Court Opinion

ID: 9681676
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:54:34.793991+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:35.340308
License: Public Domain

HAWTHORNE, Justice (concurring).
I am in full accord with the holdings in the majority opinion in this case that the trial judge properly overruled the motion for the appointment of a lunacy commission, and that the remark of the district attorney did not constitute a comment on the defendant’s failure to take the stand, and hence I agree that it was proper to affirm the conviction and sentence. That portion of the opinion, however, which states that, if such remark had been a comment on the failure of the defendant to take the stand, it would have constituted reversible error is nothing but dicta, with which, moreover, I do not agree.
I know of no reason why, in the absence of a statutory or constitutional prohibition, such a comment may not be made, now that the accused has the privilege of testifying *909in his own behalf, which he formerly did not have. The question to my mind, then, is whether there is any such prohibition in the statutes or the Constitution of this state.
It is stated in the majority opinion that, “Under the well settled jurisprudence of this state, a comment by the prosecution with respect to the failure of the accused to take the stand constitutes reversible error, whether the comment is direct, or so phrased that the inference is plain”. As authority for this statement numerous decisions are cited, the first being State v. Marceaux, 50 La.Ann. 1137, 24 So. 611, which announced the rule and is the basis thereof. Let us now examine the Marceaux case and see the basis and reasoning behind the holding therein.
The holding is based entirely upon the proposition that such a comment was prohibited by the provisions of Act 29 of 1886; or, in other words, that such a comment was prohibited by a statute of this state. Act 29 of 1886 was an act declaring the competency of witnesses in criminal proceedings, and, after providing that the circumstance of the witness being a party accused should in no wise disqualify him from testifying, further provided “ * * * that his failure to testify shall not be construed for or against him * * * ”, In the Marceaux case the court held that the language of the statute, “failure [of the accused] to testify shall not be construed for or against him”, constituted a prohibition “inferential and consequential, but strong and clear” [50 La.Ann. 1137, 24 So. 615] against any comment on the failure of the accused to take the stand.
Act 29 of 1886 was amended and reenacted by Act 185 of 1902, which in turn was amended and reenacted by Act 41 of 1904. The Legislature in 1916 adopted Act 157, which had for its object and purpose “To declare who shall be competent witnesses in civil and criminal cases”, and which expressly repealed Act 41 of 1904. The 1916 act omitted the provision “that his [the defendant’s] failure to testify shall not be construed for or against him”, which was the basis of the opinion in the Marceaux case, but provided that the defendant’s neglect or refusal to testify should not create any presumption against him.
In 1928 the Legislature of this state adopted the Code of Criminal Procedure, and Article 461 of that Code, LSA-RS 15:461, defines competent witnesses in any criminal proceeding. It provides in part: “ * * * In the trial of all indictments, complaints and other proceedings against persons charged with the commission of crimes or offenses, a person so charged shall, at his own request, but not otherwise, be deemed a competent witness.” It is significant that the provision in Act 29 of 1886 that the defendant’s failure to testify should not be construed for or against him and the provision in the 1916 statute that the defendant’s neglect or refusal to testify should not create any presumption against him were omitted therefrom. As the law *911now reads, Code of Crim.Proc. Art. 461, LSA-RS 15:461, a person charged with a crime shall at his own request but not otherwise be deemed a competent witness.
Under these facts the basis of the Marceaux opinion no longer exists, and that case is not now authority for the rule as announced in the majority opinion. The same is true as to the other cases cited in the majority opinion which followed the rule as announced in the Marceaux case.
The conclusion is therefore inescapable that there is no statutory prohibition in this state against the district attorney’s or the judge’s commenting on the defendant’s failure to take the stand.
It is true, as pointed out in the majority opinion, that, in the draft of the Code of Criminal Procedure made by the commissioners appointed to frame that Code, the right to comment on the failure of the accused to testify was expressly given. It is also true that the Legislature in enacting the Code omitted the express language giving such right which was found in the draft of the Code.
