18 N.Y.2d 337 | NY | 1966
Lead Opinion
The conviction of appellant of murder in the second degree should be affirmed unless its correctness is controlled by Miranda v. Arizona (384 U. S. 436). The dispo
The Supreme Court said in Johnson v. New Jersey (supra) that law enforcement agencies fairly relied on prior decisions, now no longer binding, in obtaining incriminating statements before Escobedo (Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U. S. 478) and Miranda (supra) respectively were decided, and stated categorically that “ these decisions should apply only to trials begun after the decisions were announced * * * even though the cases may still be on direct appeal ” (384 U. S. 732-733; italics supplied).
We are aware that the convictions of Miranda, Yignera, Westover and Stewart were reversed or their reversal upheld by the Supreme Court, and that, in this respect, the procedure differed from that considered in Great Northern Ry. Co. v. Sunburst Oil & Refining Co. (287 U. S. 358) and in Chief Judge Cardozo’s address to the New York State Bar Association (55 N. Y. State Bar Assn. Rep. 263, 296-297 [1932]) in that there the existing rule was to be followed in the case at bar coupled with an announcement that in the future the rule would be otherwise. It is true that the defendants in the Miranda cases were themselves tried before June 13, 1966, but, at the same time, the Supreme Court denied certiorari in many other cases of apparently similar import. Quite evidently the Supreme Court was considering its function in establishing the law of the land in regard to such situations, and any seeming inequalities which may thereby have resulted to these particular individuals were considered to be of secondary importance. The effect, regardless of the reversal of the convictions of Miranda and the other defendants, was similar to the pronouncement of an edict that those defendants who were tried before June 13, 1966 are not required by the Federal Constitution to be governed by the Miranda ridings. Although this procedure may have been unusual, it is not unprecedented
We have endeavored to adapt our State, procedures in such matters as nearly as may be to the Federal practice (cf. People v. Huntley, 15 N Y 2d 72, supra), and in applying the changes in the law effectuated by Miranda v. Arizona (supra) there is no reason on account of which we should go beyond what the Supreme Court has required in applying these rules to prior convictions. Anything held to the contrary in People v. Loria (supra) should be regarded as overruled.
If an issue of voluntariness were involved, as in Haynes v. Washington (373 U. S. 503) or any of our previous New York State decisions, we recognize that the omission to give the warnings prescribed by Miranda during the prearraignment custodial interrogation could properly be invoked “ as part of an involuntariness claim” (Johnson v. New Jersey, supra, p. 730; Davis v. North Carolina, 384 U. S. 737). There is no basis in this record, however, for any possible ruling that appellant’s confessions should have been excluded as involuntary. In affirming, the Appellate Division said (24 A D 2d 499): “In our opinion, under the circumstances here, namely: (1) the defendant’s failure to object to the admission of her confessions on the ground that they had been involuntarily made, and (2) the absence from the trial court’s charge of any instruction concerning the issue of the voluntariness of defendant’s confessions, a Jackson-Denno hearing to determine such issue is not required to be held (People v. Huntley, 15 N Y 2d 72, 77; Jackson v. Denno, 378 U. S. 368).”
Not only does the absence of objection preclude review by this court (People v. Friola, 11 N Y 2d 157, 159-160), but also there is no basis in the record for any contention of involuntariness. A brief review of the circumstances makes this clear.
The victim of this homicide was stabbed with a knife on the street outside of a bar and grill in Hempstead, New York, following an altercation inside just before it closed at 3:00 a.m. on November 20, 1960. The body was discovered at about 3:30 a.m:., and suspicion soon attached to appellant who resided with two other women in an apartment three and one-half blocks away. One of these woman testified that appellant admitted
Her confession or confessions to the law enforcement officers, the admission of which is alleged to have constituted error, occurred as follows: She was taken to the police station about three hours after discovery of the homicide, and within 5 or 10 minutes confessed to the whole thing. She thereupon voluntarily went with the police officers to her apartment and showed them the knife with which she said that she had stabbed the deceased. She then accompanied the police officers to the scene of the homicide which she re-enacted for their benefit.
