Court Opinion

ID: 9455859
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:35:41.797217+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:45.664735
License: Public Domain

BAZELON, Chief Judge
(dissenting):
Contrary to the majority in this case, I believe that none of those factors which the Supreme Court has instructed us to consider as bearing upon the question of retroactivity1 can properly lead to the conclusion that the rule of Simmons 2 and *723Bailey3 does not apply to the present case. Accordingly, I dissent.4
1. The purpose of the rule. Simmons and Bailey make clear that testimony given by a criminal defendant to establish standing to challenge the admissibility of evidence may not later be used against him at trial. Such a rule, as applied to trials already concluded, may protect two classes of defendants. The first class consists of those, such as the appellant here, who sacrificed their Fifth Amendment right to silence in order to present their Fourth Amendment claim. The second class consists of those who, to preserve their Fifth Amendment rights, did not so testify and therefore lost their Fourth Amendment claims.
Whatever may be the case with the latter class of defendants — a question not presented by this record — appellant and persons similarly situated have foregone their Fifth Amendment right to silence in order to pursue their Fourth Amendment claim. As to these persons, therefore, the purpose of the Simmons rule is to prevent the extortion of testimony from defendants who wish to remain silent.5 Coerced, self-incriminating testimony is excluded from trials not simply for reasons relating to the integrity of the judicial system, but also because its accuracy is suspect. Murphy v. Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor, 378 U.S. 52, 53, 55, 84 S.Ct. 1594, 12 L.Ed.2d 678 (1964).6 The majority’s quotations from Tehan v. United States ex rel. Shott7 are not to the contrary. For the Supreme Court in Tehan was dealing with the converse of the present situation: no testimony had been compelled, and the point in question was why comment upon a defendant’s failure to testify was forbidden by the Fifth-Amendment.8 The Court did not purport to examine the rationale for the privilege in situations not before it: it discussed the matter only “[ijnsofar as these ‘purposes’ of the Fifth Amendment privilege against compulsory self-incrimination bear on the question before us in the present case.”9 Consequently, I conclude that the rule of Simmons and Bailey, as applied to the present class of cases, is one that serves to protect the integrity of the fact-finding process.10 Ae*724cordingly, the purpose of the rule points toward retroactive application.
2. Reliance on prior standards. The trial court here relied on Washington v. United States.11 The entire opinion in that case is as follows:
This appeal is from a conviction of bribery (three counts). We find no error.
Affirmed.
As the majority opinion admits,12 any reliance that may be placed on this opinion must come from an examination of the briefs in the case. I am dubious about the proposition that an affirmance by order implies approval of any particular point argued in the brief of the prevailing party.13 Even if this is so, it is hard to see how reliance could be placed on Washington after our en banc decision, later the same year, in Wright v. United States.14 Wright held that a defendant could “challenge the voluntariness of his confession outside the jury’s presence without waiving his privilege against self-incrimination,”15 and the court in Bailey — the retroactivity of which we consider today — could see “no sound reason why the rule should be different where the defendant challenges the admissibility of non-testimonial evidence at the hearing on his motion to suppress.”16 In short, the court in Bailey found the question not only foreshadowed but disposed of by citation of Wright and a section of Wigmore on Evidence.17 In these circumstances, I cannot give substantial weight to a claim of reliance on Washington.18
3. The effect of retroactive application upon the administration of justice. The majority concludes that “virtually every case in which physical evidence had been seized and introduced at trial would be opened up for a new trial on collateral attack if Simmons and Bailey were applied retroactively” in this case.19 I do *725not believe the premise will support the conclusion. Of course, we are not here concerned with cases in which the defendant did not testify at the suppression hearing20 — or, for that matter, with cases in which the defendant did so testify but in which his testimony was not used against him.21 We are concerned only with cases such as the present one in which (a) the defendant testified at the suppression hearing, (b) his testimony was incriminating, and (c) it was later used against him. Although the government has presented no informaregarding the frequency with which these factors would all occur,22 it seems to me that the number of cases that would actually be affected by retroactive application of Simmons and Bailey — at least in this circuit23 — would be vanishingly small. Washington v. United States24 appears to be the only case in this jurisdiction prior to Bailey in which the issue has ever even appeared. One case strikes me as insufficient grounds upon which to posit an overwhelming impact upon the administration of justice.
In sum, I believe that the purpose of the rule of Simmons and Bailey, sc far as it concerns persons who have been compelled to testify to present their Fourth Amendment claims, bears a substantial relationship to the accuracy of the fact-finding process at trial. I believe that Bailey itself was clearly foreshadowed if not predetermined by our en banc decision in Wright v. United States25 in 1957. Finally, I can see virtually no impact whatsoever on the administration of justice stemming from retroactive application'of the rule in the present circumstances. Accordingly, I would reach the question whether introduction of appellant’s statements at trial was harmless error; and if not, I would reverse the judgment below and order the convictions vacated.

. The criteria guiding resolution of the question [of retroactivity] implicate (a) the purpose to be served by the new standards, (b) the extent of reliance by law enforcement authorities on the old standards, and (e) the effect on the administration of justice of a retroactive application of the new standards. Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 297, 87 S.Ct. 1967, 1970, 11 L.Ed.2d 1199 (1967), quoted in Desist v. United States, 394 U.S. 244, 249, 89 S.Ct. 1030, 1033, 22 L. Ed.2d 248 (1969).

. Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 389-394, 88 S.Ct. 967, 19 L.Ed.2d 1247 (1968).

. Bailey v. United States, 128 U.S.App. D.C. 354, 359-360, 389 F.2d 305, 310-311 (1967).

