Court Opinion

ID: 9842839
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 02:19:32.649152+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:13:57.289588
License: Public Domain

*705BAZELON, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I cannot agree with the court’s conclusions that (1) a proper answer was given to the jury’s inquiry as to whether a sentence of imprisonment would assure appellant’s confinement for the rest of his natural life; and (2) the admission in evidence of the confession was proper under the McNabb rule.
I.
It would appear, as the majority says, that it is generally proper for a trial judge to inform the jury of “the alternative sentences as an aid to an intelligent decision upon the problem imposed upon them by the statute.” See Taylor v. United States, 1955, 95 U.S.App.D.C. 373, 379, 222 F.2d 398, 404. The judge must be ever wary, however, that the efficacy of the additional information be not far outweighed by palpable prejudice to the defendant.
This jury did not request information as to alternative sentences. It requested an assurance that if it did not impose the death sentence, the defendant would nevertheless receive a term long enough to make him die in prison; and that his sentence would not thereafter be modified by the judge, or commuted or pardoned by the executive or shortened by the parole authorities. “In the instant case, this is what the jury wanted to know, and its purpose in seeking information is too plain for argument.” Coward v. Commonwealth, 1935, 164 Va. 639, 178 S.E. 797, 800. The information the judge supplied, in the light of the jury’s purpose in requesting it, was grossly prejudicial to the appellant.
II.
Appellant was arrested at 2:30 p. m., but the police made no attempt to bring him before a committing officer until some time after 10:00 p. m., when they telephoned the home of the United States Commissioner and found he was unavailable. Buie 5(a), F.R.Crim.P., requires that an arrested person be taken before a committing officer “without unnecessary delay”. As I pointed out in my dissenting opinion in Green v. United States,1 *whether a delay is “unnecessary” is determined by the circumstances of the case. Were this a case of unavoidable delay, as in Green, I would say, as I did there, that the police might have attempted to legitimatize the confession by giving the prisoner, in advance of interrogation, the advisory statement which the commissioner would give him under Rule 5(b). But no advisory statement was made here; and, even if it had been, it could not, in the circumstances of this case, have saved the confession from exclusion under McNabb.
The delay in taking appellant before a committing officer was the deliberate choice of the police and not the result of unavoidable circumstances. The arrest occurred during regular business hours and in taking appellant to police headquarters immediately thereafter police passed within earshot of many of the approximately 50 officers,2 authorized by law to commit accused persons. Clearly the delay was “unnecessary” in the usual sense of the word. In Akowskey v. United States, 81 U.S.App.D.C. 353, 158 F.2d 649 (1946), the arrest was made between 3:30 and 4:00 p. m. and “No effort was made by the arresting officers to take the men before a committing magistrate until about 5:00 or 5:30 o’clock p. m. when an unanswered telephone call was made to the United States Commissioner’s office.” We said:
“The Commissioner and several other committing magistrates before whom the accused might have been taken for a hearing had their offices on or near the axis connecting the place of arrest and the place of detention. It is only reasonable to conclude that the parties could have been transported to the office of one of these officials in less time than it took to get to police headquarters. It is furthermore both by law and *706practice true that application for hearing might have been made to any of these committing magistrates at any hour. It follows that the detention was inexcusable and illegal at the outset.” 81 U.S.App.D.C. at page 354, 158 F.2d at page 650.
In the present case the majority hold the delay “not unreasonable,” because there were three suspects. They say “it is inconceivable that [the police] should be required to lodge charges against any suspect until their investigation has developed with some certainty a justification for charges”.
The policy of discouraging the airing of reckless charges is commendable. But another and more commendable policy is that the police should not arrest any person on mere suspicion,3 hoping that, once they have him at headquarters, they can obtain from his own lips something to justify the arrest.4 To me the “inconceivable” thing is that this court should permit detention — for any length of time — for that purpose and without the intercession of a responsible committing officer.5 The law lets policemen arrest, but delegates to magistrates the judgment whether to detain.6 The law’s requirement of arraignment without unnecessary delay is grounded upon the theory that, where policemen are judges, individual liberty and dignity cannot long survive.7
The police here preferred8 to arrest a number of suspects and grill all of them until one admits something which justifies his arraignment.9 But the law de-*707ales them that privilege.10 Detention of prisoners without arraignment “for the very purpose of securing * * * confessions * * * refutes any possibility of an argument” that subsequent arraignment was “ ‘without unnecessary delay.’ ” Upshaw v. United States, 1948, 335 U.S. 410, 414, 69 S.Ct. 170, 172, 93 L.Ed. 100. However “this method of arresting, holding, and questioning people on mere suspicion” may be “in accordance with the ‘usual police procedure of questioning a suspect * * * * * it is in violation of law, and confessions thus obtained are inadmissible under the McNabb rule.” Ibid.11
Even if it be assumed12 that solicitude for the prisoner may sometimes legally justify some postponement of his arraignment, this was not such a case. The postponement here sprang from police solicitude for their prospects of obtaining a confession. They held and questioned three prisoners until one confessed. Then they arraigned the latter and released the other two. This is not unlike the Akowskey case where the police arrested, detained and questioned three men who were under the shadow of suspicion, obtained a confession implicating two of them, and then arraigned those two and released the third. And the detention here was just as “inexcusable and illegal”.13
As an additional ground for its holding, the majority relies upon an alleged requirement of the McNabb rule of a showing that “the confession was due to the delay”. The reliance is apparently upon the dictum of this court in Watson v. United States,14 which was, in turn, based upon dicta in Allen v. United States15 and Pierce v. United States.16 Since the views expressed in all three of those cases were dicta, we are, of course, not bound to follow them in deciding this case. Moreover, our greater deference for the views of the Supreme Court than *708for our own should prevent us from following these dicta.17 I cannot agree that a confession produced by police interrogation during illegal detention of the accused can be admissible in a federal court.
After obtaining the written confession from appellant, the police also obtained from him a written consent to a search of the apartment where his clothes were. Certain clothes thus found were admitted in evidence. I agree with the majority’s statement that the consent to the search was “an immediate accompaniment to * * * and derives color from the confession.” On that account I would hold the one to have been as inadmissible as the other.
For the foregoing reasons, I would reverse the judgment of conviction and remand the case for a new trial.

