Court Opinion

ID: 9741144
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:50:01.802632+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:22.531374
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion
DeBruler, J.
I dissent. The advice of rights contained in the police form used in this case does not meet requirements of Miranda v. Arizona (1966), 384 U.S. 436, 86 S. Ct. 1602, 16 L. Ed. 694. The appellant was not informed that if he did not have sufficient funds to hire a lawyer, one will be furnished him before any questions are asked or the interrogation begun. He was not advised that he had a right to have a lawyer present during the interrogation. This advice form is deficient in my view as I have previously indicated in Jones v. State (1969), 253 Ind. 235, 252 N. E. 2d 572, and Dickerson v. State (1972), 257 Ind. 562, 276 N. E. 2d 845. This advice form suffers from an additional defect not considered in prior cases, and that is it makes two statements which are contradictory, and would be very confusing to the average accused. He, the appellant, sitting in the police station, about to be interrogated, is advised that: “You have a right to have a lawyer present now.” In the next sentence he is told that if he is poor he does not have the right to have a lawyer present now. He is told that if he is poor, the only right he has is to have a lawyer appointed for him by some unidentified court at some unspecified time in the future. In my view, an accused without money would not know after reading this form whether or not he had a right to the services of a lawyer at that point. He clearly did have that right under the standards set forth in *248the Miranda case, and the failure of this form to state that right clearly and understandably renders it defective.
Note.—Reported in 286 N. E. 2d 408.