Court Opinion

ID: 9528306
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:39:38.461291+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:25:39.558283
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion
DeBruler, C.J.
I dissent in this case. The categorical imperative of Miranda v. Arizona (1966), 384 U. S. 436, 86 S. Ct. 1602, 16 L. Ed. 2d 694, requiring a criminal defendant about to be interrogated by the police to be advised of his right to have pauper counsel present at the interrogation in the event he has no means to employ one, was not complied with in this case. The trial court, therefore, committed reversible error when he overruled the objection of defense counsel to the admission of the statements of the appellant during that interrogation.
Prior to the interrogation the appellant was told he had a right to call an attorney, to have an attorney present if he wished, and that the court would appoint him a lawyer if he was unable to hire one. He was also told he had a right to have a lawyer with him during the interrogation even if he could not afford to hire one. However, he was then advised that “We have no way of giving you a lawyer but one will be appointed for you, if and when you go to court and the court finds that you are a pauper.”
*251There is, I agree, an inference that could be drawn from this advice the appellant could have pauper counsel with him during his interrogation. This inference could flow from the advice that he could somehow postpone the interrogation until after a court hearing at which his indigency would be determined and counsel appointed. The possibility that the appellant, a non-lawyer, might have been able to make this inference from the advice given him, does not meet the mandatory requirements of the Miranda case. As Chief Justice Warren wisely said in the Miranda case:
“While authorities are not required to relieve the accused of his poverty, they have the obligation not to take advantage of indigence in the administration of justice. Denial of counsel to the indigent at the time of interrogation while allowing an attorney to those who can afford one would be no more supportable by reason or logic than the similar situation at trial and on appeal struck down in Gideon v. Wainwright. . . .
“In order fully to apprise a person interrogated of the extent of his rights under this system then, it is necessary to warn him not only that he has the right to consult with an attorney, but also that if he is indigent a lawyer will be appointed to represent him. Without this additional warning, the admonition of the right to consult with counsel would often be understood as meaning only that he can consult with a lawyer if he has one or has the funds to obtain one. The warning of a right to counsel would be hollow if not couched in terms that would convey to the indigent— the person most often subjected to interrogation — the knowledge that he too has a right to have counsel present. As with the warnings of the right to remain silent and of the general right to counsel, only by effective and express explanation to the indigent of this right can there be assurance that he was truly in a position to exercise it.” (Emphasis added.) 384 U. S. at 472, 473.
The Miranda case requires that the interrogating officials make a clear and direct statement to the defendant about to be interrogated that he has a right to have pauper counsel present at his interrogation in the event he has no means to employ one. The interrogating officials in this case made no such direct statement.