Court Opinion

ID: 9649970
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:16:26.732059+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:19:51.024858
License: Public Domain

Sybert, J.,
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Appellant, Jerome Prescoe, was tried by the Criminal Court of Baltimore, sitting without a jury, under a six count indictment charging, inter alia, the crime of statutory burglary (a misdemeanor) and grand larceny (a felony). A general verdict of guilty was rendered and appellant was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. He appeals from the judgment on the ground that his confession was improperly admitted in evidence.
The record shows that in the early morning hours of February 26, 1962, a store owned by Kramer’s West End Corporation in Baltimore, was broken into and 22 men’s suits valued at $503.00 and $16.00 in cash were taken from the premises. On June 14, 1962, the police arrested one Lawrence Morgan in connection with the burglary and received information from him that the appellant had participated in it. Morgan also admitted having committed ten other offenses. The officer who investigated the Kramer store burglary testified that at first the police did not believe Morgan’s statement implicating the appellant, but after checking for three days became satisfied with the truth thereof. Up to the fourth day the police had only alias names of the appellant, but on that day they received information as to his whereabouts and his correct name. When the investigating officer went off duty that day he left in the station house a report on the case with instructions for an officer to arrest the appellant. At 2:30 a.m. on the fifth day a police officer who had not participated in the investigation arrested the appellant at his home without an arrest or other warrant and took him to the station house. At 8 a.m. on the same day the investigating officer reported for duty and began to question the appellant. A half hour later, six hours after his arrest, appellant gave police a written statement ad*488mitting that he, with two others, had burglarized Kramer’s store on February 26, 1962 and taken some suits therefrom which were later divided among them.
The State offered no evidence at the trial of any facts ascertained as the result of Morgan’s statement to the police. Asked why a warrant had not been obtained for the arrest of the appellant, the investigating officer testified, “We didn’t have grounds enough to obtain a warrant.” In his memorandum opinion, referred to hereafter, the trial judge reported that the State had admitted the illegality of the arrest. We were told at oral argument that the assistant state’s attorney who had tried the case made such an admission in his closing argument, which does not appear in the transcript. Hence we shall assume, without deciding, that the arrest of the appellant was unlawful because of the absence of either an arrest warrant or probable cause for the police to believe that he had committed a felony.
At the trial appellant’s confession was offered in evidence by the State over his counsel’s objection that the confession, although conceded to have been freely and voluntarily given, was inadmissible because made by him while under illegal detention. The trial judge reserved his ruling on this objection until the filing of his opinion. In finding the appellant guilty, the trial judge determined that the mere fact that the confession was made subsequent to an illegal arrest would not require its exclusion in a State criminal prosecution if, in fact, it was voluntarily given, as was conceded. This ruling is the basis of the appeal.
The sole and determinative issue in this appeal, as stated by the appellant in his brief, “involves the question of the admissibility of a confession, admitted by the defendant to have been voluntarily given, but made while the defendant was under an arrest, admitted by the State to have been illegal.” The State points out, and the appellant concedes, that the Maryland law, as it presently exists, would not require the exclusion of a confession merely because it was made during a period of illegal detention subsequent to an unlawful arrest. See Payne v. State, 207 Md. 51, 113 A. 2d 93 (1955); Cox v. State, 192 Md. 525, 64 A. 2d 732 (1949); Barber v. State, 191 Md. 555, 62 A. 2d *489616 (1948); Frank v. State, 189 Md. 591, 56 A. 2d 810 (1948); Courtney v. State, 187 Md. 1, 48 A. 2d 430 (1946). See also Balbo v. The People, 80 N. Y. 484 (1880); State v. Raftery, 158 S. W. 585 (Mo. 1913); People v. Klyczek, 138 N. E. 275 (Ill. 1923); 3 Wigmore, Evidence (3d ed.), Sec. 823(b); 2 Wharton's Crim. Evidence (12th ed.), Sec. 366. As we stated in Driver v. State, 201 Md. 25, 30, 92 A. 2d 570 (1952): “The law is clear that, unless the facts show that an unlawful arrest in itself constitutes such duress as to make a confession signed by the defendant while under arrest involuntary, the same rule as to admissibility of the confession is applicable as where the arrest is lawful. * *
In Maryland the test of whether a confession is admissible is whether or not it is the “voluntary act of the accused”. See Kier v. State, 213 Md. 556, 132 A. 2d 494 (1957); Merchant v. State, 217 Md. 61, 141 A. 2d 487 (1958). This test has been recognized by the Supreme Court of the United States as the proper one as to the admissibility of confessions in state criminal prosecutions. See, e.g., Rogers v. Richmond, 365 U. S. 534 (1961).
