Court Opinion

ID: 9862285
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 01:06:01.937215+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:24:59.309000
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion
DeBruler, J.
For the reasons stated in my separate opinion in Dickerson v. State, (1972) 257 Ind. 562, 276 N.E.2d 845, a case in which this Court sanctioned warnings almost identical to those now before us, I cannot agree that the warnings given appellant were adequate. These type warnings are defective in that they tell the indigent accused to talk now without a lawyer, or talk after an indeterminate period of custody with a lawyer. So reasonably understood this warning impermissibly impels the choice to speak now without benefit of counsel. However, under the circumstances in this case, the erroneous admission of appellant’s statements was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Greer v. State, (1969) 252 Ind. 20, 245 N.E.2d 158; Bauer v. State, (1973) 157 Ind. App. 400, 300 N.E.2d 364. Under the total evidence in this case, there is no likelihood that the jury used appellant’s statements in reaching that degree of certainty necessary to their verdict.
This issue has not been considered by this Court for some years, and its presence here underscores its persistence. Judge Spaeth of the Pennsylvania Superior Court pointed out recently in dissent in the case of Commonwealth v. Robert Johnson, (1977) 247 Pa. Super. 208, 372 A.2d 11, 14, that a police officer in that state cannot truthfully tell an arrestee that there is no way of giving him a lawyer prior to going to court for in that state a public defender is available on an around-the-clock basis to any indigent suspect who invokes *110the right to counsel. Where such system exists, the police need only provide the suspect with a telephone and the telephone number of the public defender. Given the sacred constitutional right of suspects to counsel prior to interrogation, and the compelling interest of the prosecution in early interrogation that system would appear to be preferable to our own and its adoption would render wasteful litigation of this type passe.
Prentice, J., concurs.
Note. — Reported at 368 N.E.2d 244.