Court Opinion

ID: 9665927
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:59:57.974405+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:20.808638
License: Public Domain

MADDOX, Justice
(dissenting).
It appears to me that the majority has given the defendant the best of two worlds. He was allowed to object when the state attempted to lay a predicate before the jury, which he had a right to do under Jackson v. Denno, saying “Judge, that [admissibility] is not a jury issue,” and now the majority permits him to object on the ground that the state did not show the predicate to the jury. If Lewis had been refused permission to cross-examine the state’s witnesses before the jury on the voluntariness of the statement, as happened in the Mississippi case, Rhone v. State, relied on so strongly by the majority, I would agree with the majority, because a defendant has a right to cross-examine the witnesses relative to the circumstances surrounding the giving of the confession.
The record here, however, shows that defendant’s lawyer had this right of cross-examination, not once, but three times — on a motion to suppress hearing, at the Jackson v. Denno hearing, and again before the jury. In fact, cross-examination of the officers concerning the circumstances surrounding the statement by Lewis makes up a substantial portion of the record on appeal.
The majority “infers” that Rhone [the Mississippi case] stands for the proposition that “the state should show the voluntariness to the jury.” How the majority can make such an inference in view of the plain language of Rhone escapes me. I set out and underline portions of the Rhone opinion which convinces me that the majority makes what, I believe, is an incorrect inference.
“After the court found that the confession was competent evidence it allowed the state, over the objection of the defendant, to introduce a confession into evidence without showing that the confession had been freely and voluntarily given. When the defendant sought by cross examination of the witness relative to the circumstances surrounding the giving of the confession, the court sustained objections by the state and refused to allow the defendant to fully show the circumstances surrounding the giving of the confession. It was the opinion of the trial judge that since the court had held the confession was competent evidence, the only thing that defendant could show was that the confession was not true. In so holding the court was in error. It has long been the law of this state, that before a confession can be received in evidence, it must be shown to be competent in that it was freely and voluntarily given. This is a legal question to be determined by the court on a preliminary investigation out of the presence of the jury. If, after hearing all the testimony pertinent to the inquiry, the court is satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the confession was freely and voluntarily given, it becomes competent evidence. However, after a confession has been held by the court to *355be competent evidence either party has a right to introduce before the jury the same evidence which was submitted on the preliminary inquiry as well as any other evidence relative to the weight and credibility of the confession. The jury does not pass upon the competency of the confession, but the jury does pass upon the weight and credibility of the confession. The jury has the same freedom of action in relation to confessions which they have in regard to other testimony. In the case before us, the court refused to allow the appellant to fully show the circumstances surrounding the giving of the confession, although counsel for the appellant made a valiant effort to get this evidence before the jury. This effectively deprived the appellant of a valuable right and was reversible error’’ [Emphasis added.]
It is clear to me that the Court in Rhone, reversed the case because the defendant was refused permission to cross-examine witnesses and show the circumstances surrounding the giving of the confession. In this, I agree with Rhone’s holding.
Another point in the majority opinion bothers me. The Court of Criminal Appeals’ opinion, and the majority opinion, states that the state must show that the Miranda warnings were given. The opinion of the Court of Criminal Appeals erroneously states that this was not done. The majority holds that the state must show a Miranda warning.
In any event, the state showed a Miranda warning in this case. The record shows:
“BY MR. KULAKOWSKI:
Q Now, Officer Seals, on March 18, 1974, you testified that you had made a search of the apartment at 269 Rickarby Street, here in Mobile County.
I will ask you, after the capsules of white substance were found in the bedroom, and after the defendant Winston Lewis was brought back by Officer Calhoun and Officer Orso after he jumped out the window, I will ask you then if you placed them under arrest ?
A Yes; I did.
Q Okay. Were they then advised of their Constitutional rights?
A Yes.”
Dean Wigmore, in his work Wigmore on Evidence, § 861, Vol. Ill, (1970), discusses the point here involved, as follows:
“Judge and jury; whether the confession is voluntary is a question for the judge, (a) The admissibility of the confession, as affected by the foregoing rules, is a question for the judge, on elementary principles defining the functions of judge and jury. . . . This orthodox principle is recognized in a substantial number of jurisdictions. [Alabama is listed as one of these jurisdictions.]
“But in comparatively recent times the heresy of leaving the question to the jury has made rapid strides.
“To say that it is a question for the jury may mean one of two things. It may mean that the confession goes in any case to the jury to accept or to reject or to give such weight as the jury chooses; this practically abolishes all the foregoing limitations. But it may, and commonly does, mean that the jury may be allowed to measure it by the foregoing legal tests, and to reject it as a judge would if the tests are not fulfilled. This is decidedly improper; first, because it makes abject surrender of the fixed principle that all questions of admissibility are questions of law for the judge only; secondly, because the confession rules do not attempt to measure the ultimate value of a given confession, and the tribunal which is to weigh all evidence finally ought not to be artificially hampered by them; thirdly, because the jury is not familiar enough with them to *356attempt to employ them. Nevertheless, many courts today hold that, after the judge has applied the rules and admitted the confession, the jury are to apply them again, and by that test may reject it. This unpractical- heresy fails to appreciate the elementary canon of admissibility and in that aspect its judicial extension has been a discouraging circumstance.”
The defendant is entitled to have the trial court charge the jury on the law relative to confession; he is allowed to cross-examine witnesses and present evidence touching the issue of voluntariness of a confession, but he is not entitled, in my judgment, to object to the state’s initial offer of a predicate, force an en camera hearing, and then insist that the state must show before the jury that the statement was admissible, because as defendant’s counsel here stated, when the state started to prove the predicate, “Judge, that is not a jury issue.” I agree with him. Admissibility is not a jury issue.