Court Opinion

ID: 9711803
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:39:38.035188+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:07.600919
License: Public Domain

STEIN, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Except for its conclusion that our decision in State v. Hartley, 103 N.J. 252, 511 A.2d 80 (1986), must be applied retroactively to police interrogations that occurred before the Hartley opinion had been published, I join in the opinion of the majority. I write separately to emphasize and explain my disagreement with the Court’s holding concerning Hartley’s retroactive application. I find that Hartley’s purpose to “avoid * * * confusion and conflict in future eases, * * * on the question of the minimum requirement for ‘scrupulously honoring’ [the right to silence],” id. at 268, 511 A.2d 80, and its recognition of “[t]he necessity for our giving guidance to our own law-enforcement officials * * id. at 285, 511 A.2d 80, are irreconcilable with today’s holding that Hartley must be applied to invalidate confessions elicited by interrogations conducted before law-enforcement officials learned of Hartley’s bright-line rule requiring mandatory rewarning whenever a suspect asserts a right to silence. The result of applying Hartley to the interrogation in this case, in the course of which police officers administered Miranda warnings to defendant on seven separate occasions between his arrest and confession, highlights the anomaly of the Court’s determination to accord Hartley full retroactivity.
I.
In State v. Hartley, this Court held that
before an accused’s previously-asserted right to remain silent may be deemed to have been “scrupulously honored,” law-enforcement authorities must, at a minimum, readminister the Miranda warnings. In the absence of those renewed warnings any inculpatory statement given in response to police-initiated custodial interrogation after the right to silence has been invoked is inadmissible. [Id., 103 N.J. at 256, 511 A.2d 80.]
The Court based its decision “not only on our understanding of federal constitutional law, but on our state common-law *439privilege against self-incrimination as well.” Id. at 284, 511 A.2d 80. It acknowledged, however, that the United States Supreme Court had not yet ruled on the issue, and that its prediction concerning how that Court would rule, if confronted with the Hartley question, might be incorrect:
In respect of federal constitutional law, therefore, ours is a predictive exercise, one conducted on the basis of our best understanding of the authorities, but nonetheless predictive. We think our reading of the federal law is right. We acknowledge that it may be wrong. Given the importance of the question involved, we see our duty to settle it as a matter of state law. [Id. at 284-85, 511 A.2d 80.]
Whether Hartley is based primarily on federal constitutional law or state law is critical to the question of its retroactive application. As we acknowledged in State v. Lark, 117 N.J. 331, 567 A.2d 197 (1989),
[t]o the extent that retroactivity issues arise in the context of criminal-procedure decisions implicating rights guaranteed under the federal constitution, United States Supreme Court precedents control the scope of retroactivity. [Id. at 335, 567 A.2d 197 (citation omitted).]
In Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U.S. 314, 107 S.Ct. 708, 93 L.Ed.2d 649 (1987), the Supreme Court held that new constitutional rules of criminal procedure apply retroactively to cases pending on direct review, whether or not the rule constitutes a “clean break” with the past. Id. at 328, 107 S.Ct. at 716, 93 L.Ed.2d at 661. Thus, if our holding in Hartley is rooted primarily in federal constitutional law, its retroactive application to cases on direct appeal is mandated by Griffith.
Particularly because our holding in Hartley purports merely to predict federal constitutional law, it would be realistic to consider Hartley as based primarily on state law. Although decided in 1986, Hartley’s holding has yet to be adopted by the Supreme Court, and several federal courts had previously decided confession cases in a manner inconsistent with Hartley’s bright-line’rule. See Stumes v. Solem, 752 A.2d 317, 321 (8th Cir.1985) (“[W]e believe that Stumes was aware of his Miranda rights and voluntarily chose not to exercise them. To require the police to reissue Miranda rights under these circumstances would serve no real purpose.”), cert. denied, 471 U.S. 1067, 105 *440S.Ct. 2145, 85 L.Ed.2d 502 (1985); Jarrell v. Balkcom, 735 F.2d 1242, 1254 (“We conclude that no violation of petitioner’s rights occurred by the failure to reissue the Miranda warnings * * *.”), reh’g denied, 740 F.2d 979 (11th Cir.1984), and cert. denied, 471 U.S. 1103, 105 S.Ct. 2331, 85 L.Ed.2d 848 (1985); United States v. Hackley, 636 F.2d 493, 500, 504-05 (D.C.Cir.1980) (third set of Miranda warnings not required and statement made two hours after last warnings held admissible; dissenting opinion views colloquy with accused as reinterrogation); Brown v. Tard, 552 F.Supp. 1341, 1349 (D.N.J.1982) (‘Miranda does not require that a fresh set of warnings be repeated each time the police resume interrogation after an interruption.”); see also Miller v. United States, 396 F.2d 492, 496 (8th Cir.1968) (rewarning not required each time interrogation process renewed), cert. denied, 393 U.S. 1031, 89 S.Ct. 643, 21 L.Ed.2d 574 (1969); United States v. Kinsey, 352 F.Supp. 1176, 1178 (E.D.Pa.1972) (Miranda warnings do not become stale).
