Court Opinion

ID: 9712233
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:49:39.282448+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:10.759227
License: Public Domain

O’Sullivan, J.
(dissenting). I am in accord with that part of the opinion which deals with the court’s denial of the motions for a change of venue and for a mistrial. But I am in disagreement with the ultimate result reached by my colleagues because of the court’s refusal to charge, as requested, concerning the so-called confessions.
The defendant had submitted certain requests in writing in order to meet the following factual situation, which the jury might reasonably have accepted *179upon the evidence submitted to them: On January 9, 1954, that is, about six weeks after Mrs. Dorothy Kennedy had been shot and killed in West Haven, the defendant was arrested by the New Haven police on a charge of statutory burglary committed earlier that day at a local hotel. He immediately engaged counsel, who thereafter represented him during the time covered by the events of this narrative. On January 13, the defendant was presented to the City Court to answer to the charge of burglary. On the advice of counsel he waived examination, was bound over to the Superior Court and, in default of bail, was committed to the county jail by virtue of a mittimus properly issued by the City Court.
Beginning on January 30, the authorities investigating the death of Mrs. Kennedy indulged in a series of illegal acts affecting the defendant. These acts culminated in his giving the two alleged confessions. The way it came about was this: About noon on January 30, the police took the defendant from the county jail and brought him to the state’s attorney’s office. Upon arriving there, he was told for the first time that he was to be questioned about the death of Mrs. Kennedy. He immediately asked to see his lawyer. Not only was this request refused but he was thereafter subjected to a prolonged interrogation from approximately 1 p.m. until the early morning hours of the following day. Only after the police had threatened to take his sick wife into custody and to turn Ms and his wife’s foster children over to the juvenile authorities, and had pretended to make two telephone calls to put that threat into effect, did the defendant reverse Ms previous persistent denials and involve himself in the killing of Mrs. Kennedy.
On the morning of January 31, after the defendant *180bad been returned to jail, the coroner for New Haven County ordered the jailer by telephone to hold him incommunicado and, above all else, not to let him see his lawyer, Chester T. Corse. Shortly after this order had been given, Corse arrived at the jail and asked to see the defendant. The high sheriff of the county, who happened to be there at the time, called the state’s attorney and was told that under no circumstances was the defendant to be allowed to talk with Corse. About noon of the same day, police officers arrived at the jail and, over Corse’s objection, were permitted to interrogate the defendant again. Later in the afternoon, he was taken from the jail and brought to the coroner’s office, where he made further incriminating statements. The statements given to the police and to the coroner were reduced to writing, were signed by the defendant, and were introduced into evidence at the trial.
The defendant filed a written request to charge.1 It seems to me that, in denying the request, the court committed harmful error. Indeed, with the death penalty involved, the court should have gone even further than the defendant asked it to go. For if the jury found the facts narrated above to be true, they should have been told that at least the confession to the coroner could not, *181as a matter of law, be deemed to be voluntary.
The removal of the defendant on January 30 and his detention for over twelve hours in the state’s attorney’s office were clearly illegal. So too were his removal from jail and his detention in the coroner’s office on the following day. While the investigating authorities have the duty of attempting to solve crime and of bringing criminals to trial, that does not confer upon them the right to use unlawful measures to attain their end. See State v. Marquardt, 139 Conn. 1, 89 A.2d 219. Those who become suspect do not thereby become the chattels, so to speak, of the investigators. The illegal practices in the instance under discussion cannot be condoned, even though they may have conformed to a long-established custom of the county and were pursued in an effort to ascertain the murderer of Mrs. Kennedy. Until legal process, issuing from a proper source, superseded the mittimus under which the defendant was to be safely kept within the jail, the investigators had no legal right to bring him, as they did, before either the state’s attorney or the coroner.
However, if the two removals of the defendant and the two detentions were the only illegal acts perpetrated on him, one might deplore them without necessarily challenging the voluntariness of the confessions that followed. But where we are met with orders barring an accused from conferring with his counsel, we reach what seems to me to be constitutional illegality. See Stroble v. California, 343 U.S. 181, 198, 72 S. Ct. 599, 96 L. Ed. 872. Such orders involve the denial of the due process guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment to the federal constitution. See Pennsylvania ex rel. Herman v. Claudy, 350 U.S. 116, 76 S. Ct. 223, 100 L. Ed. 126. The court should have granted the defendant’s request *182to charge and, going further, have instructed the jury that if they found that the coroner had, by an order to the jailer on January 31, barred the defendant from conferring with his counsel at reasonable times, the confession subsequently given to the coroner should be completely disregarded. No matter how evil an individual may be, he is entitled to insist that, if he is to be convicted, the verdict shall be reached upon proper and adequate instructions from the court.

 The request read as follows: “In determining what weight you should give to the confessions of the accused, you must determine whether they were given voluntarily and if you find that they were in any respect involuntary you may disregard all or any part of them. In determining their voluntariness and the weight that you should give to them, you may take into account the following fadtors: (a) The transportation of the accused to the office of the State’s Attorney on January 30, 1954, was illegal and improper. . . . (b) The transportation of the accused to the Coroner’s hearing on January 31, 1954, was illegal and improper. . . . (f) It was illegal and improper to deny the accused access to counsel, if you find that he was so denied, on January 30 and 31, 1954.”