Court Opinion

ID: 9729745
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:47:57.589165+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:00.945475
License: Public Domain

Conford, P. J. A. D.,
Temporarily Assigned, dissenting. The Court here reverses a conviction for murder on the premise that the prosecutor improperly made use at the trial of defendant’s “silence” at the time of his arrest by cross-examination and adverse comment on summation. In fact, however, the defendant was not silent at that time but made a voluntary incriminatory statement to the police inferentially inconsistent with his exculpatory story as a witness at the trial. This fact completely distinguishes Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U. S. 610, 96 S. Ct. 2240, 49 L. Ed. 2d 91 (1976), and State v. Deatore, 70 N. J. 100 (1976), upon which the Court relies in holding that defendant was denied due process and suffered a violation of his privilege against self-incrimination.
Moreover, the defendant at no time during trial made any objection whatever to the prosecutor’s actions now complained of on appeal; and this notwithstanding he was represented by two experienced trial counsel. The Court inexplicably finds “plain error” in the prosecutor’s conduct when in fact all he was doing was attacking the defense of self-defense in an entirely legitimate fashion and notwithstanding the jury were amply justified on the proofs in concluding that the defense of self-defense was fabricated by the defendant and that he was guilty of a premeditated, *415inexcusable murder. The Court undertakes no demonstration of how the alleged errors here “possessed a clear capacity to bring about an unjust result”, State v. Hock, 54 N. J. 526, 538 (1969); R. 2:10-2, as required for reversal in a plain error context.
I
Defendant on December 10, 1971 was a storekeeper on Bergen Street in Newark. The victim, Francis, was refurbishing a next-door store preparatory to starting a business there. Francis sought the temporary use of defendant’s driveway, and the latter refused. The proofs justify an inference that this incident bred some animosity and insults between the men. There was also evidence that, to defendant’s knowledge, Francis had had an affair with defendant’s estranged wife. Francis entered defendant’s store about 45 minutes after the driveway incident, the proofs conflicting as to whether defendant invited him to do so. A few seconds later shots rang out and Francis emerged from the store and collapsed outside with two bullet holes in his back. He expired shortly thereafter.
Defendant admits the shooting. His defense at trial was that Francis entered his store and asked him to step outside and that when he refused Francis lunged at him two or three times with a screwdriver whereupon he ran to a desk in the rear of the store, took out a revolver and shot Francis in self-defense. The essential controversy at the trial was whether the screwdriver story was true. No screwdriver was ever found at the scene (which was promptly and thoroughly photographed by the police) nor was Francis observed by anyone (except as alleged by defendant) holding a screwdriver before or after he was in defendant’s store.
Police arrived within minutes of the shooting. They went to defendant’s store and he let them in. At Detective Friday’s inquiry for “Henry” (defendant’s name) he responded “Yes, I’m Henry. I shot him.” Thereupon Friday placed him *416under arrest and, according to Eriday, advised him as to his Miranda rights. However defendant testified that several of the police were talking at once and he heard no recital of his rights.1 At the request of the police he showed them where he had placed the gun. He was then transported to police headquarters. He told the accompanying officers, according to his testimony, that Erancis had come at him with a screwdriver. At headquarters, after being given Miranda warnings, he repeated the version of the screwdriver attack to the investigating detective.
Appraisal of the legal issues projected by the defendant upon which the Court bases its reversal of the conviction requires close attention to the trial tactics and actions of defense counsel as well as the conduct of the prosecutor impugned by the Court.
The opening by the State to the jury contained no allusion to defendant’s so-called silence. In opening for the defense, counsel stated that immediately on the arrival of the police defendant told them “exactly what happened.” He outlined the self-defense hypothesis mentioned above and then he asserted that when the police arrived defendant admitted he had “probably just shot a man” and that he “told the police that the man had attacked him”. Thus, from the opening of the defense, the State had cause to believe the defendant was going to testify to a full disclosure to the police on initial confrontation concerning the nature of his justification for the shooting.