Because Hartley’s federal constitutional underpinning is questionable, and because there is no doubt about the availability of state common law as a source of Hartley’s bright-line rule, it is appropriate that the issue of Hartley’s retroactivity be determined by state standards. Cf. State v. Lark, supra, 117 N.J. 331, 335, 567 A.2d 197 (retroactivity of State v. Howard, 110 N.J. 113, 539 A.2d 1203 (1988), determined by state law, although Howard collaterally implicates federal constitutional rights).
In State v. Burstein, 85 N.J. 394, 427 A.2d 525 (1981), we summarized the options available in determining the retroactive application of our decisions:
[W]e note that this Court has four options open to it in any decision involving retroactivity: (1) make the new rule of law purely prospective, applying it only to cases whose operative facts arise after the new rule is announced; (2) apply the new rule to future cases and to the parties in the case announcing the new rule, while applying the old rule to all other pending and past litigation; (3) grant the new rule limited retroactivity, applying it to cases in (1) and (2) as well as to pending cases where the parties have not yet exhausted all avenues *441of direct review; and, finally, (4) give the new rule complete retroactive effect, applying it to all cases, even those where final judgments have been entered and all avenues of direct review exhausted. [Id. at 402-03, 427 A.2d 525 (citation omitted).]
Our choice among those four options has been informed generally by weighing
(1) the purpose of the rule and whether it would be furthered by a retroactive application, (2) the degree of reliance placed on the old rule by those who administered it, and (3) the effect a retroactive application would have on the administration of justice. [State v. Nash, 64 N.J. 464, 471, 317 A.2d 689 (1974).]
All three of the Nash factors counsel against retroactive application of Hartley. To the extent that the purpose of Hartley is to give “guidance to our own law-enforcement officials,” 103 N.J. at 285, 511 A.2d 80, and “avoid * * * confusion and conflict in future cases,” id. at 268, 511 A.2d 80, retroactive application is a non sequitur. Applying the second Nash factor, the degree of reliance placed on the pre-Hartley law requiring Miranda warnings before custodial interrogation, and mandating that law-enforcement officials “scrupulously honor” a suspect’s assertion of the right of silence, Michigan v. Mosley, 423 U.S. 96, 105, 96 S.Ct. 321, 327, 46 L.Ed.2d 313, 321 (1975), is amply illustrated by the interrogation in this case. Police officers administered Miranda warnings to defendant on seven separate occasions between his arrest and his confession. As the majority opinion acknowledges, “[tjhere is no evidence of police coercion or misconduct. There were no extended interrogations designed to wear down defendant’s will.” Ante at 418, 581 A.2d at 488. It is entirely reasonable to assume that if Hartley had been decided before defendant’s interrogation, the police officers who had so diligently attempted to comply with the dictates of the Miranda rule might well have rewarned defendant after his meeting with his father and prior to resuming interrogation. To invalidate defendant’s confession because the police did not observe Hartley’s bright-line rule — a rule that did not then exist — is manifestly inappropriate and inconsistent with our retroactivity jurisprudence.
*442Finally, retroactive application of Hartley may very well generate a multitude of post-conviction relief applications from defendants whose confessions were elicited by pre-Hartley interrogations. Those confessions may have passed muster under Michigan v. Mosley, supra, 423 U.S. 96, 96 S.Ct. 321, 46 L.Ed.2d 313, which required that a suspect’s assertion of the right to silence be scrupulously honored, but may not satisfy Hartley’s bright-line rule mandating readministration of Miranda warnings before resumption of questioning. Thus, it is likely that retroactive application of Hartley would adversely affect the administration of justice.
