Court Opinion

ID: 9884600
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 03:03:00.31876+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:40:03.590678
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Schaefer, concurring: I agree that the convictions must be reversed because the prosecutor concealed the identity of an important witness, but I do not agree that the testimony of the defendant at the coroner’s inquest was properly admitted in evidence. The majority sustains the admission of this testimony because it is “unwilling to extend” the concept of a “criminal proceeding” to include a coroner’s inquest. The characterization of a coroner’s inquest as a stage of a criminal proceeding does not, however, depend upon an act of will on the part of the members of this court, but rather upon the incidents and attributes of such an inquest. A coroner’s inquest is a proceeding of some kind and it certainly is not a civil proceeding. As this court said in Peoria Cordage Co. v. Industrial Board, 284 Ill. 90, 96: “If the coroner had any information which in the exercise of his discretion authorized him to act, his authority was limited to an inquiry into the physical facts and obtaining and securing evidence for the apprehension and prosecution of any person implicated in the commission of a crime. In no case would the verdict be admissible for the purpose of fixing civil liability.” Moreover, in Lyons v. People, 137 Ill. 602, 616-7, this court squarely characterized a coroner’s inquest as a criminal proceeding. “The defendant was not obliged to appear as a witness and take an oath before the coroner’s jury, nor to answer any question that would criminate himself. His act in testifying there was voluntary. Our statute provides that ‘no person shall be disqualified as a witness in any criminal case or proceeding by reason of his interest in the event of the same as a party or otherwise.’ (Crim. Code Rev. Stat. chap. 38, sec. 426; Starr & Cur. sec. 486, page 863). It has been held, that, under a statute like this where a prisoner may testify on his own behalf in all criminal proceedings if he desires, his testimony taken under oath at the preliminary examination, if it appears to have been freely given, without compulsion or promise, is admissible as a confession. (People v. Kelly, 47 Cal. 125; 1 Greenl. on Ev. — 14th ed. — sec. 225 and note (a); Whart. Crim. Ev. sec. 669 supra).” (See also People v. Jackson, 23 Ill.2d 263, 266; Novitsky v. Knickerbocker Ice Co., 276 Ill. 102, 105.) Other courts have similarly characterized coroner’s inquests as criminal proceedings. See Acker v. Anderson County, 77 S.C. 478, 58 S.E. 337; and State v. Allison, 116 Mont. 352, 153 P.2d 141. To sustain the admissibility of the defendant’s testimony at the inquest the majority relies entirely upon People v. Musil (1967), 37 Ill.2d 373, where we held that the testimony of an accused who was not represented by counsel at a coroner’s inquest held in 1959 could be used to impeach the testimony that he gave at his trial, which was held in January of i960. But the issues in that case, were decided on the basis of “our rules as they then existed. Pursuant thereto ‘any failure to advise the defendant of his constitutional rights and the failure to provide him with counsel are only attendant circumstances in deciding whether his confession was voluntary’ ”. (37 Ill.2d at 377-78.) Our concern in that case thus centered iipon whether the absence of counsel at the inquest necessarily meant that the defendant’s confession was involuntary. In November of 1967, after our decision in the Musil case, the Supreme Court of the United States decided Mempa v. Rhay, 389 U.S. 128, 19 L. Ed. 2d 336, 88 S. Ct. 254. That case involved the right of a defendant "to counsel at the time of sentencing where the sentencing has been deferred subject to probation.” (389 U.S. at 130, 19 L. Ed. 2d at 338.) In its opinion the court discussed its decisions in Townsend v. Burke (1948), 334 U.S. 736, 92 L. Ed. 1690, 68 S. Ct. 1252, Moore v. Michigan (1957), 355 U.S. 155, 2 L. Ed. 2d 167, 78 S. Ct. 191, Hamilton v. Alabama (1961), 368 U.S. 52, 7 L. Ed. 2d 114, 82 S. Ct. 157, and also referred to its decisions in Reece v. Georgia (1955), 350 U.S. 85, 100 L. Ed. 77, 76 S. Ct. 167, and White v. Maryland (1963), 373 U.S. 59, 10 L. Ed. 2d 193, 83 S. Ct. 1050. The opinion continued: “All the foregoing cases, with the exception of White, were decided during the reign of Betts v. Brady, 316 U.S. 455, 86 L. Ed. 1595, 62 S. Ct. 1252 (1942), and accordingly relied on various ‘special circumstances’ to make the right to counsel applicable. In Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335. 9 L. Ed. 2d 799. 83 S. Ct. 792, 93 A.L.R. 2d 733 (1963), however, Betts was overruled and this Court held that the Sixth Amendment as applied through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was applicable to the States and, accordingly, that there was an absolute right to appointment of counsel in felony cases. “There was no occasion in Gideon to enumerate the various stages in a criminal proceeding at which counsel was required, but Townsend, Moore, and Hamilton, when the Betts requirement of special circumstances is stripped away by Gideon, clearly stand for the proposition that appointment of counsel for an indigent is required at every stage of a criminal proceeding where substantial rights of a criminal accused may be affected.” 389 U.S. at 134; 19 L. Ed. 2d at 340. Mempa makes it clear that the sixth amendment right to counsel is directly applicable and that disposition of this case must turn upon whether the coroner’s inquest was a stage of the proceeding at which the substantial rights of the defendant could have been affected. The record leaves no doubt as to the answer to that question. At a time when he alone was suspected of the murder, the defendant- was called upon to testify at a formal proceeding, the purpose of which was to determine “by whom * * * the said dead body came to its death * * *.” (111. Rev. Stat. 1963, chap. 31, par. 15.) The governing statute,.as amended in 1959, provided: “Any witness appearing at the inquest shall have the right to be represented by counsel.” (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1963, chap. 31, par. 18.1.) Despite the statute and the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, particularly White v. Maryland (1963), 373 U.S. 59, 10 L. Ed. 2d 193, 83 S. Ct. 1050, the defendant was not advised of his right to be represented by counsel, and he can not be said to have waived that right. For these reasons, in my opinion the admission of the defendant’s testimony at the coroner’s inquest was erroneous.