Apparently the first action of the prosecutor which the Court finds exceptionable is his asking Detective Eriday on direct examination whether defendant said anything in response to being given the Miranda warnings or otherwise after his initial statement, and eliciting a negative answer. However, this could be regarded as responsive to defendant’s opening statement that defendant had told the police *417he had been attacked. Second, it was proper narrative to show all the circnmstanees surrounding defendant’s inculpatory initial statement “I shot him”. Finally, not only did defendant’s two trial counsel see nothing harmful in the interrogation at the time, but, on cross-examination, they had Friday repeat that defendant said nothing after being given the Miranda warnings.
Thereafter, on further cross-examination of Detective Friday, defense counsel launched the first of several aspersions on the police during the trial for not having searched at the scene for the alleged screwdriver. (See p. 407.) Completely justifiable, therefore, was the State’s redirect examination of Friday to develop that defendant had never mentioned a screwdriver to him. Id. at 407.
The Court’s opinion then focuses on the State’s cross-examination of defendant, emphasizing questions as to when the defendant first told the police about the screwdriver. (PP. 407-408). However, except for one matter to be mentioned, this cross-examination simply went over the ground of defendant’s direct examination from which it had already appeared that defendant had said nothing about the attack upon him until he voluntarily related it to Detective Wehrle on the evening of the killing at police headquarters. The cross-examination was actually helpful to the defense as it permitted defendant to make the self-serving point that he had told the police about Francis’ alleged attack on him on the way from the store to the police station — a detail he had omitted on direct examination. Further, all of this examination was relevant to the previous implied criticism of the police by the defense for not having looked for the screwdriver.
Finally, the Court alludes to the prosecutor’s comments in summation concerning defendant’s not having mentioned the screwdriver incident to Detective Friday. (P. 408). Apart from the ample legal justifications for such comments from either a due process or a self-incrimination standpoint, to be discussed in II and III hereinafter, attention must be di*418reeled to the relevant portions of the defense summation. Each of the two defense counsel was permitted to make a summation, and each launched an attack on the credibility of the State’s case by reason of the failure of the police to search for the critical screwdriver — the first counsel making one such allusion and the second one, two. In my judgment, this persistent theme of the defense, during both trial and summation, would alone have justified the prosecutor’s comments concerning defendant’s silence about the screwdriver when confronted by Detective Friday. Indeed, the defense expected it. They asserted in summation:
But the State didn’t put on one witness to say they even looked for tlie screwdriver. I can’t understand it. I am sure Mr. Bolán [prosecutor] is going to suggest to you that Mr. Lyle made this whole thing up as he sat in the police station.
And when Mr. Bolán did make substantially that contention in summation the defense offered not a word of objection. They obviously realized the subject was one of fair comment on the issue of defendant’s credibility developed during the trial and properly for the resolution of the jury by its verdict.
II
The major flaw in the Court’s opinion is the failure to appreciate that the basic target of the prosecutor’s cross-examination and summation was the defendant’s affirmative statement to the police, volunteered before any Miranda warnings were given (if in fact given): “I’m Henry. I shot him.” This was not silence; it was a statement. The privilege of self-incrimination is one to remain totally silent. It does not encompass a right to speak to the event in part, and then to remain silent, with immunity from adverse use by the State of the probative vulnerability of the partial statement or of the inconsistencies between such statement and a later varying statement or position by defendant. Agnellino v. State of New Jersey, 493 F. 2d 714, 728, 729 (3d Cir. 1974) (con*419curring opinions of Seitz, C. J. and Weis, J.); People v. Allen, 37 Ill. App. 3d 619, 346 N. E. 2d 486 (App. Ct. 1976); People v. Gant, 55 Mich. App. 510, 222 N. W. 2d 784 (Ct. App. 1974).
From the fact that defendant said “I shot him”, and ended his communication to the police at that point without offering the self-defense explanation at the same time, a reasonable fact-iinder could conclude that the later story-given to the police and at the trial by defendant was lacking in credibility since a man who had been driven to fire upon another to ward off an attack with a deadly screwdriver would in all probability, if he spoke at all, have given that explanation to the police — not just stated, guiltily, “I shot him”. See the concurring opinion of Justices Sullivan and Schreiber in State v. Deatore, supra, 70 N. J. at 119, and that of Justice Clifford and the writer in the same case, 70 N. J. at 127. Note also Justice Frankfurter’s oft cited dictum in a similar context in Adamson v. California, 332 U. S. 46, 60, 67 S. Ct. 1672, 1680, 91 L. Ed. 1903 (1947): “The notion that to allow jurors to do that which sensible and right-minded men do every day violates the ‘immutable principles of justice’ as conceived by a civilized society is to trivialize the importance of ‘due process’ ”.
