Court Opinion

ID: 9793488
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:48:32.453241+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:05:26.446126
License: Public Domain

LUMPKIN, Vice-Presiding Judge:
concurs in part/dissents in part.
¶ 1 I concur in the Court’s decision to affirm the judgment and sentence in this ease. However, I cannot join in the Court’s lack of discipline as evidenced by its failure to adhere to the doctrine of stare decisis. The Court improperly interprets the Oklahoma Constitution based on a whimsical desire to invoke the constitutional fiat to reach a desired result rather than adhering to a long established logical progression of case law.
¶ 2 The issue in this case concerns a defendant’s right to counsel during custodial interrogation, prior to the time criminal charges are filed. The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution addresses the right to counsel during custodial interrogation. Battenfield v. State, 816 P.2d 555, 561 (Okl.Cr.1991) (citing Michigan v. Jackson, 475 U.S. 625, 629-30, 106 S.Ct. 1404, 1407-8, 89 L.Ed.2d 631 (1986)). The Sixth Amendment right to counsel, which attaches once criminal charges have been filed, is not an issue in this case. Id. (the right to counsel under the Sixth Amendment extends to post arraignment interrogations). Article II, Section 20 of the Oklahoma Constitution is this State’s equivalent of the Sixth Amendment and Article II, Section 21 is this State’s equivalent of the Fifth Amendment. As early as 1925, this Court stated, “Section 21 [of the Oklahoma Constitution] corresponds in substance with article 5, and section 30 is identical with article 4, respectively, of the amendments to the Constitution of the United States.” Keith v. State, 30 Okla.Crim. 168, 171, 235 P. 631, 632 (1925). See also Buxton v. State, 37 Okla.Crim. 402, 258 P. 814 (1927); Layman v. Webb, 350 P.2d 323 (Okl.Cr.1960).
¶ 3 The most definitive and scholarly discussion of our constitutional provisions was set out by Judge Bussey in State v. Thoma-son, 538 P.2d 1080 (Okl.Cr.1975). In that case, Judge Bussey entered into an in-depth analysis and discussion of the provisions of our State Constitution within the context of the time our Constitution was adopted and the use of its terminology as it related to other constitutions and the Federal Constitution. Placing our Constitution in its historical perspective, the Court in Thomason stated:
Our State Constitution was not adopted until Oklahoma was admitted as the 46th State to the Union in 1907, some 15 years after the United States Supreme Court, in Counselman v. Hitchcock [142 U.S. 547, 12 S.Ct. 195, 35 L.Ed. 1110 (1892) ], had already specifically observed that in the various constitutional provisions upon self-incrimination, “there is really, in spirit and principle, no distinction arising out of such difference of language.” ... As early as 1913 in Scribner v. State, 9 Okl.Cr. 465, 132 P. 933, which discusses at length the origin and history of the privilege against self-incrimination, we recognized that our State constitutional provision upon self-incrimination “is but a reiteration of the common law.”
538 P.2d at 1085 (citation omitted). In concluding its interpretation of the issue relating to our State constitutional provision, the Court further stated:
Although we consider the federal cases in this area highly persuasive, we reserve the right and authority to interpret and apply our own constitutional provision upon self-incrimination in a manner that *288does not infringe the federal Fifth Amendment privilege as made applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. See, Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1, 84 S.Ct. 1489, 12 L.Ed.2d 653 (1964). However, we now hold that the particular phraseology contained within our constitutional provision upon self-incrimination is simply declaratory of the common law and does not grant broader protection than that embodied within the Fifth Amendment to the federal constitution. Those cases so indicating to the contrary are hereby overruled.
Id. at 1086 (emphasis added). See Tate v. State, 544 P.2d 531 (Okl.Cr.1975); Billy v. State, 602 P.2d 237 (Okl.Cr.1979); Sartin v. State, 617 P.2d 219 (Okl.Cr.1980); Perez v. State, 614 P.2d 1112 (Okl.Cr.1980); Long v. State, 706 P.2d 915 (Okl.Cr.1985); State v. Neasbitt, 735 P.2d 337 (Okl.Cr.1987); Tilley v.. State, 963 P.2d 607, 614 (Okl.Cr.1998).