. 98 U.S.App.D.C. 413, 236 F.2d 708, 716.

. See 18 U.S.C. § 3041 (1952).

. “Suspicion is one thing; reasonable cause for suspicion is frequently quite another thing.” United Cigar Stores Co. v. Young, 1911, 36 App.D.C. 390, 404.

. “ * * * the law demands that ‘reasonable cause for prosecution of the defendant must exist before his arrest is justifiable.’ Davis v. United States, 16 App.D.C. [442], 454; Kirk v. Garrett, 84 Md. 405, 35 A. 1089.” United Cigar Stores Co. v. Young, 1911, 36 App.D.C. 390, 403. See also Carroll v. United States, 1925, 267 U.S. 132, 156, 45 S. Ct. 280, 286, 69 L.Ed. 543: “The usual rule is that a police officer may arrest without warrant one believed by the officer upon reasonable cause to have been guilty of a felony * *

. In Watson v. United States, 98 U.S.App. D.C. 221, 234 F.2d 42, the court held a written confession to have been improperly admitted in evidence. By way of dictum, it approved the admission of testimony as to somewhat earlier oral confessions. To the extent that this dictum gives a license to police to hold and question an arrested person all through the night, incommunicado, un-counseled and unwarned, for the purpose of obtaining from him the evidence to justify his detention at his eventual arraignment, I disagree with it.

. Rule 5, F.R.Crim.P.; McNabb v. United States, 1943, 318 U.S. 332, 63 S.Ct. 608, 87 L.Ed. 819.

