Court Opinion

ID: 9542763
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:38:23.757604+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:08:53.958605
License: Public Domain

*590Kaul, J.
(dissenting): I cannot accept the application of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, 16 L. Ed. 2d 694, 86 S. Ct. 1602, 10 A. L. R. 3d 974, to the facts and record of proceedings as presented by the abstract of appellant in this case, therefore I must respectfully dissent.
In the first place my examination of the abstract before us fails to disclose any lucidity as to how the admission, confession or information secured by parole officer Dreher, in his private interview with defendant, was made use of at the trial. In the state’s counter-abstract the county attorney states that Dreher was called as a witness for defendant, I am unable to find any assertion to the contrary by defendant. In fact the examination of Dreher by defendant’s counsel, as abstracted, indicates that he was defendant’s witness. The point is this: Was the so-called confession to Dreher used by the state to secure a conviction or was it introduced by defendant only for the purpose of impeding or obstructing justice? The preparation of an abstract, disclosing the necessary portions of proceedings to support his position, is incumbent upon the defendant-appellant.
I am not saying that a confession obtained by a parole officer, without a proper Miranda warning, is admissible for the purpose of proving the state’s case. In that regard, I concur with the holding in paragraph three of the syllabus. However, I don’t believe that where information secured by a parole officer, while acting in that capacity, in an interview with a parolee which, when subsequently relayed to the proper police authorities, results in securing evidence otherwise legal, that such evidence becomes vicariously poisoned by reason of the mandate of Miranda and related cases cited in the majority opinion.
If a criminal defendant can poison a subsequent confession, otherwise legal, or physical evidence (the pistol in this case) by showing that the information from which an investigation is instigated, which may lead to a confession after proper warning, then the effect of the court’s decision is to gag a parole officer as to any information he might secure while interviewing a parolee or probationer unless the officer had previously performed the Miranda ritual. If such is to be the case, then in my judgment a reevaluation of the risk factor involved in the granting of probation and parole under the excellent parole system of this state will be required.
I have no quarrel with the reasoning of or the mandate pro*591nounced in Miranda. However, under the facts in the four cases involved in that decision, as described by Chief Justice Warren, I don’t believe the mandate pronounced was ever intended to create a device which could be used to thwart the enforcement of the law as demonstrated in the abstract of proceedings in this case. I would affirm the judgment.