Between 9:00 and 9:15 a.m. at police headquarters, on the morning of the homicide, she was again questioned by detectives and her interrogation reduced to a writing which she signed. Soon afterward a question and answer statement of similar purport was taken by an assistant district attorney before her arraignment. She was arraigned at 12:50 p.m. on a charge of first degree murder. Two days later another statement was taken which was excluded by the Trial Judge under People v. Waterman (9 N Y 2d 561).
The motions to suppress the two prearraignment statements which were admitted into evidence were based exclusively on the Escobedo decision (which the Trial Justice held inapplicable in the absence of any request for counsel) and on failure to give the warnings which were afterwards held to be necessary in Miranda. Defense counsel later moved to strike out the two confessions which had been admitted upon the ground that they “were taken in violation of the defendant’s constitutional rights.” The only constitutional rights asserted in the record are those which have been mentioned. It is undisputed that no request was made for counsel as occurred in Escobedo v. Illinois (378 U. S. 478), People v. Noble (9 N Y 2d 571), nor is it contended that an attorney had been retained to represent her as in People v. Donovan (13 N Y 2d 148), People v. Gunner (15 N Y 2d 226). The circumstance that her daughter presented herself at the police station between 10:30 and 11:00 a.m. on the morning of November 20, after appellant’s oral confession
Concurrence Opinion
(concurring). When the Supreme Court of the United States decided Mapp v. Ohio (367 U. S. 643), there was room for doubt that the decision in People v. Defore (242 N. Y. 13, cert. den. 270 U. S. 657) retained any vigor as a rule of law in cases that had not been terminated either by final appellate review or by passage of time for such review. In People v. Loria (10 N Y 2d 368), we resolved that doubt, holding that the rule announced in Mapp v. Ohio (supra) was to be applied to cases still in the appellate process.
I have heard no argument that convinces me that we should, as a matter of law, abandon Gunner and substitute therefor a
In these days of increasing disregard of the law, we are under no duty to enlarge needlessly on the already great protections afforded convicted criminals whose plight is of their own unlawful making. Rather, the dictates of public policy, in my view, require us to extend innovations in the criminal law only as far as is absolutely necessary to protect constitutional rights. It seems to me that holdings like Miranda (supra) deserve no further application than is demanded. In Johnson v. New Jersey (supra), the Supreme Court set the standard, and we should meet, but in no way exceed, that standard (see, e.g., People v. Gunner, supra, p. 234; People v. Sanchez, 15 N Y 2d 387, 390; People v. Failla, 14 N Y 2d 178, 183). I confess to occasional difficulty in conforming my own views with those of the Supreme Court, in this area of the law; and now that I have found a decision of that tribunal to which I can easily accommodate, I am unwilling to take a contrary position (Johnson v. New Jersey, supra).
Accordingly, we should adopt the same views advanced in Johnson (supra) and apply Miranda (supra) only to those cases in which the trial commenced on or after the date of that decision. Therefore, I concur in Judge Van Voorhis’ opinion to affirm.
In Loria, several members of this court bad expressed a desire to apply Mapp prospectively only (see People v. Loria, supra, pp. 370-371).
Concurrence Opinion
(concurring). While I concur with the views expressed by Judge Van Voobhis, I desire to point up some of the practical considerations which, to my mind, are of major significance.
As an academic exercise, it may be pleasant to ponder whether courts make new law or merely discover the law as it has always been, theretofore hidden away somewhere in all its power and glory. Upon the outcome, so goes jurisprudential thought, we will then determine whether to apply a rule retroactively (actually a misnomer, since it will then be considered as always having been the law) or whether to apply it prospectively only, or indeed, as in the case now before us, whether to apply it retroactively but only to the extent that cases are still in the ordinary appellate process.
Johnson v. New Jersey (384 U. S. 719) however, as well as the daily business of this court, provides a complete answer to
I do not think it can be gainsaid that even a cursory examination of the Supreme Court opinions and the opinions of the New York Court of Appeals over the past 20 years witness tremendous strides in the fair and impartial administration of the criminal law. No doubt this growth will continue as indeed it must if we are to remain a vital and maturing society. But if every changing advance in the law means that we must wash away the past and undo all that has .already been done, I am afraid that this progress which is so desirable will be seriously hampered, often with no correllative gain to be shown for the effort.
