Court Opinion

ID: 9445297
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:24:41.8657+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:12.085252
License: Public Domain

WILBUR K. MILLER, Circuit
Judge (dissenting).
The crime was committed by the appellant, Stephen S. Kelley, and one Lewis J. Wilkins April 25, 1952. They were arrested early in the morning of May 12 and were taken to the Robbery Squad office. There, in the presence of Kelley, two police sergeants and two other witnesses, Wilkins accused Kelley of planning and, with his assistance, executing the robbery. Kelley’s reaction was thus described by Sgt. Reed:
“I asked the defendant Kelley what did he have to say about Wilkins’ statement. At first he said, T do not wish to make a statement until I see my lawyer.’ So I said, ‘Well, this is a very serious accusation, and I think you should have something to say about it.’ And he looked at me and said, ‘Do you think I would tell you something that would put me in jail?’ ”
Sgt. O’Neill testified to the same effect, except that he quoted Kelley as saying, “Why should I tell you anything that would send me to jail?”
Reversal of the conviction rests on the court’s holding that testimony as to Wilkins’ accusation was inadmissible because Kelley did not simply remain silent but spoke, and said he did not want to make any statement until he had consulted his lawyer. This, my brothers say, amounted to “an explicit rebuttal of any inference that the accused was admitting the truth of the accusation * * Perhaps so, had Kelley adhered to his plan to say nothing. But he went on to say, “Do you think I would tell you something that would put me in jail?” The case turns on the significance of this remark, and the meaning which is fairly and reasonably attributable to it.
The majority say the remark “was not such an adoption of or reaction to Wilkins’ accusation as to furnish a reason for receiving that accusation, made out *752of court, as evidence.” The trial judge thought it was enough to make the accusation competent, and I agree. Instead of denying the charge and instead of remaining silent until he had consulted an attorney, as he had resolved to do, Kelley gave the officer an “evasive and defiant” answer.1 In evading direct comment on the accusation, he said in effect that a truthful statement would put him in jail. He talked too much for his own good, as so many so often do. Kelley’s first conviction was properly reversed, I thought; but I cannot agree that this second one should be set aside.

. Snowden v. United States, 1893, 2 App. D.C. 89, 93.