The majority correctly observes that prior decisions of this Court, although not deciding the issue, assumed that Hartley applied retroactively, citing State v. Bey, 112 N.J. 45, 548 A.2d 846 (1988) (Bey I), and State v. Bey, 112 N.J. 123, 134-43, 548 A.2d 887 (1988) (Bey II), ante at 424, 581 A.2d at 491. In my view, our assumptions in Bey I and Bey II were unfounded, and should not impel us to decide the issue incorrectly.
The majority compares retroactive application of Hartley to the treatment given by the Supreme Court to Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), observing that “Miranda applies to interrogations that took place before that rule was announced if the trial did not commence until after the Miranda decision.” Ante at 422, 581 A.2d at 490 (citations omitted). The majority suggests that application of Hartley should be no less broad than that of Miranda, noting the “obvious similarity” between the “nature and effect” of the two decisions. However, the Supreme Court decision applying Miranda to cases tried after the date of decision in that case explicitly rejected full retroactive application of the rule:
In the light of * * * various considerations, we conclude that * * * Miranda * * * should not be applied retroactively.
*443* * * Future defendants will benefit fully from our new standards governing in-eustody interrogation * * *. Law enforcement officers and trial courts will have fair notice that statements taken in violation of these standards may not be used against an accused. Prospective application only to trials begun after the standards were announced is particularly appropriate here. Authorities attempting to protect the privilege have not been apprised heretofore of the specific safeguards which are now obligatory. Consequently they have adopted devices which, although below the constitutional minimum, were not intentional evasions of the requirements of the privilege. In these circumstances, to upset all of the convictions still pending on direct appeal which were obtained in trials preceding * * * Miranda would impose an unjustifiable burden on the administration of justice.
At the same time, we do not find any persuasive reason to extend * * * Miranda to cases tried before those decisions were announced, even though the cases may still be on direct appeal. [Johnson v. New Jersey, 384 U.S. 719, 732-33, 86 S.Ct. 1772, 1780-81, 16 L.Ed.2d 882, 891-92 (1966).]
Thus, the Court rejected both full retroactivity and retroactive application to cases pending on appeal but tried prior to Miranda. The limited form of retroactive application employed by the Court in Johnson need not guide our determination of retroactivity under State law.
Relying on the Nash factors, this Court has in the past rejected retroactive application of new rules of law that would have invalidated “law enforcement actions undertaken in good-faith reliance upon then long-standing legal authority.” State v. Carpentieri, 82 N.J. 546, 549, 414 A.2d 966 (1980); cf. State v. Lark, supra, 117 N.J. 331, 567 A.2d 197 (limiting retroactive application of State v. Howard, supra, 110 N.J. 113, 539 A.2d 1203, to pipeline cases); State v. Catania, 85 N.J. 418, 446, 427 A.2d 537 (1981) (minimization standards adopted by court to be applied only prospectively); State v. Burstein, supra, 85 N.J. 394, 411, 427 A.2d 525 (holding in State v. Cerbo, 78 N.J. 595, 397 A.2d 671 (1979) that delay in presenting wiretap tapes for sealing required suppression absent explanation for delay, would be applied only prospectively); State v. Carpentieri, supra, 82 N.J. 546, 414 A.2d 966 (holding that Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 59 L.Ed.2d 660 (1979), applies only to random traffic stops occurring after date of decision); State v. Howery, 80 N.J. 563, 404 A.2d 632 (1979) *444(holding that Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154, 98 S.Ct. 2674, 57 L.Ed.2d 667 (1978), applies only to search warrants issued after date of decision).
Prospective application of our decision in Hartley is fully consistent with these decisions. It avoids the invalidation of confessions admissible in evidence but for the non-observance of Hartley’s bright-line rule, which was not only unknown but unanticipated before this Court’s decision in Hartley was published.
II.
As I view this record, defendant asserted his right to cut off questioning when he told the police officers that “he would tell [them] about the murder but he first wanted to speak to his father.” The resumption of interrogation after defendant spoke to his father, even without fresh Miranda warnings, did not constitute a failure by the police to “scrupulously honor” defendant’s right to remain silent. In the context of the numerous administrations of Miranda warnings over the past several days, the officers could reasonably have assumed that defendant was aware of his right to cut off questioning at any time. The trial court determined that the police officers “fully * * * complied with all of the defendant’s constitutional rights,” and that defendant knowingly and voluntarily waived his right to remain silent. I would hold that defendant’s confession was properly admitted in evidence.
GARIBALDI, J., joins in this opinion.