Court Opinion

ID: 9454031
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:33:12.378262+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:55.944813
License: Public Domain

MOORE, Circuit Judge (dissenting):
I dissent.
If our opinion of some three months’ standing that “the words of Miranda do not constitute a ritualistic formula which must be repeated without variation in order to be effective,” and that “Words which convey the substance of the warning along with the required information are sufficient”1 is to have any application to subsequent decisions in this circuit on the point involved, this case calls for such application. There was nothing said in Miranda itself that there must be slavish adherence in haec verba to the formula suggested therein. The Supreme Court believed that “in-custody” questioning jeopardized the privilege against self-incrimination. The Court stated that “Procedural safeguards must be employed to protect the privilege, and unless other fully effective means are adopted to notify the person of his right of silence and to assure that the exercise of the right will be scrupulously honored, the following measures are required.” Then follows the formula which the majority holds, in effect, must be stated literally and without variation.
The majority, in holding that the words “he didn’t have to make any statement” did not sufficiently warn of Fox’s “right to remain silent,” have to resort to the farfetched supposition that “statement” “could easily be interpreted to mean that Fox did not have to make a formal statement rather than that he need not answer any questions or say anything at all.” (Emphasis mine.)
I cannot conceive that anyone, just having been arrested, when told that he did not have to make a statement would construe this warning as relieving him of an obligation to make a formal statement akin to a press release. Such a construction, in my opinion, is highly unrealistic. To give such talismanic significance to the words “the right to remain silent” is to preclude all other forms of expression which would convey the same idea. In Miranda, the Supreme Court clearly did not wish to prescribe such a strict formula. At page 484, 86 S.Ct. at page 1633, the Court cited a letter from the Solicitor General which was “consistent *105with the procedure which we delineate today” in which the Solicitor General advised the Court that the FBI warned suspects that they had “a right to say nothing,” citing as examples, Westover v. United States, 342 F.2d 684 (9 Cir. 1965), rev’d on other grounds, Miranda v. State of Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S. Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), and, Jackson v. United States, 119 U.S.App. D.C. 100, 337 F.2d 136 (1964), cert. denied, 380 U.S. 935, 85 S.Ct. 944, 13 L.Ed. 2d 822 (1965). In both those cases the language used was that the suspect “did not have to make a statement.”
The second deviation found by the majority from their conception of Miranda standards is that Fox was only told that “he could consult an attorney prior to any question,” whereas he should have been told that he had “the right to the presence of an attorney.” But if he had the right to consult an attorney “prior to any question” (emphasis added), the attorney could have prevented any interrogation without his being present — or any interrogation at all.
As a third deficiency, the majority point to the failure to offer the appointment of counsel on the assumption that Fox could not afford one. Of course, if Fox had even suggested indigency, he would have been entitled to counsel; but absent some expression of financial inability or any showing of actual harm based on indigence, his rights were not jeopardized. Admittedly, in Miranda, 384 U.S. at 473, n. 43, 86 S.Ct. 1602, the Supreme Court advised against ex post facto inquiries into actual harm premised on financial inability; the Court’s rationale was that the expedient of giving a warning, as outlined in Miranda, was “too simple.” Here, however, the interrogation occurred before both the Criminal Justice Act of 1964, 18 U.S.C.A. § 3006A and Miranda. The agents were not forewarned of what was later to be found a simple “expedient.” Therefore, in these circumstances, inquiries into actual prejudice should be permissible. In this case, there is no proof of any harm premised on financial inability. Moreover, Fox was apparently fully aware of his rights. Several minutes after the interview began, he stated that he would proceed no further without consulting an attorney.
In view of my belief that the Miranda warnings were adequate, I find it unnecessary to express my opinion as to the effect of the Walder or Curry decisions on cases involving similar facts or principles. However, if the true administration of justice is related in any way to the development of the truth under the particular circumstances presented to the courts in these two cases, I would endorse the portion of Judge Waterman’s concurring opinion in Vanterpool, supra at 701. “The defendant by his own testimony voluntarily and intentionally relinquished his right to have what he said at that interrogation remain hidden from the jury and the trial judge.”

. United States v. Vanterpool, 394 F.2d 697 (2 Cir. April 29, 1968).