The rational adverse inference as to defendant’s credibility is here much stronger than in the case of total silence and at the same time escapes the legal prohibition against the drawing of such inferences in the case of mere silence spelled out by the recent decisions in United States v. Hale, 422 U. S. 171, 95 S. Ct. 2133, 45 L. Ed. 2d 99 (1975), Doyle v. Ohio and State v. Deatore, both supra.
Once the defendant made and completed his inculpatory statement the State had a vested right to comment on the absence therefrom of the exculpatory addition thereto later appended by defendant. Not to permit the State to do so unwarrantably impinges on the State’s right to mobilize its whole legitimate armament against the defendant’s credibility in the service of the judicial mission to elicit the truth. The *420defendant’s self-incrimination rights are not involved since his voluntary statement to the police may be considered a waiver of his privilege. As was stated by the Court in People v. Gant, supra, in parallel circumstances (222 N. W. 2d at 786):
The rule against using silence as evidence is designed to protect a defendant’s Fifth Amendment right to remain silent. Where, however, he makes a statement voluntarily, or in response to police investigatory questioning, he has essentially waived his right to remain silent.
.The court there accordingly held the State entitled to cross-examine the defendant as to the variance between his statement to the police and his exculpatory testimony at trial.
A similar situation arose in the Agnellino case, supra. Defendant had been tried and convicted for receiving stolen property. When the police searched his premises he explained his possession of the property to them in terms which implied he would not be surprised to be told the property was stolen because of the low price he paid for it. At trial he testified he had purchased the articles in the normal course of business. The prosecutor in summation commented upon the variation in the respective statements. After conviction in the state court, defendant sought federal habeas corpus relief on the ground his privilege to remain silent had been violated by the prosecutor’s comments. In affirming a denial of relief, two of the three appellate judges rejected defendant’s contention.2 Chief Judge Seitz said (493 F. 2d at 729) :
His trial testimony essentially attempts to represent bis purchase of these items as a ‘course of business’ transaction. This picture differs markedly from the impression conveyed by the statements the police officer testified that defendant made the night of his arrest *421both in choice of words and in the details offered. The prosecutor’s not unambiguous remarks appear to me to comment upon the differences in the statements made by defendant at trial and those made at the time of the arrest. Comment upon those differences, rather than upon defendant’s silence, is permissible where credibility is in issue.
Judge Weis said (493 F. 2d at 730):
I do not see this as a case where the prosecutor commented unfavorably upon the defendant’s ‘silence.’ The district attorney’s remarks were focused upon the issue of the defendant’s credibility, and the comments on variations between the tenor of his statements at time of arrest and the testimony at trial were proper.
A defendant who chooses to answer questions with half truths cannot claim constitutional protection to remain silent as to the other half. A complete answer to a question may be as inconsistent with a partial reply as one completely different in detail. When Agnellino chose to respond to police interrogation, he effectively waived his right to remain silent, at the very least, to the topics covered by the questioning, (emphasis added).
The principle that once a defendant speaks he waives his privilege against self-incrimination is fundamental and has been applied in numerous contexts. McGautha v. California, 402 U. S. 183, 215, 91 S. Ct. 1454, 28 L. Ed. 2d 711 (1971); State v. Jamison, 64 N. J. 363 (1974); State v. Fary, 19 N. J. 431, 435 (1955); cf. United States v. Washington, - U. S. -, 97 S. Ct. 1814, 52 L. Ed. 2d 238 (1977). Thus the defendant at bar clearly waived his privilege in relation to this episode once he voluntarily told the police he had shot the decedent. The State thereupon had every right to make any comment about that statement or omissions therefrom logically relevant to defendant’s credibility in advancing the defense of self-defense. Our unanimous holding in State v. Deatore, supra, forbidding comment by the State on defendant’s silence was expressly confined to silence, the opinion noting that the ruling was not applicable when the defendant made a statement. 70 N. J. at 108, 118-119.
*422Ill
It remains to deal with the effect of Doyle v. Ohio, supra. The United States Supreme Court there held that where, upon arrest, the suspect is given Miranda warnings by the police and the defendant is silent thereafter, the State may not at trial comment upon the inconsistency between such silence and defendant’s exculpatory testimony. The rationale was stated in terms of due process, it being thought fundamentally unfair to use defendant’s silence against him when he had been expressly told he had the right to remain silent. Doyle does not control here for a number of reasons.

