Court Opinion

ID: 9673046
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:05:12.064592+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:19.938302
License: Public Domain

CONCURRING OPINION
FINCH, Presiding Judge.
I concur in the result reached in the principal opinion and with what is said therein with this exception: The principal opinion advances two reasons for holding that the judgment of conviction need not be reversed for failure to advise defendant that the state would furnish counsel if he could *169not afford same. Instead of those two grounds, I would hold that failure to give the defendant this admonition was not error for the following reason:
In explaining the need for the fourth procedural safeguard required by Miranda v. State of Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694, Chief Justice Warren, speaking for the majority, said (384 U.S. 1. c. 473, 86 S.Ct. 1. c. 1627):
“In order fully to apprise a person interrogated of the extent of his rights under this system then, it is necessary to warn him not only that he has the right to consult with an attorney, but also that if he is indigent a lawyer will be appointed to represent him. Without this additional warning, the admonition of the right to consult with counsel would often be understood as meaning only that he can consult with a lawyer if he has one or has the funds to obtain one. The warning of a right to counsel would be hollow if not couched in terms that would convey to the indigent — the person most often subjected to interrogation — the knowledge that he too has a right to have counsel present. As with the warnings of the right to remain silent and of the general right to counsel, only by effective and express explanation to the indigent of this right can there be assurance that he was truly in a position to exercise it.”
It is obvious from the above quotation that the reason for the fourth procedural requirement is to make meaningful to indigent persons the third procedural requirement that the defendant be informed of his right to consult with an attorney. It is not intended to protect one who has the funds with which to employ an attorney. Suppose, for example, that a wealthy person is arrested and he is warned that he has the right to remain silent, that anything he says could be used against him, and that he has the right to the presence of an attorney. Such warning fully protects his constitutional rights. It would serve no useful purpose whatsoever to inform him further that the state will furnish counsel free if he cannot afford counsel. To hold that failure to give the fourth warning to the man able to afford an attorney makes a confession inadmissible would be to emphasize and substitute form for substance in the protection of constitutional rights. In my judgment, it is crystal clear from the language of Chief Justice Warren that the procedural requirement No. 4 was not intended to protect one who can afford counsel, and it follows therefrom that failure to give such warning to one able to furnish counsel cannot be a violation of his constitutional rights and cannot be a basis for excluding a confession otherwise admissible.
The defendant herein actually was defended in the trial of this case by employed counsel. He did not request the appointment of counsel and did not claim to be indigent. Under such circumstances, he is in no position to assert that the failure to receive warning No. 4 required by Miranda is any basis for excluding his confession.