Court Opinion

ID: 9463511
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:09:13.717387+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:09.426528
License: Public Domain

WINTER, Circuit Judge,
concurring and dissenting:
While I agree that the separate grounds for reversal advanced by defendants Vaughan and Whitehead are lacking in merit and their convictions should be affirmed, I would reverse as to Grant and grant him a new trial.
When interrogated by the police and advised of his Miranda rights, Grant claimed his right to counsel. His claim was not honored. The interrogation continued for what the majority charitably describes as “the standard identification information.” * *949After the obtention of “the standard identification information,” conversation between defendant and his interrogator continued to the point that when defendant was apprised of the knowledge of the F.B.I. of how the Richmond bank robbery had been carried out and the fact that four individuals had been arrested, he replied, “It is all true,” twice repeated. The agents then proceeded to take a formal admission of guilt, preceded by the giving of the Miranda warnings again. Perhaps, significantly, defendant declined to sign a formal waiver of his Miranda rights although requested to do so. He did, however, sign his confession.
I
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 474, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), could hardly be more specific in saying that when a defendant is advised of his right to counsel and articulates his claim to counsel, interrogation must cease until an attorney is present. Of course there are cases where a defendant later changes his mind and initiates a conversation, or agrees formally to be interrogated, see Michigan v. Mosley, 423 U.S. 96, 96 S.Ct. 321, 46 L.Ed.2d 313 (1975); United States v. Tafoya, 459 F.2d 424 (10 Cir. 1972); United States v. Brown, 459 F.2d 319 (5 Cir. 1971), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 864, 93 S.Ct. 155, 34 L.Ed.2d 111 (1972), where a court may conclude that there has been a waiver of the right to counsel, but this is not such a case. No significant delay occurred between defendant’s claim of his privilege and the agent’s dishonor of it.
We have impliedly, if not explicitly, recognized the force of the Miranda mandate. See Strickland v. Garrison, No. 76-1683 (decided June 22, 1976) (Winter, Craven, Butzner, JJ.) (unpublished). In Strickland, we set aside a conviction based in part upon a confession obtained in violation of Miranda’s holding that the right to counsel must be respected. There we give Miranda its literal meaning. Proctor v. United States, 131 U.S.App.D.C. 241, 404 F.2d 819 (1969), is in full accord. The recentness of the decision in Strickland makes all the more inexplicable the result reached today.
Admittedly there are lower court cases which have diluted Miranda’s mandate concerning the right to counsel, but I find some of them distinguishable and others I would respectfully decline to follow. United States ex rel. Hines v. LaVallee, 521 F.2d 1109 (2 Cir. 1975), is the principal case in which it is said that “[djespite the breadth of the language used in Miranda, the Supreme Court was concerned with protecting the suspect against interrogation of an investigative nature rather than the obtaining of basic identifying data required for booking and arraignment.” 521 F.2d at 1112-13. Besides relying on two authorities which I will later discuss, the opinion relies upon the American Law Institute’s Model Code of Pre-arraignment Procedure, § 140.8(5) (April 1, 1974). An examination of the ALI Model Code immediately shows that reliance upon it is unwarranted. The commentary to both the April 1, 1974 and April 15, 1975 editions indicates that the only exception to Miranda is “non-investigative conversation or questions.” Id. (April 15,1975 ed. 53). Examples given are, “are you hungry? would you like some food? are you hurt?” Id. 53. Significantly, the commentary recognizes “there will be borderline cases and there is the risk that conversation on other subjects will be used as a subterfuge.” Id. 53. Besides resting upon an unstable base, Hines has as an alternative holding that the incriminating information which had been obtained in violation of Miranda was harmless beyond reasonable doubt. I do not find Hines a persuasive authority.
United States v. La Monica, 472 F.2d 580 (9 Cir. 1972), although perhaps wrongly de*950cided, is distinguishable. There, after the defendant claimed his right to counsel, the arresting officer took possession of the objects on the defendant’s person and when he encountered a slip of paper appearing to be a receipt for an attorney’s fee, he asked for a description of the paper. The defendant responded with an incriminating statement to the effect that the paper was a receipt from an attorney employed by the defendant in case anything went wrong on the trip which was a flight in an aircraft loaded with marihuana. I have no doubt that when an accused is in custody awaiting the appointment of a lawyer, acceptable police procedure is to remove personal possessions from him. A receipt should be given; and if the object removed is not readily identifiable, some interrogation as to it should not be prohibited. Certainly that is not this case, and the holding in La Monica does not provide the answer here.
United States v. Menichino, 497 F.2d 935 (5 Cir. 1974), is contrary to my views, but I find myself more persuaded by the literal language of the Supreme Court in Miranda than a contrary view of a sister circuit. In Menichino, the incriminating information was obtained during the actual taking of the biographical data. While I do not think that even the taking of the biographical data should have been sanctioned, the instant case is a more aggravated one than Menichino. Grant incriminated himself in the conversation following the taking of “the standard identification information.” The implication of the Menichino opinion is that once that information was obtained, all conversation should have been ceased (except possibly for the specimen questions in the ALI Model Code), particularly any which described and related to the crime of which Grant was subsequently charged.

 The only record evidence about the nature of defendant’s interrogation after he claimed his right to counsel is found in the testimony of F.B.I. Special Agent Burch. The agent said:
. And he did not desire to make any other statement without an attorney present.
Q. All right. What did you then do with the interview?
*949A. We obtained additional background and descriptive data on him. I did not get it all to start with. We take a different background information concerning a subject under arrest as opposed to a subject we interview.
I read this' evidence as establishing neither that the interrogation was “standard”- nor that it was necessarily confined to “identification information.”