The language expressly giving the right was unnecessary and mere surplusage and was properly removed, for the reason that Article 461, which made the accused a competent witness at his own request but not otherwise, did not provide, as did the earlier statutes, that the failure of the accused to testify should not be construed for or against him, Act 29 of 1886, or that his neglect or refusal to testify should not create any presumption against him, Act 157 of 1916. By deliberately omitting from Article 461 these provisions which .had been included in these previous acts, the Legislature abolished the statutory prohibition which had theretofore existed against any such comment, and in the absence of any statutory prohibition it was unnecessary for the Legislature to give the express right so to comment. If this is not true, why were these provisions, which were the basis of the rule, omitted? If it was the intention of the Legislature to prohibit any such comment, it could have very easily done so, just as our Legislature heretofore had done and as the Legislatures of some of the other states have done by statute.
The majority opinion says that such a comment violates the provision contained in Article 1, Section 11, of our Constitution, that “No person shall be compelled to give evidence against himself in a criminal case or in any proceeding that may subject him to criminal prosecution * So far as I can ascertain, this is the first time any such statement has been made by this court except in the recent case of State v. Hoover, 219 La. 872, 54 So.2d 130, in which the writer dissented. Not a single other decision of this court cited in the majority opinion to the effect that such a comment constitutes reversible error was based on the proposition that the defendant’s constitutional guaranty against compulsory self-incrimination had been violated.
*913As I understand the majority opinion, it states that to permit such a comment would force anyone accused of a crime either to take the stand in his own defense or to have an inference of guilt arise merely because he does not do so; or, stated somewhat differently, that such comment would compel the accused to give evidence against himself in a criminal prosecution, in violation of Article 1, Section 11, of the Constitution.
The defendant in any criminal case has the right to testify or not, of his own volition, and, if he does not exercise the right so to testify, this probably will cause an inference of guilt to arise in the minds of the jurors regardless of whether any comment is made of this fact. Since the jurors have observed that the defendant has not testified, the inference is present whether any comment is made or not. How, then, does a mere comment on his failure to testify compel him to incriminate himself? Has he not voluntarily chosen not to testify, thus creating the inference by his own act, regardless of whether . any comment is made? It is not the comment of the district attorney on the failure of the accused to testify which causes the inference of guilt to arise; it is the decision of the accused himself not to testify.
Counsel for the State quote in brief an extract from the case of State v. Cleaves, 59 Me. 298, 8 Am.Rep. 422, which we think is pertinent here: “It has been urged that this .view of law places the prisoner in an embarrassed position. Not so. The embarrassment of the prisioner, if embarrassed, is the result of his own previous misconduct, not of the law. If innocent, he will regard the privilege of testifying as a boon justly conceded. If guilty, it is optional with the accused to testify or not, and he cannot complain of the election he may make. If he does not avail himself of the privilege of contradiction or explanation, it is his fault, if by his own misconduct or crime he has placed himself in such a situation that he prefers any inferences which may be drawn from his refusal to testify, to those which must be drawn from his testimony, if truly delivered.”
I am therefore of the opinion that a comment by the district attorney on the failure of the accused to testify does not violate any provision contained in Article 1, Section 11, of the Constitution of this state.
Recently the Vermont Supreme Court upheld a statute authorizing the right to comment on the failure of the accused to testify. State v. Baker, 115 Vt. 94, 53 A.2d 53. That court took the realistic view that the constitutional guaranty protects the accused against the use of physical force or other forms of torture to compel him to testify, but not against moral coercion. The entire mechanism of the criminal trial, in my opinion, may be regarded as a form of psychological pressure directed toward eliciting testimony from the defendant.
Legal commentators generally are agreed that denial of the right to comment is detrimental to an efficient criminal procedure *915and may serve to engender a disrespect for the law. See Model Code of Evidence, Rule 201 (1942) ; Dunmore, Comment on Failure of Accused to Testify, 26 Yale L. J. 464; Bruce, The Right to Comment on the Failure of the Defendant to Testify, 31 Mich.L.Rev. 226; Hadley, Criminal Justice in America, 11 A.B.A.J. 674, 677; Hiscock, Criminal Law and Procedure in New York, 26 Col.L.Rev. 253, 258-262; Storey, Some Practical Suggestions as to the Reform of Criminal Procedure, 4 J. Crim.Law and Criminology 495, 500-506. The Note in 57 Yale Law Journal, relied upon in the. majority opinion as showing that experience in those states in which comment is allowed is unfavorable to it, on the contrary is to the effect that generally satisfactory results have been achieved in those states permitting comment, and that those results make a powerful argument in support of the right to comment. The note cannot be construed, in my opinion, as disfavoring the right.
For these reasons I'respectfully concur.