Court Opinion

ID: 9671218
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:33:04.548813+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:08.806688
License: Public Domain

O’Hara, J.
My colleague’s statement of fact is entirely accurate, if somewhat truncated. I feel obligated to add what he apparently considered inconsequential details.
On September 17, 1969 the police of Coleman, Michigan, received a telephone call that a window was broken in the front of the K&D Supermarket in that city and that a man was seen walking close by it. Officer Louis Frankovic of the city police force, *277in response to the call, drove to the involved building. He observed a window broken in a door to the building. With a measure of commendable prudence he called for help from the Michigan State Police. Within two minutes a squad car and two troopers arrived. One covered the back of the building. Officer Frankovic and the other trooper entered through the broken window in the door. Inside they found the defendant crouched down near a refrigerator. Two cash registers had been rifled. Their contents consisting of bills and silver had been removed. They placed the defendant under arrest. With understandable curiosity they asked him his name, and what he was doing there. He replied in effect that he didn’t care to discuss the matter. Thereupon one officer read him a printed Miranda1 warning card containing the essential warnings of the right to remain silent, to have counsel, and that anything he did say could and would be used against him in court.
With this sketchy amount of probable cause to believe a crime had been committed, and that the crouchee had committed it, the officers took defendant into custody and started for the police station. They had previously observed an automobile parked close to the building and deemed it advisable to note the license number. Up to this point the defendant had not given his name. Since it was his automobile, registered in his name, he apparently decided en-route to the station to admit his identity. As an incident of what may be regarded as a lawful arrest without a warrant the police searched him and removed from his person some bills and silver and a penknife. (Later, on trial, defendant testified that *278prior to his arrest he did not have a dime to make a phone call.)
At the police station he was again given the “Miranda warnings”. After some three hours of questioning he signed a confession, admitting he broke into the building with the intention of taking property of value therefrom.
On trial it was his defense that the statement he gave at the police station was obtained in violation of his Fifth Amendment rights as defined and refined in Miranda. The defense was not to the point that he did not break the window and enter the store— this he freely admitted — but rather that the part of his statement relating to his intention for breaking into the store was coerced; thus rendering, I suppose, under Miranda, the extrinsic evidence of that intent and the permissible inferences from such evidence, nugatory. For if the confession was erroneously received, the fact of other evidence of intent is unimportant. The erroneous admission of the confession would seem to mandate a new trial with the confession excluded as a matter of law.
Pursuant to our practice, as noted by my colleague, a “Walker hearing”2 as to the admissibility of the confession was held. Only the defendant testified which, of course, he may do without prejudice to electing not to take the stand in the case in chief.
At the conclusion of that hearing, the trial judge ruled the confession admissible on the basis of the defendant’s own testimony on direct and on cross-examination.
The case then boils down to this: The defendant claims under his testimony that his confession was involuntary because it was the result of questioning *279proscribed by Miranda, supra. Tbe state claims, by its witnesses, the confession was obtained after a waiver of the right to remain silent was signed. As I read Miranda, it prohibits the admission of neither volunteered information nor that given pursuant to an understanding and intelligent waiver. As to waiver, the court examined the defendant as follows:
“The Court: Well, Mr. King, you say you were given this statement, the one you signed here, and you say that you read it over, is that correct?
“The Defendant: Yes, your Honor.
“The Court: And you were asked if you understood it, and you said that you did?
“The Defendant: Yes, your Honor.
“The Court: Well, it says here, that you understood you have a right to consult an attorney. You understood that, did you?
“The Defendant: Yes.
“The Court: And, to have your attorney present at this time or at any other time hereafter. You understood that, did you?
“The Defendant: Yes.
“The Court: That, if you couldn’t afford to have an attorney, one would be appointed for you, and be paid for by the county. You read that part of it, didn’t you?
“The Defendant: Yes, your Honor.
“The Court: Well, what is it you are complaining about? This is what I don’t quite understand. What rights were violated? You are saying to me that your rights were violated. What do you mean by that? What rights were violated?
“Mr. Groom [defendant’s attorney]: Your Hon- or, I think, perhaps, Mr. King’s point of view can best be answered by a question from me. Irving, was it your intention, at any time, in your conversations with Detective Whipple, Trooper Lick, or anybody else, to confess to the crime with which you are charged?
*280“The Defendant: No.
“Mr. Durance [prosecuting attorney]: I don’t know how the answer to that question can help; it is a conclusion on his intent and not what occurred or what he actually did.”
I am not at all sure that I completely understand the legal premise that because the defendant did not “intend” to plead guilty to the crime charged how that intention changes what in fact took place.
On the total issue of credibility in the case, the defendant chose to take the stand. In so doing, he placed his credibility in issue. We quote the cross-examination on this issue as it bears on his declared lack of specific intent.
Credibility (Cross-examination):
[By Mr. Durance]:
“Q. Okay, Mr. King, let’s get acquainted here. Have you ever been arrested and convicted of any crime?
“A. Yes, I have.
“Q. When and where was that?
“A. 1964 in Virginia.
“Q. Would you tell us the exact name of that crime?
“A. Burglary.
“Q. That is what they call breaking and entering, isn’t it?
“A. Yes.
“Q. And, that was in 1964 in West Virginia.
“A. Yes.
“Q. But, you said Virginia, before, which is it?
“A. West Virginia; I misspoke myself.
“Q. Any other offenses?
“A. 1962, in the U. S. Army.
“Q. What was the offense charged then?
“A. Larceny.
*281“Q. Anything else?
“A. There was one other one in 196(1 or 1961; it was black marketeering.”
Specific Intent (Cross-examination):
“Q. And, you are able to form the intent to say I don’t want to answer your questions. You made that decision, didn’t you?
“A. Yes.
“Q. * * * Why did you break the window?
“A. I don’t know.
^ it
“Q. * * * Now, once you were inside the building, what did you do ?
“A. I walked up the one aisle and started down the other one.
“Q. When did you take the money out of the cash register?
“A. When I walked by the cash register, I seen the change.
“Q. How many stones did you throw through the window?
“A. Two.
* # #
“Q. How long were you in the building before the officers arrived?
“A. Approximately two minutes.
^
“Q. And, your counsel brought out that you had passed a bad check that night at the bar?
“A. Yes.”
Perhaps it is possible to throw two stones through a window, break it, enter through the break and within two minutes take money out of a cash register while too intoxicated to form a specific intent. It would seem that irrespective of the defendant’s protestations to the contrary, there is at least an issue of fact.
*282In my view, defendant was the victim of no trickery, coercion, maltreatment, long detention, or anything else prohibited by the Federal Constitution or the Constitution of this state. He broke into a building, took money, was arrested two minutes after he broke in with the money he took on his person while he was still in the building. He signed a statement acknowledging all of his Miranda rights were made known to him before he signed it.
It is now contended that because when apprehended in the commission of the offense he indicated he did not care to talk about it, the police could not thereafter ask him anything further.
We cannot but agree with the trial judge: “I do not believe that that is what the Miranda decision says. It hasn’t gone that far yet.”
I would affirm the conviction.
Holbrook, P. J., concurred.

 Miranda v. Arizona (1966), 384 US 436 (86 S Ct 1602, 16 L Ed 2d 694, 10 ALR3d 974).

 People v. Walker (On Rehearing, 1965), 374 Mich 331.