. “Zeal in tracking down crime is not in itself an assurance of soberness of judgment. Disinterestedness in law enforeement does not alone prevent disregard of cherished liberties. Experience has therefore counseled that safeguards must be provided against the dangers of the overzealous as well as the despotic. The awful instruments of the criminal law cannot be entrusted to a single functionary. The complicated process of criminal justice is therefore divided into different parts, responsibility for which is separately vested in the various participants upon whom the criminal law relies for its vindication.” McNabb v. United States, 318 U.S. at page 343, 63 S.Ct. at page 614.

. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, on the other hand, arrests no person without informing him that he need not answer questions, that any answers he gives may be used against him, and that he has a right to counsel. See Hoover, Civil Liberties and Law Enforcement, 37 Iowa L.R. 175, 182 (1952).

. The requirement of Rule 5 that the police bring prisoners up for arraignment, even before they have what they think is sufficient evidence to satisfy the committing officer that there is “probable cause to believe” the prisoner’s guilt, does not leave the police powerless to detect and apprehend criminals. The police may lawfully question witnesses and suspects. True they cannot make people answer their questions, but that they cannot lawfully do even when the suspect is under arrest. The only difference is that they will not have whatever advantage there may be in the automatic coercion of prison bars. If there is any prospect that a *707person whom the police wish to question may flee or hide (as happened, indeed, in the instant case), they may, upon proper showing, procure an order placing him under bail and, if he fails to give bail, detaining him. Rule 46(b), F.R.Crim.P. In this connection, it is worth noting that witnesses thus detained under a magistrate’s order must bo lodged in suitable accommodations to be provided by the Board of Commissioners, “other than those employed for the confinement of persons charged with crime, fraud or disorderly conduct.” D.C.Code § 4-144 (1951).

. Another area of criminal procedure in which ease must yield to propriety was referred to in Powell v. United States, 1955, 96 U.S.App.D.C. 367, 372, 226 F.2d 269, 274: “No doubt it would be a boon to prosecutors if they could summon before a Grand Jury a person against whom an indictment is being sought and there interrogate him, isolated from the protection of counsel and presiding judge and insulated from the critical observation of the public. But there is a serious question whether our jurisprudence, fortified by constitutional declaration, permits that procedure.”

. In striking down the written confession in Watson, supra note 5, the court reveals the motivation which lies behind such “ ‘usual police procedure’ ”: “The police undoubtedly knew that once the appellant was presented to a committing authority, they wore obliged to file a complaint. But then appellant would have received the benefit of Rule 5(b), and the police were not yet through with him. The attitude, the purpose, could not bettor be shown than by the Government’s argument to the jury. The prosecutor said: ‘They say why didn’t we put him downstairs (in the cell block) and call him back the next morning. Why? We would find the place crawling with attorneys telling him “You don’t have to talk to the police.” ’ ” See also 1 Alexander, The Daw of Arrests (1949) 628. The oral confessions which were approved obiter dietum in Watson obviously resulted from the same deprivation of rights which produced the condemned written confession.

. See Watson v. United States, supra note 5.

. 1946, 81 U.S.App.D.C. 353, 354, 158 F.2d 649, 650.

. Supra note 5.

. 91 U.S.App.D.C. 197, 202, 202 F.2d 329, 334, certiorari denied, 1952, 344 U.S. 869, 73 S.Ct. 112, 97 L.Ed. 674.

. 91 U.S.App.D.C. 19, 197 F.2d 189, cer-tiorari denied, 1952, 344 U.S. 846, 73 S.Ct. 62, 97 L.Ed. 658.

. Upshaw v. United States, 1948, 335 U.S. 410, 413, 69 S.Ct. 170, 93 L.Ed. 100; see Brown v. Allen, 1953, 344 U.S. 443, 476, 73 S.Ct. 397, 97 L.Ed. 469; and Stein v. New York, 1953, 346 U.S. 156, 187-88, 73 S.Ct. 1077, 97 L.Ed. 1522.