Court Opinion

ID: 9426385
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:17:44.540403+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:00.613606
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Brennan,
with whom Mr. Justice Marshall concurs, dissenting.
I dissent. The Court’s statement that “[t]he defendant’s clothing is so likely to be a continuing influence throughout the trial that ... an unacceptable risk is presented of impermissible factors” affecting the jurors’ judgment, thus presenting the possibility of an unjustified verdict of guilt, ante, at 505, concedes that respondent’s trial in identifiable prison garb 1 constituted a denial of *516due process of law. The judgment setting aside respondent’s conviction is nevertheless reversed on the ground that respondent was not compelled by the State to wear the prison garb. The Court does not — for on this record plainly the Court could not — rest the reversal on a finding that respondent knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently consented to be tried in such attire, and thus had waived his due process right. Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458 (1938). Rather, for the first time, the Court confines due process protections by defining a right that materially affects the fairness and accuracy of the fact-finding process in terms of state compulsion, a concept which, although relevant in the context of the Fifth Amendment’s privilege against self-incrimination, is simply inapposite to constitutional analysis concerning due process in criminal proceedings. The end result of this definitional approach is to impute the effect of waiver to the failure of respondent or his counsel to apprise the. trial judge of respondent’s objection to being tried in prison garb. This not only results in an illogical delineation of the particular right involved in this case, but also introduces into this Court’s jurisprudence a novel and dangerously unfair test of surrender of basic constitutional rights to which I cannot agree.2
*517I
The Court concedes that respondent was denied due process of law: there is a due process violation if the State denies an accused’s objection to being tried in such garb, ante, at 504-505, 505, 512, 512-513, and as will be developed, there is no relevant constitutional difference concerning that due process right if the accused has not objected to the practice.
One of the essential due process safeguards that attends the accused at his trial is the benefit of the presumption of innocence — “that bedrock 'axiomatic and elementary’ principle whose 'enforcement lies at the foundation of the administration of our criminal law.’ ” In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358, 363 (1970), quoting Coffin v. United States, 156 U. S. 432, 453 (1895). See also, e. g., Deutch v. United States, 367 U. S. 456, 471 (1961); Sinclair v. United States, 279 U. S. 263, 296-297 (1929). *518This presumption of innocence is given concrete substance by the due process requirement that imposes on the prosecution the burden of proving the guilt of the accused beyond a reasonable doubt. “The accused during a criminal prosecution has at stake interests of immense importance, both because of the possibility that he may lose his liberty upon conviction and because of the certainty that he would be stigmatized by the conviction. Accordingly, a society that values the good name and freedom of every individual should not condemn a man for commission of a crime when there is reasonable doubt about his guilt.” In re Winship, supra, at 363-364. The “prime instrument for reducing the risk of convictions resting on factual error,” id., at 363, is the reasonable-doubt standard. When an accused is tried in identifiable prison garb, the dangers of denial of a fair trial and the possibility of a verdict not based on the evidence are obvious.
Identifiable prison garb robs an accused of the respect and dignity accorded other participants in a trial and constitutionally due the accused as an element of the presumption of innocence, and surely tends to brand him in the eyes of the jurors with an unmistakable mark of guilt. Jurors may speculate that the accused’s pretrial incarceration, although often the result of his inability to raise bail, is explained by the fact he poses a danger to the community or has a prior criminal record; a significant danger is thus created of corruption of the factfind-ing process through mere suspicion. The prejudice may only be subtle and jurors may not even be conscious of its deadly impact, but in a system in which every person is presumed innocent until proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, the Due Process Clause forbids toleration of the risk. Jurors required by the presumption of innocence to accept the accused as a peer, an individual like themselves who is innocent until proved guilty, may well *519see in an accused garbed in prison attire an obviously guilty person to be recommitted by them to the place where his clothes clearly show he belongs. It is difficult to conceive of any other situation more fraught with risk to the presumption of innocence and the standard of reasonable doubt.
Trial in identifiable prison garb also entails additional dangers to the accuracy and objectiveness of the fact-finding process. For example, an accused considering whether to testify in his own defense must weigh in his decision how jurors will react to his being paraded before them in such attire. It is surely reasonable to be concerned whether jurors will be less likely to credit the testimony of an individual whose garb brands him a criminal. And the problem will most likely confront the indigent-accused who appears in prison garb only because he was too poor to make bail. In that circumstance, the Court’s concession that no prosecutorial interest is served by trying the accused in prison clothes, ante, at 505, has an ironical ring.3
In light of the effect of trial in prison garb in denying the accused the benefit of the presumption of innocence and undercutting the reasonable-doubt standard, it escapes me how the Court can delineate the right established in this case as the right not to be compelled to wear prison garb. If, as the Court holds, the clothes of the accused who has unsuccessfully objected to wearing prison garb (and thus is “compelled” to wear them) unconstitutionally disadvantages his case, obviously the prison clothes of the nonobjecting accused are similarly *520unconstitutionally disadvantageous. From the jury’s perspective, the situations of the objecting and the non-objecting defendants are in every respect identical; if the clothes of the accused who has objected to the court will create improper negative inferences in the minds of the jurors, so too must the clothes of the nonobjecting accused. Nothing in logic or experience suggests that jurors, who need have no knowledge that an objection was lodged with the court, will react any differently in the two situations. It baffles me how the Court, having conceded that trial in identifiable prison garb denigrates the accused’s presumption of innocence, can then make the constitutional determination turn on whether or not the accused informed the trial court that he objected; since an objection is irrelevant to the purpose underlying the prohibition of trial in prison garb, the Court’s delineation of the due process right in this case — confining the due process safeguard to situations of state “compulsion” — is irrational on its face.4
*521To be sure, an accused may knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently consent to be tried in prison garb. Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458 (1938). But the Court, without any reason for departing from this standard, has simply subverted it by promulgating the novel and dangerous doctrine that a basic due process safeguard, affecting the fairness and accuracy of the factfinding procedure, is a contingent right that does not even come into existence until it is affirmatively asserted. Is the Court today thus signaling the demise of the Johnson v. Zerbst voluntary waiver test as the standard for determination of the surrender of constitutional protections? 5 *522For certainly if failure to object to trial in prison garb, even where the accused has not been shown to know that he might object, surrenders so basic a constitutional *523right as that securing fairness and accuracy of the fact-finding process, the Court has totally eviscerated the traditional doctrine that loss of such rights cannot be presumed from inaction.6
V — l HH

