom all but one of his colleagues appear to have concurred on this matter, said with regard to this phase of the case: “If, as he asserts, any of his statements were the product or fruit of an illegal search and seizure, they should have been excluded; the rule announced in Mapp v. Ohio (367 U. S. 643 * * *), renders inadmissible not only the items obtained, but any evidence which stems from their use. * * * And, obviously, it matters not that these ‘fruits’ happen to be confessions rather than some other type of evidence.” (183 N. E. 2d 653-654.) See also the comment of Mr. Justice Goldberg on the Rodriguez case in his concurring opinion in Cleary v. Bolger, 371 U. S. 392, at 402-03.
There is another passage in Wong Sun which raises what is to me the most serious question as to the applicability of its general doctrine to this case. This is the inference which I draw from the statement made by the Court in answer to a contention advanced by the Government. This contention was to the effect that Toy’s statements made immediately after his arrest were admissible as having been made as an independent act of free will. In rejecting this contention the Supreme Court held that on the facts relating to his arrest it would be “unreasonable to infer that [his] response was sufficiently an act of free will to purge the primary taint of the *503unlawful invasion.” (371 U. S. 486.) This passage indicates to me that there is some area of uncertainty, as suggested by Professor Kamisar, in the interval between an illegal arrest and a confession voluntarily made after release from custody as to the precise point at which the taint of the illegal arrest becomes so attenuated as to be without significance. This point, which I admit is not easily determinable and which, I suggest, cannot be fixed as a simple matter of so many hours or minutes, but only by a consideration of all relevant facts, seems to me to be the point at which the unlawful arrest ceases to be an effective cause of the confession (or admission). Such a problem is present here, but in my estimation the answer should be the same as with regard to Toy’s statement upon arrest in Wong Sun. Here the appellant was arrested at 2:30 A.M. and was held in custody for nearly six hours to await the arrival of an officer who had investigated the crime and who was to interrogate the appellant about it. That officer came on duty at 8 A.M. The appellant’s confession was given at 8:30 A.M. In these circumstances, the appellant meanwhile being held in custody without any outside contact, it seems to me that the unlawful arrest continued to be an operative and effective cause of the confession, and hence that the confession was the product of the arrest. At the trial the State admitted the arrest to have been unlawful. The majority opinion accepts this admission as binding, and I do also, though I have some doubt that the admission was providently made.
I would reverse the judgment and remand the case for a new trial under a rule excluding a confession made as a result of an unlawful arrest.

. Mr. Justice Black concurred in the result. Mr. Justice Clark with whom the Chief Justice joined, dissented on the ground that at the time when they deemed the arrest to have been made, the agents had reasonable grounds to believe that the person arrested was committing a felony in their presence, and hence that the arrest of the defendant and the search of the automobile he was using and the seizure of goods stolen from interstate shipment found in the car were entirely proper. The dissent manifests no disagreement with the statement quoted from the majority opinion.