Court Opinion

ID: 9663091
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:27:24.445213+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:45.573096
License: Public Domain

Ryan, J.
(concurring in part and dissenting in part). I concur in part III-C of my brother Cavanagh’s opinion with the exception, however, that since the Edwards/Paintman ruling derives from an analysis of the United States Constitution, I find it unnecessary and, indeed, inappropriate to base the result in these cases upon Const 1963, art 1, § 20.
I do not agree, however, that the record in this case supports my brother’s conclusion that the "post-polygraph” statements given by defendant Jackson are inadmissible for the reason stated. In my judgment, it is mere appellate speculation to conclude that the failure to arraign defendant Jackson during the morning of August 1 was "unnecessary prearraignment delay and that the delay was employed as a tool to extract these statements.” That conclusion carries with it the *76implicit charge that the Livonia police contrived to lawlessly delay the defendant’s arraignment on the mere pretext of completing unnecessary "paperwork,” but for the actual purpose of extracting more confessions from him knowing that procedure to be improper. In my judgment, that conclusion is unsupported in the record.
This Court’s opinion at this appellate remove, four and one-half years after the event, that the Livonia police may have had enough evidence at 9:30 a.m. on the morning of August 1 to obtain a recommendation for a warrant from an assistant Wayne County prosecuting attorney, and in turn to obtain an arrest warrant from a district judge, without benefit of further interrogation of Jackson, might be correct. If so, the conclusion that it was unnecessary to delay defendant Jackson’s arraignment until the afternoon might likewise be correct. It does not follow therefrom, however, that the decision of the Livonia police to proceed with the preparation of a 36-page warrant request, to conduct a polygraph examination to which defendant Jackson had agreed the night before, and to question Jackson following the failed polygraph examination, decisively demonstrate that the officers unnecessarily delayed arraigning Jackson as a ruse to "extract the post-polygraph statements.” It is equally plausible, on the record before us, that the officers honestly believed that they were insufficiently prepared to request and obtain a warrant in this major "murder for hire” case until the statutorily required warrant request was properly completed and approved, the previously scheduled polygraph examination was completed, and the defendant was afforded the opportunity to reconcile, if he wished to, the conflicts it revealed. See United States v Lovasco, 431 US 783, 791; 97 S Ct 2044; 52 L Ed 2d 752 (1977) ("[P]rose*77cutors are under no duty to file charges as soon as probable cause exists but before they are satisfied they will be able to establish the suspect’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt”).
Brickley, J., concurred with Ryan, J.