Court Opinion

ID: 9627848
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:56:54.887709+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:51.544141
License: Public Domain

URBIGKIT, Justice,
specially concurring.
I generally concur with the court’s opinion, and specifically concur in affirming the conviction, but separately disagree with the majority’s determination that the custodial interrogation was not part of adversarial criminal proceedings under Art. 1, § 10 of the Wyoming Constitution, by which the right to counsel is guaranteed.
The majority assert that because the critical interrogation occurred prior to the filing of criminal charges against Best, his rights under the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution and the parallel provision, Art. 1, § 10 of the Wyoming Constitution, which also affords the right to counsel, are not implicated. The majority elect to address this issue despite the fact that appellant did not present it. Rather, appellant argued that under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694, reh. denied 385 U.S. 890, 87 S.Ct. 11, 17 L.Ed.2d 121 (1966), and its Fifth Amendment guarantees, he had requested that he be represented by counsel. It is improper for this court to seek to determine constitutional rights not presented to this court for review. Consequently, the majority’s discussion of Art. 1, § 10 of the Wyoming Constitution is mere dicta.1
*748The majority do not question the right to counsel after arrest, but would only afford that right under Art. 1, § 11 (parallel to the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution) and not Art. 1 § 10 (parallel to the federal Sixth Amendment) of the Wyoming Constitution which provides the specific right to counsel.
The inconclusive decisions of the United States Supreme Court which attempt to define and differentiate the right to counsel under the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution from the right to counsel under the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution and Miranda v. Arizona, supra, do not provide a logical or adequate legal justification to incorporate that erratic dichotomy into the right-to-counsel Art. 1, § 10 and self-incrimination, Art. 1, § 11 provisions of the Wyoming Constitution. See United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149 (1967), and Kirby v. Illinois, 406 U.S. 682, 92 S.Ct. 1877, 32 L.Ed.2d 411 (1972). The challenge and the state Constitution-em-placed justification are thoughtfully considered in the editorial comment in a law review article authored by Justice Brennan, The Bill of Rights and the States: The Revival of State Constitutions as Guardians of Individual Rights, 61 N.Y.Univ.L. Rev. 535 (1986). See also Charpentier v. State, Wyo., 736 P.2d 724 (1987), Urbigkit, J., dissenting.
Although it is dicta, the majority’s discussion of Art. 1, § 10 compels me to respond. The case the majority cite as precedent to support the ruling that the right to counsel except for Miranda accrues only at arraignment and not at arrest is Brown v. State, Wyo., 661 P.2d 1024 (1983). In that case the questioned interrogation occurred before Brown had been arrested: “Appellant was not under arrest when he asked to consult with an attorney.” Brown v. State, supra, at 1029.
In the federal case on which the majority rely, Brewer v. Williams, 430 U.S. 387, 97 S.Ct. 1232, 51 L.Ed.2d 424, reh. denied 431 U.S. 925, 97 S.Ct. 2200, 53 L.Ed.2d 240 (1977), the conviction was reversed for unacceptable post-arraignment interrogation after arrest. In Michigan v. Jackson, — U.S. -, 106 S.Ct. 1404, 89 L.Ed.2d 631 (1986), the court also found post-arraignment interrogation unacceptable and reversed the conviction. None of these cases is direct authority to deny the right to counsel upon arrest under the provisions of the Wyoming Constitution. It is not difficult to distinguish these cases, nor is it difficult to recognize that adversarial criminal proceedings are commenced when a defendant is arrested.
The extent to which an arrest initiates adversarial criminal proceedings is underscored by our prior decision that an individual is not entitled to resist arrest. Roberts v. State, Wyo., 711 P.2d 1131 (1985). If there is no right to resist an arrest, then certainly the constitutional protections applicable to the commencement of adversarial proceedings should apply.
I would follow the persuasive reasoning of Justice Douglas in his special concurrence in Coleman v. Alabama, 399 U.S. 1, 14-17, 90 S.Ct. 1999, 2006-2008, 26 L.Ed.2d 387 (1970):
“ * * * A ‘criminal prosecution’ certainly does not start only when the trial starts. If the commencement of the trial were the start of the ‘criminal prosecution’ in the constitutional sense, then indigents would likely go to trial without effective representation by counsel. * * *
“If we are to adhere to the mandate of the Constitution and not give it merely that meaning which appeals to the personal tastes of those who from time to time sit here, we should read its terms in light of the realities of what ‘criminal prosecutions’ truly mean.
“I was impressed with the need for that kind of strict construction on experiences in my various Russian journeys. In that nation detention incommunicado is the *749common practice, and the period of permissible detention now extends for nine months. Where there is custodial interrogation, it is clear that the critical stage of the trial takes place long before the courtroom formalities commence. That is apparent to one who attends criminal trials in Russia. Those that I viewed never put in issue the question of guilt; guilt was an issue resolved in the inner precincts of a prison under questioning by the police. The courtroom trial concerned only the issue of punishment.
“Custodial interrogation is in practice— here and in other nations — so critical that we would give ‘criminal prosecutions’ as used in the Sixth Amendment a strained and narrow meaning if we held that it did not include that phase. My brother Harlan in his dissent in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 513, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 1648, 16 L.Ed.2d 694, called the Sixth Amendment cases cited by the majority of the Court the ‘linchpins’ of the ruling that an accused under custodial interrogation was entitled to the assistance of counsel. They were properly such, although the main emphasis in the Miranda opinion was on the use of custodial interrogation to exact incriminating statements against the commands of the Fourteenth and Fifth Amendments. Like the preliminary hearing in the present case, custodial interrogation is obviously part of the ‘criminal prosecution’ that the Sixth Amendment honors— if strict construction is our guide.”
I would hold that the right to counsel attaches upon arrest, and the Wyoming Constitution requires that an arrested defendant be provided counsel upon request. In concurring with the decision of the court that the equivocal request did not require termination of the interrogation or the immediate right to see counsel on a Sunday afternoon, see, however, State v. Mailo, Hawaii, 731 P.2d 1264 (1987), and Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 68 L.Ed.2d 378, reh. denied 452 U.S. 973, 101 S.Ct. 3128, 69 L.Ed.2d 984 (1981), I do not accept the denial or denigration of the intrinsic right to counsel under both Art. 1, § 10 and Art. 1, § 11 of the Wyoming Constitution.

. The shooting occurred early evening, Saturday, February 23. Appellant was arrested about 2:00 Sunday afternoon in Colorado, after which the initial interrogation occurred. On Monday, a criminal complaint was filed in the County Court, Carbon County, and a warrant for arrest was issued. On Wednesday, counsel was appointed in Rawlins for him, but appellant’s actu*748al return following extradition did not occur until April 26. At that time, the interrogating officers in Colorado did not communicate that the highway patrolman was still alive and would consequently be available as a trial witness. What Best said might have been more restrained had he known.