32 A.2d 889 | Pa. | 1943
Lead Opinion
We allowed an appeal by the Commonwealth in this case because there is involved the proper interpretation and application of a rule of evidence which is of extreme importance, especially in its effect upon methods of criminal investigation by law enforcement officers.
Defendant was indicted under the Act of June 24, 1939, P. L. 872, section 517, for knowingly transporting a female for the purpose of prostitution. At the trial the court admitted testimony given by a member of the Pennsylvania Motor Police to the effect that defendant, after his arrest, was brought from jail to the district attorney's office where there were present, in addition to the witness and the girl, the district attorney's secretary and a detective; that the young woman, under questioning, told in detail of her transportation by defendant from one place to another and of having given him money received by her as the wages of prostitution; that defendant said nothing and did not deny any of the statements made by the girl in his presence.
Defendant was convicted and sentenced. A reading of the record leads irresistibly to the conclusion that he *421
was guilty of the repulsive crime with which he was charged.1 Because, however, of the testimony given by the motor policeman the Superior Court (Commonwealth v. Vallone,
The rule of evidence is well established that, when a statement made in the presence and hearing of a person is incriminating in character and naturally calls for a denial but is not challenged or contradicted by the accused although he has opportunity and liberty to speak, the statement and the fact of his failure to deny it are admissible in evidence as an implied admission of the truth of the charges thus made. The justification of this rule is to be sought in the age-long experience of mankind that ordinarily an innocent person will spontaneously repel false accusations against him, and that a failure to do so is therefore some indication of guilt. Of course, it is far from conclusive; it is analogous to the rule which permits evidence of the flight of the accused, his demeanor and conduct when charged with crime or taken into custody, and other acts and circumstances indicating his reaction to the situation in which he is involved. The accusatory statement, being hearsay, is not admissible as evidence in itself of the facts which it asserts, but merely to show what the charges were to which defendant offered no denial; its probative force is derived, not from the credibility of the accuser, but from the silence of the accused in response to it.
The Superior Court, while fully recognizing the general rule, deemed it inapplicable because of the circumstances *422 which prevailed when the girl's statement was made and which it enumerated as follows: (1) the meeting was "deliberately staged" for the purpose of procuring evidence; (2) it was a relatively formal proceeding; (3) defendant was under arrest at the time; (4) he was there under compulsion; (5) the others present were "hostile" to him; (6) he was not asked any questions until after the meeting had been concluded. In our opinion these circumstances were important factors for the consideration of the jury in determining the weight to be given to the defendant's silence under accusation, but they do not, either singly or collectively, impair the admissibility of the evidence.
The view taken by the Superior Court is not justified by precedent. The cases are abundant in which such evidence was received where the incriminating statement had been made in the presence of the accused after his arrest and while in custody;3
for example: Commonwealth v. Aston,
Our conclusion, as already indicated, is that the view adopted by the Superior Court errs in its failure to distinguish between the competency of the evidence and the weight that should be attributed to it by the jury. Undoubtedly it is evidence of such a nature as to require that it be appraised with caution, and if it be referred to at all by the trial judge in his charge he should so instruct the jury. Persons do not all react the same way in identical situations; where one is emotional, impulsive and quick to assert his rights, another may be timid and easily cowed, especially in the presence of officers of the law; the rule reflects only in the manner in which the average man is apt to conduct himself in such a situation. Similarly in regard to flight, although generally "the wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous are bold as a lion," there are some people who, though guiltless of wrong-doing, have a deep-seated fear of policemen and the processes of the law. While *424 not a bar to the admissibility of the evidence, the fact that the person accused was under arrest and that the charges against him were made by or in the presence of officials is to be taken into consideration by the jury in determining whether his standing mute should give rise to an inference of guilt. The only questions for the court in passing upon the admissibility of the evidence are whether the statements made in the presence and hearing of the accused were such as would naturally call for a denial and whether it was reasonably apparent to him that he had the opportunity and the liberty to speak; any reasons advanced by him to explain his failure to do so are then for the jury. "The probative weight to be attached to evidence of this character is peculiarly a question for the jury to decide in the light of the provocative character of the statements, the character of the surrounding circumstances . . ., and any other matters explanatory of the failure of the accused to speak": 20 Am. Jur. § 1197, pp. 1049, 1050. "It is clear that no particular conduct or acquiescence can be classed as constituting a proper or improper admission, and hence it is practically impossible for a court to charge, as a matter of law, what conduct or acquiescence constitutes, or does not constitute, an admission. It is equally clear that the jury must pass upon the question, as a matter of fact, to determine its credibility, as in all other cases of circumstantial evidence": Wharton's Criminal Evidence (11th ed.) sec. 665, p. 1107.
