Court Opinion

ID: 9669710
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:06:57.659118+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:59.880530
License: Public Domain

SABERS, Justice
(dissenting).
I am impressed with the trial court’s rulings in this complicated case except for the refusal to suppress incriminating testimony by witness Dennis Nelson. In my view, Swallow’s constitutional right to counsel was violated by the admission of this harmful testimony by Nelson, who became an “agent of the State.”
The facts show that:
—Nelson informed on Swallow and identified him for arrest.
—Nelson knew of a reward and discussed it with agents on the day of the arrest.
—Nelson did not receive the reward money (which he claimed was $25,000 but was actually $2,500) in one lump sum, but in $500 installments while he was soliciting information from Swallow for the FBI.
—The day after the arrest, agents asked Nelson whether Swallow had made admissions; Nelson said he had not.
—Nelson acknowledged that he knew the agents were interested in admissions.
—Nelson and Swallow later talked often by telephone, which agents knew.
*44—Nelson and the agents stayed in contact about every three days; the agents continued to be interested in admissions.
The facts further show that Nelson solicited information from Swallow, finally asking if he had “done it”, to which Swallow supposedly said, “yes.” Nelson asked “why” and he allegedly said “they were shooting at him.” This solicited admission came a week or two after Nelson’s first FBI contact. Nelson, in turn, told the agents about the admission when they “finally” asked him. Nelson had not yet received any one of the $500 installments at that time.
In Maine v. Moulton, 474 U.S. 159,-, 106 S.Ct. 477, 487, 88 L.Ed.2d 481, 496 (1985), the United States Supreme Court stated:
However, knowing exploitation by the State of an opportunity to confront the accused without counsel being present is as much a breach of the State’s obligation not to circumvent the right to assistance of counsel as is the intentional creation of such an opportunity. Accordingly, the Sixth Amendment is violated when the State obtains incriminating statements by knowingly circumventing the accused’s right to have counsel present in a confrontation between the accused and a state agent.
The Court explained the “knowing exploitation” and “knowingly circumventing” language as follows:
Direct proof of the State’s knowledge will seldom be available to the.accused. However, as Henry makes clear, proof that the State ‘must have known’ that its agent was likely to obtain incriminating statements from the accused in the absence of counsel suffices to establish a Sixth Amendment violation.
Id., 474 U.S. at - - -, 106 S.Ct. at 487-488 n. 12, 88 L.Ed.2d at 496 n. 12, citing United States v. Henry, 447 U.S. 264, 100 S.Ct. 2183, 65 L.Ed.2d 115 (1980).
In Henry, the Court held that the defendant’s post-indictment incriminating statements made to a government informant while in jail pending trial were inadmissible as having been obtained in violation of defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel. The Court wrote:
[T]he concept of a knowing and voluntary waiver of Sixth Amendment rights does not apply in the context of communications with an undisclosed undercover informant acting for the Government, [citation omitted] In that setting, [defendant], being unaware that [informant] was a Government agent expressly commissioned to secure evidence, cannot be held to have waived his right to the assistance of counsel.
Id., 447 U.S. at 273, 100 S.Ct. at 2188, 65 L.Ed.2d at 124.
In Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201, 84 S.Ct. 1199, 12 L.Ed.2d 246 (1964), the defendant, having been indicted for violating federal narcotics laws and released on bail, made incriminating statements to his codefendant, who was acting as an agent for the Government. In reversing the conviction, the Court said:
We hold that the petitioner was denied the basic protections of [the Sixth Amendment] guarantee when there was used against him at his trial evidence of his own incriminating words, which federal agents had deliberately elicited from him after he had been indicted and in the absence of his counsel.... ‘[I]f [the Sixth Amendment] is to have any efficacy it must apply to indirect and surreptitious interrogations as well as those conducted in the jailhouse. In this case, [defendant] was more seriously imposed upon ... because he did not even know that he was under interrogation by a government agent.’
Id., 377 U.S. at 206, 84 S.Ct. at 1203, 12 L.Ed.2d at 250.
Here, it is clear from Nelson’s testimony and the reasonable inferences drawn therefrom that he was being paid on the installment basis so that he would continue to cooperate with the State in supplying information obtained from Swallow. In light of Moulton, supra, Nelson was a paid government informant. Under the Massi-ah and Henry decisions, Swallow, having been charged and arrested, could not have knowingly and voluntarily waived his right *45to assistance of counsel in relation to his conversations with Nelson because he was unaware that Nelson was an informant commissioned to secure evidence for the State.
In criminal actions, South Dakota has long recognized an accused’s constitutional and statutory guarantee of right to counsel. State ex rel. Burns v. Erickson, 80 S.D. 639, 645, 129 N.W.2d 712, 715 (1964). “Courts carefully protect the right and will not condone a perfunctory compliance through which an accused defendant is given the appearance of the help of a lawyer but is actually denied substantial aid.” State ex rel. Parker v. Jameson, 75 S.D. 196, 197-198, 61 N.W.2d 832, 833 (1953). Swallow’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel should be given a broad not a narrow interpretation. Michigan v. Jackson, — U.S.—, 106 S.Ct. 1404, 1409, 89 L.Ed.2d 631 (1986). Accordingly, Swallow’s constitutional right to counsel was violated and this highly prejudicial testimony should have been suppressed.