¶ 4 Just eight (8) months ago, this Court reaffirmed its ninety-three (93) years of jurisprudence in Tilley v. State when we held:
While we are cognizant that States are free to provide greater protections in their criminal justice systems than the Federal Constitution requires, we now adopt the Supreme Court’s rationale in Moran [u Burbine, 475 U.S. 412, 106 S.Ct. 1135, 89 L.Ed.2d 410 (1986) ]. Applying Moran to the present case, we find Tilley’s waiver of his Fifth Amendment rights valid. Tilley was fully advised of his rights and informed of the consequences if he abandoned those rights. Tilley’s waiver of his Miranda rights was not ‘vitiated’ when the police failed to inform him that an attorney was attempting to contact him. This proposition of error is denied.
963 P.2d at 614 (footnote omitted).
¶ 5 The limits on Article II, Section 21, were even recognized by Judge Parks in his dissent to Harris v. State, 773 P.2d 1273, 1278 (Okl.Cr.1989). While acknowledging prior jurisprudence holding that Article II, Section 21, could, in certain circumstance, be broader than the Fifth Amendment, he concluded that the Court’s decision in Harris prevented further expansion of Article II, Section 21. This is the law which this Court has applied for ninety-three (93) years. The law which we are bound to apply today.
¶ 6 Instead of relying on this established jurisprudence, the Court relies on a single case, Lewis v. State, 695 P.2d 528 (Okl.Cr. 1984), which similarly ignored our settled precedent in order to achieve a particular desired result. Contrary to what the Court says today, a reading of Lewis reveals it was not a case based on independent state grounds, but was based upon both the Federal and Oklahoma Constitutions. Id. at 531. (“We therefore hold this statement should have been suppressed as obtained in violation of the Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution and OKLA. CONST., art. II, §§ 7, 20, 21.”). The Lewis Court engaged in absolutely no discussion of the terminology in those provisions of the OMahoma Constitution nor a legal analysis of how that interpretation could be made in the context of prior case law. The holding of Lewis does not meet the definition of independent state grounds as set out in Michigan v. Long.1 Further, the Court did not *289overrule prior case law which held that Section 21 was the same as the Fifth Amendment. Lewis is an anomaly, barren of any scholarly justification and should not be relied upon in the development of our jurisprudence. Lewis is an example of this Court’s attempt at equity rather than an interpretation of the law. Today the Court is repeating that mistake.
¶ 7 If this Court were presented with the issue in this case as an issue of first impression, my vote might be different. However, it is not. As an appellate judge I am bound by the rule of “stare decisis” “to stand by precedent and not to disturb [a] settled point.” Blacks Law Dictionary, (5th ed.1979). Our role as an appellate court is to exercise discipline and accountability in applying the doctrine of stare decisis to ensure an orderly development of the rule of law. Rather than providing a consistent certainty to ensure such stability, the Court’s current course invokes the quintessential “chancellor’s foot” I referred to in Hain v. State, 852 P.2d 744, 754 (Okl.Cr.1993). In this particular case the “chancellor’s foot” used by the Court is the law review methodology of listing the states that have adopted the desired interpretation of their constitutions and then citing that as the justification for adopting the same interpretation in Oklahoma. While that may be an accepted analysis of a uniform state law, it is not proper for constitutional interpretation. Instead of buying into this “everybody is doing it” mindset, the Court should engage in the legal analysis of the syntax of our constitutional provision coupled with the history and jurisprudence relating to it. This Court should never render an interpretation of the law just because it can. The Court should be guided and restrained by prior case law to ensure consistency and finality in the law. This ensures a rule of law and not of men. The approach taken by the Court today of disregarding prior jurisprudence denigrates the rule of law and creates a sea of uncertainty upon which judges, lawyers, and citizens must sail in the quest for answers to questions of law.
¶ 8 The plenary power of a court of last resort to interpret and apply the law carries with it an awesome responsibility to exercise self-discipline and adherence to precedent as it fulfills its role. This is especially true when the interpretation and application is of a general constitutional provision rather than a specific statute. The temptation to exercise unbridled discretion to re-create the law in an image a judge or judges believe it should have had from its inception, in disregard of past precedent, constitutes an act of usurpation of the responsibility given rather than stewardship of it. Because the last ninety-three years of jurisprudence from this Court is in conflict with the Court’s new method of interpreting Article II, Sections 20 and 21, of the Oklahoma Constitution, I must dissent to that portion of the opinion seeking *290to create a new right not supported by prior authority.
