Court Opinion

ID: 9749542
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:49:36.360208+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:51.155988
License: Public Domain

Concurring and Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice O’Brien :
I concur in the holding that Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S. Ct. 1602 (1966), need not be applied to retrials in Pennsylvania. I do so because as a matter of state law, I would not have chosen the date-of-trial test utilized in Johnson v. New Jersey, 384 U.S. 719, 86 S. Ct. 1772 (1966), but would have selected the date-of-occurrence test of Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 87 S. Ct. 1967 (1967). Thus, as a matter of *496state law, I would have applied Miranda even less broadly than did the United States Supreme Court.
Nonetheless, I refrain from joining the majority in its endorsement of the wisdom of the decision in Jenkins v. Delaware 395 U.S. 213, 37 L.W. 4458 (1969), which held, as a matter of federal constitutional law, that Miranda need not apply to retrials. That decision sets forth the law of the land, and we must follow it, but we are not required to sing its praises. I am in agreement with the view of Justice Hablan, dissenting in Jenkins, where he stated that it was “quite impossible to discern in the rationale of Johnson any solid basis for the distinction now drawn.” If the Court made a mistake in Johnson, as I believe it did, it should have said so, rather than seizing upon distinction without a difference. While we are bound by such a distinction, we need not be so disingenuous as to assert that it is a proper one.
My quarrel with the majority’s treatment of the Miranda issue pales in comparison with my disagreement with regard to the voluntariness issue. On the evidence which the majority sets forth,1 I find it im*497possible to agree that the confession was voluntary. Appellant’s I Q around 60, the sustained questioning of up to five hours at a time, the lack of warnings that he had a right to counsel (let alone appointed counsel) and that anything he said would be used against him, the delay in any arraignment, with this murder not even being mentioned when he was arraigned, and finally, appellant’s being held incommunicado for some four days after the instant confession, can lead only to the conclusion that the confession was involuntary under the totality of circumstances standard set forth in the Pennsylvania cases, see Commonwealth ex rel. Butler v. Bundle, 429 Pa. 141, 239 A. 2d 426 (1968), and the federal cases, see Culombe v. Connecticut, 367 U.S. 568, 601, 81 S. Ct. 1860 (1961).

 There is some doubt in my mind that this evidence is properly before us. It was not presented in the suppression hearing in the instant trial. Although the petition for a suppression hearing did assert that the confession was involuntary as well as violative of Escobedo and Miranda, appellant presented no evidence at the hearing and cross-examined only as to the Escobedo-Miranda issue. However, appellant’s attorney must have believed, quite reasonably, that it was an exercise in futility to present evidence on voluntariness since in the post-conviction proceeding which ultimately led to the new trial, the judge below here, 'Judge McClelland, had considered all the evidence on the voluntariness of the confession at issue here, and had held it to be voluntary. Judge McClelland reasserted that view in the opinion below. In light of this unusual situation, I am inclined to agree with the majority that the fairest thing to do is to consider all of the evidence with regard to voluntariness.