The order of the Superior Court granting defendant a new trial is reversed, and the judgment and sentence of the Courts of Oyer and Terminer and Quarter Sessions of Northampton County are affirmed.
Dissenting Opinion
I dissent from the majority opinion and would affirm the well fortified opinion of the Superior Court. This defendant may have been, as the majority opinion concludes, "guilty of the repulsive crime with which he was *425
charged", but whether he was or not has nothing whatever to do with the question now before us. We said in ordering a new trial in the case of Com. v. Petrillo,
If the ruling of the majority opinion is the law of this Commonwealth, then any citizen no matter whether his repute be high or his repute be low, is liable to find that if he hears with silent contempt, or silent caution until he can consult with counsel, an accusation made against him by even the most disreputable of individuals, his very silence will be construed at his trial as an admission of the truth of these accusations. This ruling which if followed will bring about such great injustice to innocent persons is in my judgment based upon reasoning which rests on a totally false premise, to wit, that if a person does not deny something evil said about him as soon as he hears it said the evil thing is presumably true. Any person familiar with human history or human nature, ought to know that this premise is completely unsound.
The defendant did at that time and place what an attorney if he had been present would undoubtedly have advised him to do and what he obviously thought was both the orderly and prudent thing to do, for his denial of his accuser's statement would have availed him nothing at his trial. His denials of this woman's statements might have brought him rebuke or something worse from the officers present, and he might well have reasoned that if he had replied in that hostile environment to what this woman said, his replies might not have been either accurately or fairly recorded.
The majority opinion finds the "justification" for the admission of this challenged evidence "in the age-long *426 experience of mankind that ordinarily an innocent person will spontaneously repel false accusations against him and a failure to do so is therefore some indication of guilt."
I do not so read the record of "the age-long experience of mankind." We do not have the records of all those cases where human beings have been accused falsely since the beginning of "this warfare called life", but we have enough of them to prove conclusively that whether or not a person will reply to accusations made against him depends on several factors which must first be determined before any evidential value can be attributed to his silence. Among these factors are these:
(1) The time and place they are made.
(2) By whom they are made. No man will be as likely to reply to an accusation made by a disreputable character as he will to an accusation made by a reputable character. For example, under the duelling code, a gentleman was not required to challenge a rowdy who insulted him but he was required to challenge a man of standing who had insulted him.1
(3) The reactions of the man himself, according to his nature, to accusations made against him. This is the mostimportant factor of all. We know from history and from human nature that many persons will never answer any accusations made against them (unless called upon to do so at a formal trial). This is true both of prominent2 personages and of obscure persons.3 We can *427 judge how human nature customarily acts toward accusations by reading the "case histories" of those who were of such prominence that their entire lives have been revealed. For example, when Washington was President of the United States and residing in Philadelphia, the local "Aurora", edited by Benjamin Franklin Bache (Franklin's grandson), charged Washington with "over-drawing his salary" and being a "common defaulter". When Washington left the presidency on March 4, 1797, Bache's newspaper said: "If ever there was a period for rejoicing, this is the moment . . . The name of Washington from this day ceases to give a currency to political iniquity and to legalize corruption" (Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. 1, p. 462). There is no record of Washington ever replying to these accusations, but his silence has never been "admitted" as evidence against his integrity in the court of history.
In 1795 Thomas Paine wrote President Washington "an open letter" in which he said: "The world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an imposter; whether you have abandoned good principles or never had any." (Paine's Works, Vol. 5, p. 200-1.) Though Paine was a man of some consequence, Washington made no reply to him. History has not interpreted his silence as an "admission" of the truth of Paine's charge.
One of Lincoln's best known statements begins with these words: "If I should read, much less answer, all the attacks made upon me this shop might as well be closed for any other business."4 *428
President Grant in his Second Inaugural Address declared that "throughout the war and . . . to the close of the last Presidential campaign I have been the subject of abuse and slander scarcely ever equaled in political history". There is no record of Grant's having made reply to any of this abuse and slander. He was known as "the silent man", but his silence in the face of accusations was never interpreted, except by the thoughtless and the malicious, as "giving consent" to the truth of these attacks.