A

In Doyle, defendant was silent before as well as after the Miranda warnings. Here, by contrast, defendant had made a voluntary incriminatory statement to the police before being given any warnings. The vested right of the State to comment on that statement so far as it bore on defendant’s credibility at trial, as demonstrated in II, supra, could not be wiped out by a subsequent Miranda warning and defendant’s silence thereafter.

B

Although, technically, the prosecutor’s comments and cross-examination could be understood to apply to the short period of time during the confrontation between Detective Eriday and defendant, at the scene, after the alleged Miranda warnings, as well as before them, the gravamen of the prosecutor’s remarks went to the absence from defendant’s inculpatory statement or the story of the screwdriver attack. Thus, the prosecutor said:
He didn’t tell Detective Friday, the man on the scene, who would be the quickest way to get it [the screwdriver], and to preserve that evidence. He told Detective Friday other things, (emphasis added).
*423It -would be highly unjust to the State, in view of the foregoing, to characterize the prosecutor’s attack on defendant’s credibility as solely or primarily, rather than purely incidentally, an invidious animadversion on defendant’s silence between the time he (allegedly) received the warnings and his relation of the screwdriver story soon thereafter to the police on the way to the police station. Moreover, as noted above, defense counsel themselves did not regard it as such, and in fact on cross-examination required Detective Eriday to repeat that defendant said nothing after receiving the warning.

G

It is improper to assume conclusively, for purposes of this appeal, that defendant received Miranda warnings and that his subsequent silence was a response thereto. Defendant testified that he heard no such warnings. The Doyle rationale of fundamental unfairness in the State’s references to defendant’s silence after receiving such warnings is thus totally inapplicable to the factual situation here, as reflected by the defendant’s own account as to what happened on the scene. The Appellate Division correctly made the same point. At the very least, if any doubt were harbored on the point, and it were deemed determinative of the case, it would obviously be the route of justice to remand the matter for a trial court finding on the fact in issue before reversing an otherwise just and unexceptionable conviction of the defendant.

D

Even if the prosecutor’s summation could he fairly regarded as aimed at the defendant’s conduct after as well as prior to the time he received the warning (if he did), it was fully justified by the three separate attacks by the defense during summation on the failure of the police to look for the screwdriver at the scene, as well as in response to defendant’s failure to testify, as it was represented on his *424opening that he would, that he had told the police about the attack upon him as soon a-s they came on the scene. See supra.

E

Any residual error by the prosecutor, after considering the scope of his entirely legitimate comments on the differences between defendant’s admission at the scene of arrest and his testimonial formulation of a defense at trial, should be regarded as harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. The overwhelming circumstantial picture from the proofs as a whole was contrary to defendant’s attempt at a self-defense justification.3 It is conceded in the Doyle opinion that the constitutional point there made would be subject to a showing of harmless error by the State. 426 U. S. at 619-620, 96 S. Ct. at 2245-2246, 49 L. Ed. 2d at 98-99.
By the same token, and for all the reasons already given, this is not a case of plain error, if error at all. It should also be noted that had the defense made timely objection the trial judge could have distinguished between comment and cross-examination addressed to defendant’s statement and that addressed to his subsequent silence, and advised the jury accordingly.
The judgment of the Appellate Division should be affirmed.
Justice Sullivan and Justice Schreiber join in this opinion.
For reversal and remandment — Chief Justice Hughes and Justices Mountain, Pashman and Clifford — 4.
For affirmance — Justices Sullivan and Schreiber and Judge Confoed — 3.

Defendant claims no violation of the Miranda rule, Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, 86 S. Ct. 1602, 16 L. Ed. 2d 694 (1966).

Judge Hunter accepted defendant’s argument that the comment had been on defendant’s silence, but ruled against relief on the ground that once defendant testified his credibility was properly subject to attack by the comment as to his silence.

In addition to the failure of anyone to see a screwdriver, there was impressive medical testimony that from the location of the bullet holes (in victim’s back) and the course of the bullets, it was highly unlikely that defendant shot the victim facing him.