Court Opinion

ID: 9548171
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:58:43.60158+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:18:33.998594
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J.
I dissent.
It is abundantly demonstrated in the evidence that the defendant knew of his right to counsel and of his right to remain silent. He asked for an attorney on several occasions on December 11 and December 12, and he did in fact remain silent. No statement whatever was given to police officers during that period, and as a result the defendant was released. Thereafter, in accordance with technique approved by the courts, the police continued their independent investigation, seeking evidence against the defendant but no longer from the defendant.
Through their extensive inquiry into events from sources other than the defendant, the police were able to reconstruct the circumstances. of the crime, and thus rearrested the defendant on December 14. Within a few minutes he gave a statement which the majority concedes “was not a confession, and so was not prejudicial per se. ” Actually it was an attempt at exculpation.
The majority suggests the defendant might have feared that “continued assertions of his rights would prove futile.” The converse is true, for he not only knew his rights—he had successfully asserted them before to the extent of winning his release. There is nothing in the record to indicate a sudden fear of futility when he- gave the statement to Officer Griffin on December 14. There was clearly a waiver of rights. As pointed out in Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478, at 490 [84 S.Ct. 1758, 12 L.Ed.2d 977] : “The accused may, of course, intelligently and knowingly waive his privilege against self-incrimination and his right to counsel either at a pre-trial stage or at the trial. See Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458 [58 S.Ct. 1019, 82 L.Ed. 1461, 146 A.L.R. 357].” This court, in the majority opinion in People v. Dorado, 62 Cal.2d 338, 352 [42 Cal.Rptr. 169, 398 P.2d 361], said: “In the absence of evidence that defendant already knew that he had a right to *889counsel during interrogation, the failure of the officers to inform him of that right precludes a finding that he knowingly waived it. . . . Such waiver presupposes knowledge of the right to remain silent; in the absence of evidence of such knowledge, the waiver requires a warning to the accused of that right.”1 It follows that with such evidence the warning is not mandatory.
In this case we do not have an absence of evidence of previous knowledge, as in Dorado. Quite the contrary, there is unmistakable evidence of defendant’s knowledge, not from appraising the subjective but from his objective conduct. It has been held that determination whether there has been a waiver depends upon the particular facts and circumstances surrounding the case, including the conduct of the accused. (In re Johnson (1965) 62 Cal.2d 325, 335 [42 Cal.Rptr. 228, 398 P.2d 420] ; In re Sheridan (1964) 230 Cal.App.2d 365, 369 [40 Cal.Rptr. 894].) The conversations of defendant with the police on December 11 and 12, according to his own testimony, demonstrate both his legal acumen and an intellectual capacity adequate for comprehending the nature and legal consequences of his acts. Under these circumstances it would be a superfluous exercise in ritual to require police officers to advise a defendant of his rights, of which he had indicated abundant knowledge and which he had, by conduct, waived.
Although other participants in the melee actually struck and shot the victim, this defendant anticipated participating in violence when he went to the dance with a hammer up his sleeve. The evening’s denouement was a senseless and brutal murder.
There was no miscarriage of justice. The evidence amply supports the judgment, which should be affirmed. (Cal. Const., art. VI, § 4½.)
McComb, J., and Burke, J., concurred.

 Reference is made to the criteria of Escobedo and Dorado, although this case was tried prior to the decisions therein.