Blaine in his Memorial Address on Garfield said that during the latter's campaign for President he met "with a storm of detraction and it continued with increasing volume and momentum until the close of his victorious campaign. . . . Under it Garfield was calm and strong and confident." The biography of him by Theodore Clark Smith (vol. 2, p. 1027) says: "Garfield persisted in his intention to make no personal reply to any Democratic charges, but for such a seasoned stump speaker and campaigner to hold complete silence was a strain on his endurance."
In the Memorial Address made on Roscoe Conkling before the New York legislature at Albany on May 9, 1888, one of the nation's foremost orators said of Conkling: "Sensitive to the last degree he keenly felt the blows of the envious and obscure . . . but he would not stoop to ask or give an explanation though he held in light esteem a friend who heard with half-believing ears the slanders of a foe. He was maligned, misrepresented and misunderstood, but he would not answer. He was as silent then as he is now — and his silence, better than any form of speech, refuted every charge."
At the most famous trial in all history it is recorded of the Divine Defendant: "And the chief priests accused him of many things, but he answered nothing." And Pilate said: "Answerest thou nothing? Behold how many things they witness against thee." Again there *429 was no answer, "so that Pilate marvelled". Mark 15:3, 4, 5.
These (and many other similar examples which could be cited) demonstrate that the cliche, "Silence gives consent" is as unreliable a rule of evidence as that other historically discredited cliche, "Where there is smoke there is fire" (meaning that if enough people can be found to circulate a slander, it should be accepted as having a basis of fact). Shakespeare, who "knew the brain and heart of man" as few have ever known them, discredited that cliche in "Othello" where he demonstrated that
"Trifles5 light as air Are to the jealous, confirmation strong As proofs of holy writ".
When a judicial decision is based on a catchy cliche, it is built upon a very uncertain foundation, for each of these hackneyed phrases has its equally popular contradiction, for example: "Silence gives consent" is set off by "Silence is golden", and also by "Even a fool when he holdeth his peace is counted wise and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding": (Proverbs 17:28); and "Wise men say nothing in dangerous times": (John Seldon, Wisdom); and "Silence never shows itself to so great an advantage as when it is made the reply to calumny and defamation": (Addison in the "Tattler"); and "Be silent and safe — silence never betrays you": (John Boyle O'Reilly in "Rules of the Road"); and "Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn": (George Bernard Shaw).6 *430
That the phrase "Silence gives consent" cannot be used as a rule of evidence was recognized by one of our greatest American judges, Chief Justice Shaw, of Massachusetts. He ruled on this very question in Com. v. Kenney,
In Com. v. Zorambo,
In Com. v. Coyne,
In Moore v. Smith, 14 Sergeant Rawle 388, this court said of the proposition that silence gives consent: "That presupposes a declaration or proposition made to him, which he is bound either to deny or to admit. . . . Nothing can be more dangerous than this kind of evidence; it should always be received with caution, and never ought to be, unless the evidence is of direct declarations of that kind, which naturally calls for contradiction. . . . Of all evidence, loose, hasty conversation is entitled to the least weight."
In People v. Rutigliano,
In Riley v. State, 65 Southern 882, the Supreme Court of Mississippi held that it was reversible error to admit at the trial of a case a statement made by a wife to her husband that he had forced her to kill deceased, to which statement defendant made no defense. The court said, "Speaking for the average man, we are of opinion that appellant was not called upon to deny the statement of his wife, made under the circumstances surrounding them at the time. His failure to deny, dispute, or hedge meets with our idea of what a normally prudent and sensible man would naturally have done, and therefore the evidence had no probative value, but was probably very damaging to him with the jury."
In Hersey v. Barton,
In Pawlowski v. Eskofski, 244 N.W. 611, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin said: "The inference of assent (by silence) may be safely made when no other explanation is equally consistent with silence; and there is always another such explanation. This much has always been conceded judicially when the question has been presented." It also quotes Wiedemann v. Walpole, 2 Q. B. 534, 539: "Silence is not evidence of an admission, unless there are circumstances which render it more reasonably probable that a man would answer the charge made against him than that he would not."
