Court Opinion

ID: 9710594
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:12:44.137597+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:58.253531
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion
DeBruler, J.
I agree with the view of the Court that there was sufficient evidence of sanity to support the jury’s decision here. There is evidence that appellant was eighteen years old, an employee of U.S. Steel, and that on the day of the killing, he, in concert with friends picked the victim up, and took her to his apartment. They engaged in conversation and had an ordinary human encounter during the apartment visit. In the car, the appellant sought to convince the victim to have sexual relations with him, and being unable to do so, became angered and enraged by reason of his frustrated *309expectations. In this state of anger, he struck out at the victim, with the means at hand, namely, the automobile. He had violently attacked women in his life before when they did not meet his expectations. It seems to me that the jury would have been warranted in concluding from this evidence, and that stated in the majority opinion, that appellant’s attack upon the victim was the product of anger and frustration engendered by being- denied what he wanted from a person he considered weaker and inferior, and that such a violent and infantile reaction, tragically resulting in death, was the act of a sane person and was causally unconnected to any mental disease or defect.
I do not however agree that the precautionary warnings given to appellant prior to his confession conformed to the requirements of Miranda v. Arizona, (1966) 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694.
Appellant’s counsel points out the defect in this form in his brief. There he contends:
“The printed material in this form is ambiguous, failing to adequately inform most suspects that they have the right to an appointed attorney prior to any questioning. Part of this deliberately calculated effect was achieved by adding the words ‘attorney of your own choice’ to the first part of the advisement form. This would mean to many that they could have an attorney of their own choice to consult with them before they made a statement, just as it reads on the Lake County Waiver Form, but that this only applies to an attorney of their own choice, assuming they could afford one.
The form then continues on to advise the individual that an attorney may be present while he is making any statement or throughout the course of any conversation with any police officer if he chooses. The person of course still has the attorney of his own choice in mind, and if he cannot afford one, this thought passes him by and is discounted as not being applicable to him. He is then advised that he can stop and request an attorney at any time during the course of the taking of any statement or during the course of any such conversation. Again, if the person cannot afford an attorney of his own choice, this further possibility is discounted as not being applicable to him.
*310The right to refuse to answer any further questions and to remain silent is then listed, followed by an advisement that if the person cannot hire an attorney, one will be provided for him. The interrogation process is immediate and impending, and this last advisement on the waiver form would naturally lead a person to believe that he may have an attorney appointed for him some time in the future, and not prior to interrogation. It is not common knowledge that a person has the right to an appointed attorney at the police station prior to police interrogation, and the waiver form signed by the defendant in the within cause does little to inform the individual of this right. As mandated by Miranda, supra, the individual must be clearly advised of his rights, and not required to ask whether or not he has the right to an appointed attorney prior to questioning.”
The precautionary warnings do not clearly tell the person about to be questioned that if he has no money to hire a lawyer, one would be provided for him prior to any questioning, and that he could consult with that lawyer and have him present during questioning. It is the absence of such a clear statement which condemns these warnings as constitutionally inadequate.
However, I concur in the affirmance of this conviction in spite of the erroneous admission of this statement, because within the setting of this case the admission of the statement is so insignificant and unimportant as to be consistent with the Federal Constitution. Chapman v. California, (1967) 886 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705. At the time the State rested its case-in-chief, a prima facie case had been made by the State without the confession, and so the appellant was not required to go forward with his defense as a result of the statement being in evidence. When considered at that point in the trial, the erroneous admission was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. And then, when considered at the end of the entire trial, that confession must be deemed harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, because of the testimony of the expert witnesses who testified on the issue of sanity. Appellant’s statements to them were entirely corroborative *311of and consistent with the statement erroneously admitted in evidence during the State’s case-in-chief.