Court Opinion

ID: 9545118
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:06:30.169958+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:14:06.500414
License: Public Domain

GOODWIN, J.,
dissenting.
While I am not prepared to discuss in this case all the circumstances under which the state, in the absence of counsel, may or may not utilize pretrial discovery in criminal cases, I disagree with the majority’s holding that a suspect can be compelled to manufacture the evidence necessary to prove that his hand wrote a forgery.
Whenever the cooperation of the accused is sought by the prosecution in order to obtain evidence to be used against him, a potential Fifth-Amendment question arises. If the accused lawfully could have invoked his privilege against self-incrimination, a potential issue on the right to the assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment also arises. In other words, we must decide whether an attorney properly could have advised the defendant not to cooperate. If so, we must decide whether the defendant was entitled to such advice.
In State v. Neely, 239 Or 487, 395 P2d 557, 398 P2d *423482 (1964), we held that a suspect must know that he has the right to counsel and must waive that right before he can be interrogated. If the Neely case correctly construed the Sixth Amendment when interrogation was a police objective, and if the production of handwriting comes within the protection of the Fifth Amendment, the suspect ought to have an equally valid right to counsel before he can be induced to create incriminating evidence in the form of a written example of his penmanship.
The majority holds that the Fifth-Amendment privilege does not apply to nontestimonial acts. There is textbook authority to support a holding that counsel is not necessary because consent is not necessary. See, e.g., 8 Wigmore, Evidence 397, § 2265 (McNaughton rev, 1961). If consent indeed is not necessary, I would agree that there is no right to have counsel tell the accused that he has no choice. Thus, if a suspect can be compelled, against his will, to prepare a portion of the state’s evidence, counsel could have done him no good. If such is the law, no protected right has been violated. Early Oregon cases seem to proceed on the theory that the production of the evidence could not be compelled, but that the privilege could be waived. See State v. Scott, 63 Or 444, 128 P 441 (1912), and cases discussed therein. See also Rex v. Voisin, [1918] 1 K B 531 (CA), 1 ALR 1298.
Virtually all the authority for the proposition that the Fifth Amendment does not cover compulsory handwriting is based upon a purported analogy between handwriting and the involuntary surrender of such other incriminating evidence as fingerprints, footprints, hair, blood, or objects secreted in the suspect’s body. While the distinction has been obscured *424in many of the decided cases,① and deprecated by some commentators,② I believe there is a distinction in principle between the taking of existing evidence which requires no cooperation by the accused③ and forcing the accused to create evidence which, without the intelligent cooperation of the accused, would not exist.④ The distinction is ably set forth, with a review of the authorities, in United States v. Eggers, 3 USCMA 191, 11 CMR 191 (1953).
With reference to blood, fingerprints, photographs, inspection of tattoos, and the removal of substances from body cavities, the police may ¡search, seize, and extract without the consent of the defendant, because *425his cooperation is not required. Thus, the police may use reasonable force so long as they operate within the limits of the Fourth Amendment. See cases collected in Carden, Federal Power to Seize and Search Without Warrant, 18 Vand L Rev 1 (1964).
In the case of evidence which cannot be obtained without the defendant’s cooperation, however, a Fifth-Amendment problem arises. We assume that the police cannot beat or starve a suspect into cooperation. People v. Matteson, 36 Cal Rptr 373, reversed on other grounds, 61 Cal2d 466, 39 Cal Rptr 1, 393 P2d 161 (1964). A court order would therefore be necessary to compel the production of the desired evidence. I have been unable to find a case in which a court has held that the contempt power is available to assist the prosecution in compelling the production of evidence of this kind.
It is not a satisfactory answer to say simply that the privilege does not cover handwriting because it does not cover fingerprints. For many years courts thought the privilege did not prevent a comment on the defendant’s failure to take the stand. Such ancient “truth has proved uncouth.” See Griffin v. California, 380 US 609, 85 S Ct 1229, 14 L Ed2d 106 (1965).
The United States Supreme Court held long ago that the Fifth Amendment interacts with the Fourth to deny the government the right to seize existing incriminating documents from the house or the person of the suspect. Boyd v. United States, 116 US 616, 6 S Ct 524, 29 L Ed 746 (1886). This court should not now hold, for the first time, that a suspect whose personal documents cannot be seized by police, with or without a warrant, solely for use as evidence against him, may nonetheless be compelled to manufacture *426documents at the government’s pleasure for the same purpose. Our own earlier cases would indicate a contrary rule. State v. Scott, supra.
Further, it seems inconsistent with the Fifth Amendment as recently construed by this court in confession cases to say that, while a suspect cannot be forced to manufacture oral evidence, he can be forced to manufacture written evidence. In my view, if Neely was entitled to be advised of his right to counsel, the defendant in the case at bar had the same right.
I dissent.

 Cases are 'collected in McCormick, Evidence 126 and 264 (1954). It is frequently pointed out by the writers who defend the compulsory surrender -of incriminating evidence (such as blood, narcotics retrieved from body orifices, and the like), that this practice does not offend the precise wording of the Fifth Amendment: No person ¡shall “be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” The writers argue that the use of the word “witness” limits the reach of the amendment to testimonial compulsion. This argument appears to overlook the possibility that existing evidence is, essentially, a Fourth-Amendment problem. When the question involves the use of compulsion in the creation of evidence, the Fifth-Amendment privilege is not so easily ignored.

 See, e.g., Falknor, Evidence, 1953 Ann Survey Am L 755.

 When an X-ray photograph of a suspect sho.wed three gold rings in his large intestine, the police administered an enema. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals did not think this procedure offended the Fifth Amendment, and, since the question was primarily a Fourth-Amendment problem, held that the procedure was reasonable and thus did not offend the Fourth Amendment. David Ash v. The State, 139 Tex Crim 420, 141 SW2d 341 (1940). But, cf., Rochin v. California, 342 US 165, 72 S Ct 205, 96 L Ed 183, 25 ALR2d 1396 (1952), holding involuntary emetics unreasonable.

 Compare compulsory test for pregnancy, approved where no cooperation required, Villaflor v. Summers, 41 Phil 63 (1920), with compulsory sample of handwriting, disapproved where intelligent cooperation required, Beltran v. Samson and Jose, 53 Phil 570 (1929).