In People v. Pignataro,
The cases cited by the majority opinion are distinguishable from the case at bar, as I now point out. In Com. v Turza,
In Com. v. Carelli,
In Com. v. Ballon,
In Com. v. Murphy,
The case most relied on by the Commonwealth is Com. v.Weigand,
There is no principle more carefully applied in the administration of the criminal law than the principle that if any fact is as consistent with the hypothesis of a defendant's innocence as it is with the hypothesis of his guilt, that fact shall not militate against the defendant. We said in Com. v.Benz,
The logic of this principle is at the basis of Wigmore's statement, quoted above about "inference of assent". Trial judges are the preliminary testers of the probative value of evidence. If the evidence has enough probative value to be worthy of the jury's consideration, it should be admitted and the jury should give it appropriate weight in effecting persuasion. When any evidence is equally consistent with defendant's innocence as it is with his guilt it should, of course, be excluded, for if it is admitted, the jury can only guess about its significance, and we have repeatedly declared both in civil and in criminal cases that juries must not "conjecture" on the issues before them. We said in Com. v.Petrillo, supra, (p. 96): "The trial judge should not let the jury conjecture as to the guilt of the person to whom the evidence relates." In Whigham v. Metropolitan,
Certainly other explanations than guilt are "equally consistent" with this defendant's silence. Judge Kenworthey in his Superior Court opinion succinctly listed the "surrounding circumstances" which make this evidence inadmissible, as follows: "(1) the meeting was deliberately staged for the purpose of procuring evidence, (2) the meeting was a relatively formal proceeding, *438 (3) appellant had been charged with the crime and was under arrest, (4) he was present at the meeting under compulsion, (5) the only persons present were hostile to him, and (6) he was not asked any questions until after the meeting had been concluded." The policeman Calahan who testified as to the accusations said that at the conclusion of the questioning of Miss Ewadinger he asked Vallone if he knew her and he said that he had known her. The court then asked the officer: "Did you say anything to Mr. Vallone?", the answer was, "No, sir."
It is clear from all this that the defendant must have regarded the questioning of this woman as none of his affair and that for him to have said anything at that time and place would have been an ill-mannered intrusion. He was not even asked by the officer or by any one as to whether or not he conceded this woman's statements to be true.
The majority opinion says that the rule [as to silence giving consent] reflects only the manner in which "theaverage man is apt to conduct himself in such a situation".
I submit that when "the average man" is taken into custody and conducted by an officer to a district attorney's office in some city and there hears a woman like this one making statements implicating him in a crime, he will make no answer to such statements, particularly when he is not invited to do so. Suppose the officer said to this defendant, "What have you got to say to the accusation this woman makes against you?", and he replied, "I have nothing to say; I wish to consult counsel." Will anyone contend that such an answer under these circumstances should be received in evidence as admission of his guilt? He would be acting as an "average man" if he had made the answer just suggested to the supposed question, and in my judgment he acted as an "average man" when he said nothing at the time and place stated, and it is fair to presume that hedid wish *439 to consult with counsel before making any statement.7
The majority opinion says: "Our conclusion . . . is that the view adopted by the Superior Court errs in its failure to distinguish between the competency of the evidence and the weight that should be attributed to it by the jury."
Even conceding that this testimony was competent (which I do not concede), I still think it was harmful error for the court to admit this testimony without giving the jury some instruction as to how this kind of testimony should be tested and weighed. This court said in Sears v. Birbeck, et ux.,
Since this evidence was admitted defendant was entitled to have the jury instructed as to how to measure its weight. The trial judge should have said to the jury substantially this: "This defendant was under no legal duty to speak when he heard this woman make accusations against him before these officers and his silence at that time if you can find any otherreasonable explanation of it shall not be accepted by you as evidence of his assent to these accusations. His silence then and there can be construed as admission of the truthfulness of the accusations he heard made only if that is the onlyreasonable explanation of it."
Wigmore in his 3d ed. of Evidence, Sec. 28, p. 409, refers to the [proper] "efforts" of a trial judge "to prevent the jury from being satisfied by matters of slight value, capable of being exaggerated by prejudice and hasty reasoning". He then adds: "Legal relevancy denotes, first of all, something morethan a minimum of probative value," and quotes Edmund Burke as saying that Judges must "observe much on its [evidence's] credibility, or the most dreadful consequences might follow." In the case of Com. v. Carelli, supra, cited in the majority opinion, the trial judge guarded the admission of this testimony by saying to the jury what we have already quoted and adding: "If his silence was not because of any fear or threats or intimidation or any improper influence in that way, on the part of the officers *441 who had him in charge, his silence would apparently be an acquiescence in what they said." In the instant case there was nothing in the judge's charge indicating to the jurors that they did not necessarily have to take the defendant's silence at its "face value" as "giving consent" to the woman's statements. From what the jurors heard said when defendant's counsel objected to this testimony, they were justified after hearing the objection overruled in believing that this evidence was in law an "admission by silence", practically equivalent to a confession of guilt.