. I express no opinion on the question whether the error in appellant’s trial could properly be considered harmless.

. See 390 U.S. at 393-394, 88 S.Ct. 967; of. 3 J. Wigmore, Evidence 345 (3d ed. 1940).

. The majority opinion suggests that a contrary conclusion may be implied from the fact that this court in Bailey applied the harmless error doctrine of Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967), to the tainted conviction. Supra, pp. 718-720. But Harrington v. California, 395 U.S. 250, 252-254, 89 S.Ct. 1726, 23 L.Ed.2d 824 (1969), applied Chapman to a violation of the rule of Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968). Of course, Bruton has been retroactively applied because “the terror [there] ‘went to the basis of fair hearing and trial * * *.’ ” Roberts v. Russell, 392 U.S. 293, 294, 88 S.Ct. 1921, 1922, 20 L.Ed.2d 1100 (1968).

. 382 U.S. 406, 414-416, 86 S.Ct. 459, 15 L.Ed.2d 453 (1966).

. See id. at 413^14, 86 S.Ct. 459.

. Id. at 415, 86 S.Ct. at 464. See also id. at 414-415, 86 S.Ct. at 464 n. 12:
[The values represented by the privilege against self-incrimination] were further catalogued in Mr. Justice Goldberg’s opinion for the Court in Murphy v. Waterfront Comm’n, 378 U.S. 52 [84 S.Ct. 1594, 12 E.Ed.2d 678] * * * : “The privilege against self-incrimination * * * reflects [inter alia] our distrust of self-deprecatory statements; and our realization that the privilege, while sometimes ‘a shelter to the guilty,’ is often ‘a protection to the innocent.’ Quinn v. United States, 349 U.S. 155, 162 [75 S.Ct. 668, 673, 99 L.Ed. 964].” 378 U.S., at 55 [84 S.Ct., at 1597].

. Another factor may be relevant here. Mere compulsion to testify at trial, e. g., Griffin v. California, 380 U.S. 609, 85 S.Ct. 1229, 14 L.Ed.2d 106 (1965), is compulsion only to say something, but not necessarily to say something incriminating. But where a defendant is compelled *724to testify in order to obtain standing to pursue a Fourth Amendment claim, the pressure — as in the case of a coerced extrajudicial confession — is not merely to say something, but to say something incriminating.

. 100 U.S.App.D.C. 99, 243 F.2d 43 (1957).

. See note 0 of the majority opinion, supra. I fail to see how the majority can find significance in the Sujjreme Court’s denial of certiorari in Washington in view of the fact that such denials are entirely without precedential value. Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443, 489-497, 73 S.Ct. 397, 97 L.Ed. 469 (1953) ; Wade v. Mayo, 334 U.S. 672, 680, 68 S.Ct. 1270, 92 L.Ed. 1647 (1948) ; United States v. Carver, 260 U.S. 482, 490, 43 S.Ct. 181, 67 L.Ed. 361 (1923) ; see Maryland v. Baltimore Radio Show, 338 U.S. 912, 917-920, 70 S.Ct. 252, 94 L.Ed. 502 (1950) (opinion of Mr. Justice Frankfurter).

. Cf. Bumiller v. Walker, 95 Ohio St. 344, 116 N.E. 797, 800 (1917).

. 102 U.S.App.D.C. 36, 250 F.2d 4 (1957).

. Id. at 45, 250 F.2d at 13. Two of the three judges on the Washington panel dissented, but did not reach the point at issue here. The third of the judges on the Washington panel concurred only in the result in Wright.

. Bailey v. United States, 128 U.S.App. D.C. 354, 359, 389 F.2d 305, 310 (1967).

. 3 J. Wigmore, Evidence 345 (3 ed. 1940), the identical passage relied upon in Wright. The court in Bailey also relied upon Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257, 80 S.Ct. 725, 4 L.Ed.2d 697 (1960), and Garrity v. New Jersey, 385 U.S. 493, 87 S.Ct. 616, 17 L.Ed.2d 562 (1967), in distinguishing contrary cases from other circuits.
The majority refuses to consider any possible foreshadowing effect of Wright because it was decided after the trial in the instant case. See note 7 of the majority opinion, supra. Presumably this means that the holding of the majority opinion is limited to trials that took place before the decision in Wright on October 30, 1957.

. Although the holding in Bailey was of course directly contrary to that asserted for Washington, the Bailey court did not seem to consider that Washington was of sufficient precedential value to warrant even mention in the opinion. Finally, I am dubious about the majority’s assertion that the practice followed in Washington was hornbook law in the federal courts— at lease in this circuit — at the time. Certainly the passage from Wigmore on Evidence cited in note 17 supra points in a contrary direction.

. See p. 722, supra.

. It is hard to see how such defendants would benefit from Simmons and Bailey in any event. For those persons who lost their Fourth Amendment claim in order to protect their Fifth Amendment rights may now litigate their Fourth Amendment claim on collateral attack regardless of what we decide today. Kaufman v. United States, 394 U.S. 217, 89 S.Ct. 1068, 22 L.Ed.2d 227 (1969) ; Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293, 313, 317, 83 S.Ct. 745, 9 L.Ed.2d 770 (1963).

. As to such persons, the retroactivity vel non of Simmons and Bailey would presumably be irrelevant.

. See Mordecai v. United States, 137 U.S. App.D.C. 198, 203, 421 F.2d 1133, 1138 (1969) (opinion of Bazelon, C. J.).

. Presumably the contrary state of the law in other circuits is not relevant to a decision on the retroactivity of Bailey, whatever impact it may have regarding the retroactivity of Simmons.

. Supra note 11.

. Supra note 14.