 Respondent appeared at trial wearing a white T-shirt with “Harris County Jail” stenciled across the back, oversized white dungarees that had “Harris County Jail” stenciled down the legs, and shower thongs. Both of the principal witnesses for the State at respondent’s trial referred to him as the person sitting in the “uniform.” Record on Appeal in Tex. Ct. of Crim. App. 108, 141 (No. 73-3854).

 In holding that only the “compelled" wearing of prison garb is constitutionally proscribed, the Court understandably cites no precedent for its startling result. For the only area in which the concept of compulsion is relevant to the definition of a substantive right is the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. See, e. g., Garner v. United States, 424 U. S. 648 (1976). But by its terms the Self-Incrimination Clause of the Fifth Amendment speaks only to an individual’s being “compelled” to be a witness against himself; due process rights to a fair trial do not, however, depend on the existence of state “compulsion.” Moreover, it is clear that even in the Fifth Amendment’s self-incrimination context, where state “compulsion” is required, steps should be taken to ensure *517that constitutional rights only be knowingly and voluntarily waived. See, e. g., Maness v. Meyers, 419 U. S. 449, 466-467 (1975). See also nn. 5, 6, infra.
The Court’s reliance on Illinois v. Allen, 397 U. S. 337 (1970), is particularly inexplicable. See ante, at 505. For the Court in Allen held that “courts must indulge every reasonable presumption against the loss of constitutional rights, Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458, 464 (1938),” and further held that the accused could only be deprived of his right to be present at trial “if, after he has been warned by the judge that he will be removed if he continues his disruptive behavior, he nevertheless insists on conducting himself in a manner so disorderly, disruptive, and disrespectful of the court that his trial cannot be carried on with him in the courtroom. Once lost, the right to be present can, of course, be reclaimed as soon as the defendant is willing to conduct himself consistently with the decorum and respect inherent in the concept of courts and judicial proceedings.” 397 U. S., at 343. Allen thus requires knowing, voluntary, and intelligent waiver of the constitutional right to be present at trial, the standard that in my view also applies to trial in prison garb.

 The Court suggests that accused persons freely choose to wear prison garb, ante, at 505-506, 507-508, but mentions no case of a person free on bail (and thus truly able to make a voluntary choice with respect to what to wear at trial) who asked to wear prison garb at his trial.