Wigmore in Vol. VIII of his 3d ed. on Evidence, Sec. 2272, says: "In the United States almost universal legislation decrees, in varying phraseology, that the inference [from defendant's silence in the courtroom] shall not be availed of." I submit that logic and consistency require that an inference from a defendant's silence when he is under arrest and withoutcounsel to advise him "shall" like his silence in the courtroom, "not be availed of".
This "universal legislation" referred to by Wigmore is based on the sound understanding that there may be many reasons,other than guilt, for a man to remain silent when accused of crime, and that, therefore, to draw an inference of guilt from his silence is wholly unwarranted and will not be permitted.8
That to hold silence in the courtroom as not evidence of guilt while silence outside the courtroom is such evidence, is illogical and anomalous, is the view taken by the highest court of New York: In People v. Page, *442
The "vice" in using this "evidence of silence" against a prisoner is that it is of too slight, if any, significance and is merely conjectural and yet possibly harmful to a defendant when considered by untrained minds, and therefore it should not go to a jury at all. Thayer in his Preliminary Treatise on Evidence at the Common Law (p. 266) says: "Some things are rejected [in evidence] as being of too slight a significance, or as having too conjectural and remote a connection; others, as being dangerous in their effect on the jury, and likely to be misused or over-estimated by that body. . . ." (p. 267): "The law of evidence is the creature of experience rather than logic, and we cannot escape the necessity of tracing that experience." (p. 269): "Admissibility is determined, first by relevancy, — an affair of logic and experience, and not at all of law; second, but only indirectly, by the law of evidence, which declares whether any given matter which is logically probative is excluded. . . . This great multitude of decisions, emerging day by day, *443 and holding that such and such evidence is or is not admissible, . . . are really reducible to mere propositions of sound reason as applied to a point of substantive law or pleading."
There is of course no valid analogy, as the majority opinion contends, between the rule that "flight is evidence of guilt" and the saying that "Silence gives consent". Flight is evidence of guilt, for innocent men when they learn that they are wanted for a crime or even that they are under the suspicion of having committed a crime do not run away or hide themselves. On the contrary, they almost invariably seek out the authorities and say: "If you are looking for me, here I am. If you have anything against me, produce it."
On the other hand, as we have shown, an individual accused by another and especially if that other be a disreputable person, does not ordinarily deem it incumbent upon himself to make a denial of the accusation, except when the matter reaches trial. If a man is wanted by the authorities for allegedly committing a crime it is his moral duty, if not his legal duty, not to hide himself but rather to make his appearance. When a man isaccused of something wrongful he is under no moral duty whatsoever to deny the accusation; he has a right to await hisaccuser's action and call for his proof.
Just as there are many "popular" legends that will not stand the searchlight of painstaking history, so there are many "popular" sayings that will not stand the test of sound reasoning. "Silence gives consent" is one of these. That this has been rejected as a rule of evidence by many courts of the highest judicial credit is evident from a review of the authorities. The position of our State Appellate Courts on this question has not been consistent and unequivocal. To bring our law on this subject in accord with sound reasoning and the weight of authority,9 I would lay down the rule: First, that the *444 silence of a person under arrest, in the face of accusations made against him by a third party, shall not be used against him at his trial. (This is consistent with what this court ruled in Com. v. Zorambo, supra); Second, that if there are some extraordinary circumstances which make a defendant's silence in the face of accusations against him consistent only with his acquiescence in them so that no other explanation ofhis silence is reasonable, the evidence of silence may be admitted, but in that contingency the jury must be carefully instructed as to how to weigh that evidence. In other words, a trial judge would decide in the first instance whether or not the evidence has sufficient probative value to make it admissible and if he decided that it had sufficient relevancyto be admissible, the jury would then decide how much probative value it had.
I agree with the Superior Court that "the proof of what transpired at the meeting [in the district attorney's office] was wholly inadmissible. And since there was virtually no other corroboration of the commonwealth's principal witness, it undoubtedly carried great weight with the jury and was prejudicial to him."
I would affirm the judgment of the Superior Court on the able opinion of Judge Kenworthey.
"No might nor greatness in mortality Can censure 'scape; back-wounding calumny The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?"
Measure for Measure,
Act iii, sc. 2.