It is appellant’s position, however, that the decisions of the Supreme Court in Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643 (1961), and Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U. S. 471 (1963), require a re-examination of the “voluntariness test” as heretofore applied in state criminal prosecutions to the admissibility of confessions obtained after an illegal arrest. He argues that a rule similar to the so-called “McNabb-Upshcm-Mallory" 1 rule, excluding confessions in federal prosecutions which are obtained during a period of illegal detention in violation of Rule 5(a) 2 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, must now be applied by the States. This conclusion can be inferred, he maintains, from the Supreme Court’s decision in Mapp v. Ohio, supra. He also contends that, regardless of this Court’s decision as to the applicability of the McNabb rule, the recent case *490of Wong Sun v. United States, supra, controls the instant situation and requires the exclusion of his confession. Contrariwise, the State contends that the decision in Mapp relates only to the admissibility of evidence obtained through an illegal search and seizure, and that the rule as to the admissibility of confessions in state criminal prosecutions is unchanged thereby — the McNabb rule being restricted to federal prosecutions and never having been applied by Maryland. Cox v. State, supra. As to Wong Sun, it is the State’s position that this case does not represent a departure from the “voluntariness test” heretofore recognized by both the Supreme Court and this Court; and that, in any event, the fact that the appellant concedes the voluntariness of his confession is sufficient to require an affirmance of the decision below.
In Mapp v. Ohio, supra, the Supreme Court held that the prohibitions of the Fourth Amendment requiring the exclusion of evidence illegally seized was applicable to the States (whether the evidence was seized by State or federal officers) through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. By so holding, the Supreme Court extended to the States the rule excluding illegally seized evidence which it had first recognized in Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383 (1914), as applying only to federal prosecutions. Cf. Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U. S. 25 (1949) (where the Supreme Court, while recognizing that the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures on the part of the States, declined to require the exclusion of evidence obtained thereby in state criminal prosecutions; this case was overruled by the decision in Mapp v. Ohio); and cf. Elkins v. United States, 364 U. S. 206 (1960). See also Michener, Unreasonable Searches and Seizures and the Admissibility of Evidence in Maryland, 21 Md. E. Rev. 321 (1961) for a thorough exposition of the cases preceding Mapp. Both the language of Mapp and the development of the doctrines therein expounded leave no question but that the rule excluding evidence obtained as the result of an illegal search and seizure is now held to have a constitutional, rather than a merely evidentiary, foundation.
Simultaneously with its concern with the question of excluding evidence obtained as a result of illegal searches and sei*491zures, the Supreme Court has also dealt with the problem of the admissibility of confessions, giving each separate treatment. In the case of NcNabb v. United States, 318 U. S. 332 (1943), Telied on by the appellant, the Supreme Court held that confessions obtained during the course of an illegal detention resulting from the failure of the arresting officers to comply with federal statutes then in effect requiring prompt production of persons arrested before a judicial officer for preliminary ex.amination, were not admissible in federal prosecutions. Upshaw v. United States, 335 U. S. 410 (1948), and Mallory v. United States, 354 U. S. 449 (1957), applied the same exclusionary rule in implementation of Rule 5 (a), supra. Although the McNabb case was presented to the Court in the context of a constitutional problem the Court indicated in denying the admissibility of evidence acquired in derogation of the statutory •equivalent of Rule 5 (a) that it was concerned with formulating a rule of evidence to enforce the statutes and that it was not placing its holding on constitutional grounds. (See pp. 340-341 of 318 U. S.) Subsequent Supreme Court cases dealing with Rule 5 (a) have concerned themselves with defining what is regarded as an “illegal detention” and ascertaining the meaning of “without unnecessary delay”. See United States v. Mitchell, 322 U. S. 65 (1944); Upshaw v. United States, supra; Mallory v. United States, supra. See also Hogan & Snee, The McNabb-Mallory Rule: Its Rise, Rationale, and Rescue, 47 Geo. L. J. 1 (1958).
