Court Opinion

ID: 9542629
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:36:48.831762+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:08:29.795355
License: Public Domain

BRETT, Presiding Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part) :
Although I concur in the affirmance of Rowbotham’s conviction, I must dissent from that portion of the majority’s opinion which overrules the cases of Reese v. State, Okl.Cr., 462 P.2d 331 (1969), and Schorr v. State, Okl.Cr., 499 P.2d 450 (1972), and declares adequate the Miranda warning contained in the printed waiver of rights form which Rowbotham signed.
I believe the majority opinion correctly concludes that Rowbotham’s confession was admissible regardless of any defect in the Miranda warning which he had been given for the reason that it was a volunteered statement. The record supports that Rowbotham voluntarily initiated the giving of that statement and that it was not a product of questioning nor the result of coercive circumstances. Such statements are, as the majority points out, sanctioned by this Court and expressly authorized by the Miranda opinion. For that reason, I agree that Rowbotham’s confession was properly admitted into evidence against him.
I cannot, however, agree with that portion of today’s decision which overrules Reese v. State, supra, and Schorr v. State, supra, and which holds that the Miranda. warning contained in the printed form signed by Rowbotham was adequate to meet the standards set by Miranda. I continue to believe that the addition to the Miranda warnings of the statement,
“We cannot ourselves furnish you a lawyer, but one one will be appointed for you, if you wish, when you go to court.”
is impermissible and would under certain circumstances constitute a fatal defect.
In this matter I find myself more persuaded by the reasoning of United States ex rel. Williams v. Twomey, 467 F.2d 1248 (7th Cir. 1972), than by that of Wright v. North Carolina, 483 F.2d 405 (4th Cir. 1973), relied upon by the majority. Speaking of a like addition to a Miranda warning, the opinion in United States ex rel. Williams v. Twomey, supra, states:
“We hold that the warning given here was not an ‘effective and express explanation;’ [Miranda, 384 U.S. 436 at 473, 86 S.Ct. 1602], To the contrary, it was equivocal and ambiguous. In one breath appellant was informed that he had the right to appointed counsel during questioning. In the next breath, he was told that counsel could not' be provided until later. In other words, the statement that no lawyer can be provided at the moment and can only be obtained if and when the accused reaches court substantially restricts the absolute right to counsel previously stated; it conveys the contradictory alternative message that an indigent is first entitled to counsel upon an appearance in court at some unknown future time. The entire warning is therefore, at best, misleading and confusing and, at worst, constitutes a subtle temptation to the unsophisticated, indigent accused to forego the right to counsel at this critical moment.” 467 F.2d at 1250.
The point is that the warning under discussion here makes clear that the accused has the right to have a lawyer prior to questioning, and that if he cannot afford one, one will be appointed for him when he goes to court; but it fails to make absolutely clear that the accused is entitled to an appointed lawyer prior to questioning. I believe the ambiguity thus imported into the warning causes it to fall short of the standard of clarity required by the Miranda decision.