 The Court states that “[t]he cases show . . . that it is not an uncommon defense tactic to produce the defendant in jail clothes in the hope of eliciting sympathy from the jury.” Ante, at 508. Insofar as this suggests that the practice is prevalent, I am confident that there are simply no empirical data to support the statement. In any event, prevalence of the practice does not explain the limitation of the acknowledged infirmity to cases of compelled appearance in prison clothes.
In a single reported case, Garcia v. Beto, 452 F. 2d 655 (CA5 1971), a defense attorney téstified that given the particular circumstances of the case, in which he sought to portray his client as a drunk, he thought that by emphasizing the difference between the accused and the jurors he would be aided in making that defense. The Fifth Circuit found that this deliberate trial strategy constituted a waiver of the right to be tried in civilian clothes. Although the other cases cited by the Court today noted the Garcia opinion, none involved such a trial tactic. See Watt v. Page, 452 F. 2d 1174, 1176 (CA10 1972) (noting that cases refer to the “possibility” that there may be a trial strategy and remanding for an evidentiary hear*521ing on the matter); Anderson v. Watt, 475 F. 2d 881, 882 (CA10 1973) (affirming grant of habeas relief since no trial strategy was shown); Barber v. State, 477 S. W. 2d 868, 870 (Tex. Crim. App. 1972) (asserting that the Fifth Circuit in Garcia noted that a defendant “often wants to be tried in jail clothing and that it is common for a defense counsel to prove before the jury how long the accused has been confined in jail"; however, no demonstration was made that such was true in Barber’s case or in any case other than Garcia, and the Garcia case never suggested that the practice was “common”). The single instance in which a defense attorney, confronted with the fact his client was being tried in prison garb, attempted to employ that fact to invoke jury sympathy and thereby waived any right he otherwise had to trial in civilian garb, hardly supports the Court’s conclusion that defendants “frequently” hope to benefit by this “tactic,” ante, at 508, or the concurring opinion’s similarly myopic statement that “counsel’s failure to object in itself is susceptible of interpretation as a tactical choice,” ante, at 514. See also n. 3, supra. In any event, even if there were situations in which trial in prison garb was deliberately employed as a defense tactic, that would only justify a decision that those individuals waived their rights. Cf., e. g., Barker v. Wingo, 407 U. S. 514, 525-529 (1972).

 Indeed, although acknowledging that trial in prison garb destroys the presumption of innocence, the Court proclaims that “[w]e are not confronted with an alleged relinquishment of a fundamental right of the sort at issue in Johnson v. Zerbst," ante, at 508 n. 3. It is difficult to see where such assertions, which are flatly inconsistent with this Court’s precedents, see n. 6, infra, will cease. For *522example, since an accused has the right of self-representation in criminal trials, see Faretta v. California, 422 U. S. 806 (1975), will the Court now say that unless an indigent accused was compelled to forgo appointed counsel, he was simply exercising the right to represent himself, even if he was unaware of the right to court-appointed counsel? Cf, e. g., Powell v. Alabama, 287 U. S. 45 (1932); Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458 (1938); Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335 (1963); Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U. S. 25 (1972). And has the Court signaled that unless the accused makes and the State rejects a motion for a speedy trial, there is automatically no constitutional violation? Cf., e. g., Barker v. Wingo, supra, at 523-530. Or perhaps the Court will hold that there is no constitutional violation if an accused does not object to jury instructions that would otherwise deny him his due process right to be convicted only if the State proves every element of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt, since there has not been any state “compulsion”? Cf., e. g., Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U. S. 684 (1975). See also, e. g., Camp v. Arkansas, 404 U. S. 69 (1971). Such possibilities are legion, for this Court has often recognized constitutional rights even though the accused did not explicitly demand them during his trial. Thus, whether the Court’s decision is read as importing the privilege against self-incrimination’s “compulsion” notion into areas in which it properly has no applicability, or as abrogating the traditional waiver standard for rights affecting the fairness and accuracy of the factfinding process, it is a marked and indefensible departure from constitutional principles which have long been settled. Moreover, such notions may have a pervasive impact on habeas corpus proceedings. Will the Court eventually employ these principles to overrule the “deliberate by-pass” test of Fay v. Noia, 372 U. S. 391 (1963), and the holding that an adequate state procedural ground that precludes review by appeal does not mean that an accused cannot “pursue vindication of his federal claim in a federal habeas corpus proceeding in which the procedural default will not alone preclude consideration of his claim,” Henry v. Mississippi, 379 U. S. 443, 452 (1965)? The concurring opinion would put such a gloss on the opinion for the Court, and the opinion today in Francis v. Henderson, post, p. 536, confirms that my fears are not groundless.

 Certainly a basic tenet of this Court’s jurisprudence has consistently been that constitutional rights affecting the fairness and accuracy of the factfinding process are not tost unless the State demonstrates “an intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right or privilege.” Johnson v. Zerbst, supra, at 464; Barker v. Wingo, supra, at 525-529. See generally, e. g., Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U. S. 218, 235-246 (1973); id., at 276 (Beennan, J., dissenting); id., at 277 (Marshall, J., dissenting). By defining the due process right in prison-garb cases in terms of state compulsion, the Court opens the door for the complete abandonment of this waiver doctrine.