Although the Supreme Court has, on a number of occasions, fceen called upon to apply the McNabb exclusionary rule to confessions admitted in state criminal proceedings, the fact that .a confession is procured while the accused is illegally held in •custody, because of failure to produce him before a magistrate or a judge for a preliminary hearing, has not been held sufficient in and of itself to render the confession involuntary and thus inadmissible, although this fact may be one of the circumstances considered when determining voluntariness. See Fikes v. Alabama, 352 U. S. 191 (1957); Stein v. New York, 346 U. S. 156 (1953); Gallegos v. Nebraska, 342 U. S. 55 (1951); Watts v. Indiana, 338 U. S. 49 (1949). In all of the cases In which the Supreme Court has been called on to determine *492whether or not a confession is admissible in a state criminal proceeding, the “voluntariness test” has been applied. See, e.g., Gallegos v. Colorado, 370 U. S. 49 (1962); Cicenia v. LaGay, 357 U. S. 504 (1958); Crooker v. California, 357 U. S. 433-(1958); Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S. 443 (1953); Gallegos v. Nebraska, supra; Lyons v. Oklahoma, 322 U. S. 596 (1944).
From the authorities cited it is manifest that the Supreme-Court did not intend that Mapp v. Ohio was to be read as requiring the McNabb rule to be applied to confessions sought to be admitted in state criminal prosecutions. That this conclusion is unassailable seems apparent from the fact that on. the very same day the Court decided Mapp, it also decided the case of Culombe v. Connecticut, 367 U. S. 568 (1961), in. which the Court applied the “voluntariness test” to a confession obtained during an illegal detention and admitted in a state criminal proceeding. We think it a reasonable assumption that if the Court felt that its decision in Mapp required the application of the McNabb rule, it would certainly have done so in this case. On the contrary, Mr. Justice Frankfurter, in his-majority opinion in Culombe, specifically stated:
“The McNabb case was an innovation which derived from our concern in responsibility for fair modes of criminal proceeding in the federal courts. The States, in the large, have not adopted a similar exclusionary principle. And although we adhere unreservedly to McNabb for federal criminal cases, we have not extended its rule to state prosecutions as a requirement of the Fourteenth Amendment.” (p. 600 of 367 U. S.)
In discussing the elements to be considered in determining whether a confession was voluntary, Mr. Justice Frankfurter said:
“* * * No single litmus-paper test for constitutionally impermissible interrogation has been evolved * * *. The ultimate test remains that which has been the only clearly established test in Anglo-American courts for two hundred years: the test of voluntariness. Is the *493confession the product of an essentially free and unconstrained choice by its maker? If it is, if he has willed to confess, it may be used against him. If it is not, if his will has been overborne and his capacity for self-determination critically impaired, the use of his confession offends due process.”
We note that the Supreme Court of Washington, in a decision handed down subsequent to Wong Sun, refused to apply the McNabb rule in the case of a voluntary confession obtained after an unlawful arrest. State v. Keating, 378 P. 2d 703 (Wash. 1963).
It remains only for us to consider what effect, if any, the Wong Sun decision may have on the Supreme Court’s application of its time-honored test of voluntariness for the admissibility of confessions in a case where the confession follows an illegal arrest. In that case petitions for certiorari were filed in the Supreme Court by Wong Sun and James Wah Toy after their conviction of narcotics violations in a Federal District Court in California, affirmed by the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The Supreme Court ruled that the arrests of both men were unlawful, and held inadmissible incriminating statements made by Toy immediately after his arrest as being tainted by the unlawful invasion of Toy’s rights. On the other hand, incriminating statements made by Wong Sun several days after the arrest, when he voluntarily returned to the office of the Narcotics Bureau after having been free on his own recognizance during the intervening period, were held to be a sufficient act of free will so that they were purged of the primary taint of the illegal arrest.
