Court Opinion

ID: 9852154
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:25:36.132092+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:23.420840
License: Public Domain

Shanahan, J.,
dissenting.
The majority correctly reiterates the current appellate *747standard for review of a suppression hearing, namely, the trial court’s findings for a suppression order will be upheld unless “the trial court’s findings of fact . . . are clearly wrong.” The majority then moves in seven-league boots to the conclusion that “it cannot be said the district judge was clearly wrong in concluding . . . that there existed no constitutional objection” to admission of the questioned testimony from Koppock, the informer.
At the suppression hearing, defense counsel emphasized that Koppock was a “paid agent of the State Patrol,” but the district judge surmised that Koppock’s status as the State Patrol’s paid informant would “go to the credibility and amount of consideration that the Jury [would] give” to Koppock’s testimony. Additionally, the district judge remarked and ruled:
Well, that part of the testimony in which he [Robinson] described the place that he robbed and admits robbing will be received. It’s not protected by Miranda at all. It’s a voluntary statement made to a private citizen.
. .. They are statements made to a private citizen at the time and they are voluntary statements. The Miranda [sic] absolutely does not cover. Those statements will be received.
Inasmuch as Kuhlmann v. Wilson, 477 U.S. 436, 106 S. Ct. 2616, 91 L. Ed. 2d 364 (1986), and Maine v. Moulton, 474 U.S. 159, 106 S. Ct. 477, 88 L. Ed. 2d 481 (1985), had not been decided in 1981 when the suppression hearing occurred in Robinson’s case, the colloquy between court and counsel at the suppression hearing clearly dispels any notion of prescience or clairvoyance in the eventual constitutional pronouncements concerning an accused’s sixth amendment right to counsel, subsequently expressed in Kuhlmann and Moulton.
Rather, at the suppression hearing the district judge focused on Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S. Ct. 1602, 16 L. Ed. 2d 694 (1966), which dealt “with the protection which must be given to the privilege against self-incrimination when the individual is first subjected to police interrogation while in custody at the station or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way.” 384 U.S. at 477. Thus, Miranda *748concerned procedural safeguards to protect the privilege against self-incrimination during custodial interrogation by law enforcement personnel.
In Sims v. Georgia, 385 U.S. 538, 87 S. Ct. 639, 17 L. Ed. 2d 593 (1967), which involved voluntariness of a confession, the court addressed specificity in a suppression order and stated: “Although the judge need not make formal findings of fact or write an opinion, his conclusion that the confession is voluntary must appear from the record with unmistakable clarity.” 385 U.S. at 544.
In a similar vein, the eighth circuit, in Evans v. United States, 375 F.2d 355 (8th Cir. 1967), examined a suppression hearing wherein the trial court, having considered voluntariness and the Miranda admonition for admissibility of Evans’ custodial statements to police, failed to make any express finding that Evans’ confession was voluntary or obtained in conformity with Miranda. In reversing Evans’ conviction based on evidence which included Evans’ custodial statements, the eighth circuit held that the district court was required to make a finding on the record with “unmistakable clarity” that the Miranda admonition had been administered and that the defendant had voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently waived the right to counsel in connection with a voluntary confession or statement used as evidence against the defendant. 375 F.2d at 360.
In view of Sims and Evans, a finding concerning a sixth amendment right in relation to a suppression hearing should also appear in the record with “unmistakable clarity.”
All of which brings us to the suppression hearing in Robinson’s case. The record substantiates a series of contacts between Koppock and Robinson. In an initial contact and inquiry, Robinson asked Koppock about assistance in obtaining bail, a conversation which was then followed by a later discussion about the gravity of the offense charged against Robinson, namely, armed robbery. After Robinson and Koppock had engaged in still another and subsequent conversation regarding some of the occurrences in the Kwik Shop robbery, the State Patrol “wired” Koppock for a return encounter with Robinson, during which Robinson identified *749the location and victim of the robbery. Beyond any doubt, the State Patrol orchestrated and choreographed the scene between Koppock and Robinson. Putting aside the district court’s obviously incorrect conclusion that Koppock, a paid informer, was a “private citizen,” the district court’s finding concerning incriminating information in reference to Robinson’s fifth amendment rights (Miranda) is distinctly unrelated to Robinson’s sixth amendment rights (Massiah, Henry, Moulton and Kuhlmanri), which supply the premise for the majority’s conclusion in Robinson’s appeal. The fifth amendment has yet to become the sixth amendment, either in the U.S. Constitution or in the district court’s findings for the suppression order under examination.
To conclude that the district court was correct, or at least “not clearly wrong,” regarding a determination about Robinson’s sixth amendment right is this court’s approbatory conclusion regarding correctness in something which never occurred. Consequently, if the sixth amendment is the keystone in the suppression question, as the majority believes, there should be a hearing to determine the sixth amendment issues regarding Robinson’s statements. Otherwise, this court has adopted a de novo standard of review for the suppression hearing and has abandoned the standard of “clearly wrong” which has subsisted until Robinson’s case.