¶ 9 The law as applied in Tilley and consistently over the past 93 years appropriately answers the question in this case. Here, Appellant was repeatedly advised of his rights, he acknowledged understanding of those rights, and knowingly and voluntarily waived them. He declined offers and urgings of family members to obtain an attorney for him. Whether viewed in conjunction with rights under the 5th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution or Art. II, Section 21, of the Oklahoma Constitution, those rights are personal and subject to waiver. The Appellant waived those rights in this case. In McNeil v. Wisconsin, 501 U.S. 171, 111 S.Ct. 2204, 2208, 115 L.Ed.2d 158 (1991), the Supreme Court stated:
In Miranda v. Arizona, we established a number of prophylactic rights designed to counteract the “inherently compelling pressures” of custodial interrogation, including the right to have counsel present. Miranda did not hold, however, that those rights could not be waived. On the contrary, the opinion recognized that statements elicited during custodial interrogation would be admissible if the prosecution could establish that the suspect “knowingly and intelligently waived his privilege against self-incrimination and his right to retained or appointed counsel.”
(cite omitted) (emphasis added). The facts in the present case are clear. Appellant exercised “an intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right or privilege” when he waived his right to counsel and agreed to talk with the investigators. That analysis answers the question in this case.
¶ 10 The members of this Court should not make decisions merely on how they would have made that decision in the first place or how they would have drafted the Constitution. The Court should not make decisions merely to be seen as moving the law forward or being ingenious in its novel approaches. When established precedent exists, as in this case, such precedent is to be the basis for the Court’s decision. Therefore, while I concur in the affirmation of the judgment and sentence in this case, I cannot join in the unsupported interpretation of Article II, Section 21, of the Oklahoma Constitution.
¶ 11 I am authorized to state Judge Lile joins in this separate writing.

. In Michigan v. Long, the Supreme Court stated:
Respect for the independence of state courts, as well as avoidance of rendering advisory opinions, have been the cornerstones of this Court's refusal to decide cases where there is an adequate and independent state ground. It is precisely because of this respect for state courts, and this desire to avoid advisory opinions, that we do not wish to continue to decide issues of state law that go beyond the opinion that we review, or to require state courts to reconsider cases to clarify the grounds of their decisions. Accordingly, when, as in this case, a state court decision fairly appears to rest primarily on federal law, or to be interwoven with the federal law, and when the adequacy and independence of any possible state law ground is not clear from the face of the opinion, we will accept as the most reasonable explanation that the state court decided the case the way it did because it believed that federal law required it to do so. If a state court chooses merely to rely on federal precedents as it would on the precedents of all other jurisdictions, then it need only make clear by a plain statement in its judgment or opinion that the federal cases are being used only for the purpose of guidance, and do not themselves compel the result that the court has reached. In this way, both justice and judicial administration will be greatly improved. If the state court decision indicates clearly and expressly that it is alternatively based on bona *289fide separate, adequate, and independent grounds, we, of course, will not undertake to review the decision.
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... Our requirement of a "plain statement” that a decision rests upon adequate and independent state grounds does not in any way authorize the rendering of advisory opinions. Rather, in determining, as we must, whether we have jurisdiction to review a case that is alleged to rest on adequate and independent state grounds, see Abie State Bank v. Bryan, supra, 282 U.S. [765] at 773, 51 S.Ct. [252] at 255 [75 L.Ed. 690], we merely assume ¿at there are no such grounds when it is not clear from the opinion itself that the state court • relied upon an adequate and independent state ground and when it fairly appears that the state court rested its decision primarily on federal law.
463 U.S. 1032, 1040-42, 103 S.Ct. 3469, 3476-77, 77 L.Ed.2d 1201 (1983)(emphasis added) (footnote omitted). This is the language relied upon by the Supreme Court today (or at least as late as 1996). Accord Ohio v. Robinette, 519 U.S. 33, 117 S.Ct. 417, 136 L.Ed.2d 347 (1996). See also Pennsylvania v. Labron, 518 U.S. 938, 116 S.Ct. 2485, 135 L.Ed.2d 1031 (1996); Arizona v. Evans, 514 U.S. 1, 115 S.Ct. 1185, 131 L.Ed.2d 34(1995).
These cases do not set out any magic words to use, but it is fairly clear that an analysis relying strictly on state grounds, or citations to state law with a specific statement that state law is the only authority utilized would be sufficient to prohibit federal review. If federal law is included in the opinion, it must be clear that such is only being relied on as advisory and the case is being decided based on state grounds.
The dissent in Moran v. Burbine, 475 U.S. at 441-42, 106 S.Ct. at 1152 fn. 16, recognized that Lewis was an application of Federal constitutional rights, and not based upon independent state grounds.