In the case before us, the appellant, attempting to analogize his situation with that of James Wah Toy in Wong Sun, invites our attention to the following passage in the opinion in that case (at p. 485 of 371 U. S.):
“The exclusionary rule has traditionally barred from trial physical, tangible materials obtained either during or as a direct result of, an unlawful invasion. It follows from our holding in Silverman v. United States, 365 U. S. 505, that the Fourth Amendment *494may protect against the overhearing of verbal statements as well as against the more traditional seizure of ‘papers and effects.’ Similarly, testimony as to matters observed during an unlawful invasion has been excluded in order to enforce the basic constitutional policies. McGinnis v. United States, 227 F. 2d 598. Thus, verbal evidence which derives so immediately from an unlawful entry and an unauthorized arrest as-the officers’ action in the present case is no less the ‘fruit’ of official illegality than the more common tangible fruits of the unwarranted intrusion. See Nueslein v. District of Columbia, 115 F. 2d 690. Nor do1 the policies underlying the exclusionary rule invite any logical distinction between physical and verbal evidence. Either in terms of deterring lawless conduct by federal officers, Rea v. United States, 350 U. S. 214; or of closing the doors of the federal courts to any use of evidence unconstitutionally obtained, Elkins v. United States, 364 U. S. 206, the danger in relaxing the exclusionary rules in the case of verbal evidence would seem too great to warrant introducing such a distinction.”
We find nothing in Wong Sun to require a holding that the confession herein was improperly admitted. That case involved a federal prosecution, not a State one. But there is no indication therein, or in subsequent cases, that there cannot be a voluntary confession after an illegal arrest, even in federal prosecutions. We think that the answer to the problem before us is to be found in the concession by the appellant, through his attorney, that his confession was freely and voluntarily given. We feel that that concession amounts to a judicial admission by which the appellant is bound.
“It is settled law that when an accused is present in court and represented by competent counsel, he is bound by the actions and concessions of counsel, and that even constitutional rights may be waived in the course of a trial.” Martelly v. State, 230 Md. 341, 348, 187 A. 2d 105 (1963); Canter v. State, 220 Md. 615, 155 A. 2d 498 (1959). See also Wanzer v. State, *495202 Md. 601, 97 A. 2d 914 (1953); Henze v. State, 154 Md. 332, 140 Atl. 218 (1928); National Ass’n for Advance, of Colored People v. Pye, 101 S. E. 2d 609 (Ga. 1957); People v. Hammond, 78 P. 2d 1172 (Cal. 1938); State v. Grier, 183 S. E. 272 (N.C. 1936); Jones v. United States, 72 F. 2d 873 (7 Cir. 1934); 9 Wigmore on Evidence (3rd ed.), Secs. 2588-2592, especially Sec. 2592; 2 Jones on Evidence (5th ed.), Sec. 358 (as to judicial admissions in criminal cases); cf. Hutcheson v. United States, 369 U. S. 599, (1962). “Declarations or admissions by counsel for accused are presumed to be true and to have been made with the consent of accused.” 22A C.J.S., Criminal Law, Sec. 739 b, p. 1098.
In the case at hand, appellant made no objection whatsoever to his counsel’s statements at the trial concerning the voluntariness of his confession. Since no case either in the Supreme Court (involving a State prosecution) or in this Court has been called to our attention, or discovered by us, which would compel the exclusion of a confession that the confessor himself (or through his attorney) admits was voluntarily given, it is our conclusion that the confession in this case was properly admitted into evidence.
Judgment affirmed.

. McNabb v. United States, 318 U. S. 332 (1943); Upshaw v. United States, 335 U. S. 410 (1948); Mallory v. United States, 354 U. S. 449 (1957).

. Rule 5(a) requires that an accused be brought before a committing magistrate “without unnecessary delay”.