Court Opinion

ID: 9733337
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:03:47.425448+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:40.632054
License: Public Domain

Beun®, C. J.,
filed the following dissenting opinion.
As in Prescoe v. State, 231 Md. 486, 191 A. 2d 226, statements made by the defendant during an unlawful arrest were admitted in evidence over objection. Here the statements were made very soon after the arrest and here there was no concession as there was in Prescoe that they met the ordinary test of voluntariness. That concession did not seem to me in Prescoe to make the statement admissible, if it were the product of an unlawful arrest, as I thought it was. Nor does it matter here, in my estimation, that the evidence supports a finding that the statements here in issue were voluntary. My view in Prescoe was based upon my understanding of the effect of several decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States cited in my dissenting opinion. The final determination of the question in that case and in this lies not with this Court, but with the Supreme Court, where I understand that review is being or will be sought in Prescoe and presumably in this case. In such circumstances, and considering that both cases were pending and were argued in this Court within a rather short time of each other, I think it appropriate to note my dissent in this case upon the grounds stated in my dissent in the Prescoe case. I accordingly do so.
I find nothing in Ker v. California, 374 U. S. 23, 83 S. Ct. 1623 (1963), decided since Prescoe, which leads me to alter the views which I stated in Prescoe.