Court Opinion

ID: 9725808
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 12:11:46.798443+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:19.951474
License: Public Domain

DeBRULER, Justice,
dissenting.
For better or for worse, there is a right to remain silent in the face of custodial interrogations. There is also a right to confer with counsel in the inner sanctums of police stations before custodial police interrogations, and to have counsel present during such interrogations. And the constitution requires that these rights be extended and made meaningful for the poor, the illiterate, and the ignorant, as well as the not-so-poor, the educated, and the well-informed. To these constitutionally mandated ends, an advisement of these rights must be given openly and plainly and in a helpful manner, and the tools for their utilization thusly placed in the hands of arrested persons. - Miranda v. Arizona (1966), 384 U.S. 486, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694. Did appellant receive this information and these tools before either of his two custodial interrogations? The answer is no. The first time he was told by authorities in the basement of a city police station that his present and immediate right and need for counsel could not be fulfilled until some indistinet future time, "if and when" he went to court. This advisement is condemned by the holding in California v. Prysock (1981), 453 U.S. 355, 101 S.Ct. 2806, 69 L.Ed.2d 696, despite protestation to the contrary in the majority opinion. The second advisement is drawn so as to be uncertain on the question of time, that is, it does not inform the arrest ed person that he can have a free lawyer mow. - This uncertainty does not stand alone and in isolation, but is supplied with additional wrong meaning by the advisement given appellant on the same subject shortly before, which clearly and unmistakably said that free lawyers may be had only at some point in the future, ie., "if and when" you go to court. These circumstances do not support the conclusion reached by the majority that appellant, through the second set of advisements, was fully advised of his right to counsel as required by the constitution. I vote therefore to reverse this conviction and order a new trial at which appellant's pre-trial *953statements'resulting from the two custodial interrogations and any physical exhibits produced through them are excluded.