I agree with Chief Judge Desmond that “ There is nothing in Johnson mandating our refusal of today to apply Miranda to a newly argued appeal like this one ” (pp. 353-354). But equally, there is nothing in Johnson which mandates the opposite result — that we do apply the law retroactively. Quite explicitly, the Supreme Court left the question of retroactive application open for individual consideration by the State courts (Johnson v. New Jersey, supra, p. 733). It thus behooves us to determine what may be gained and what may be lost by applying Miranda to cases still in the ordinary appellate process.
If we apply Miranda retroactively we adhere to what we called in People v. Loria (10 N Y 2d 368, 370) “ the general rule that we give effect to the law as it exists at the time of our decision ”. I confess that I am unable to read the cases cited in Loria as supporting so far-reaching a proposition. Matter of Tartaglia v. McLaughlin (297 N. Y. 419), Knapp v. Fasbender (1 N Y 2d 212) and Quaker Oats Co. v. City of New York (295 N. Y. 527) all involve statutes enacted between the trial and the appeal
Bnt be that as it may, the truth, as 1 see it, is that when the chips are down and when a significant number of persons or a significant public policy is involved, broad statements of a general rule do not and should not- preclude us from giving the specific question closer examination. We were presented with just such a problem in Rosenstiel v. Rosenstiel (16 N Y 2d 64) wherein this court upheld the validity of bilaterally obtained divorce decrees in Chihuahua, Mexico. Had we held such divorces invalid, we would have been faced with the question of retroactivity. Chief Judge DesmoNd thus said in a separate opinion (16 N Y 2d, p. 78): “I vote for a declaration that such divorces are void, but I am not bound to and do not vote to give this ruling any more than prospective effect. I cannot shut my eyes to the realities. Tens of thousands of such purported divorces have been granted to New Yorkers who acted on advice of attorneys who relied on 25 years of decisions by the New York lower courts * * * This court has a clear right to give our ruling prospective effect only (see Lyon v. Richmond, 2 Johns. Ch. 51; Harris v. Jex, 55 N. Y. 421; Great Northern Ry. v. Sunburst Co., 287 U. S. 358; Linkletter v. Walker, 33 U. S. L. W. 4576) and justice and fairness dictate that we should do so
In the end then, we are faced with assessing independent policy considerations which do not lend themselves to the declaration of a “ general rule.”
We are asked to examine the justice of applying one rule to the appellants considered by the Supreme Court in Miranda while we apply another to this case as well as similar cases involving the identical point (People v. Hocking, 18 N Y 2d 832; People v. Teams, 18 N Y 2d 835; People v. Kulis, 18 N Y 2d 318). Michael Vignera, whose appeal was considered along with Miranda, is to have a new trial. The present appellant, McQueen, will not have a new trial. Yignera was lucky. McQueen is not. This is a wholly different thing from talking about justice. Upon a new trial it may be that the People will be unable to establish Yignera’s guilt without the use of his
If it is unjust to deprive the appellant, McQueen, of Miranda’s benefits, it is at least equally unjust to deny them to those whose cases have already completed the appellate process. Yet no one has urged that we give the rule complete retroactivity. Any line drawn is essentially arbitrary. Better that we draw it with the fundamental function of criminal trials in mind-determining guilt or innocence — than that we bind ourselves to the slavery of unyielding rules.
While we speak of the justice of the proposition, we must keep in mind yet another factor. Until the Supreme Court handed down the opinion in Miranda, justice did not require that a defendant be given the four warnings already recited (People v. Gunner, 15 N Y 2d 226, supra). It was sufficient that a confession was made voluntarily and that a defendant had not affirmatively been denied access to counsel (People v. Donovan, 13 N Y 2d 148).
Involuntary confessions are consistently excluded in this State and all those who are denied Miranda’s benefits are free to test the voluntariness of their confessions within the limits outlined in People v. Huntley (15 N Y 2d 72). At such a hearing, a defendant is clearly entitled to show that he was not told of his privilege against self incrimination or his right to an attorney. Each will bear on voluntariness. But there is no purpose in automatically directing a new trial because a defendant was not told of these rights when, at the time, there was no requirement that he be told and, indeed, there existed a specific holding to the contrary (People v. Gunner, 15 N Y 2d 226, 233, supra). The District Attorney, in presenting his case, has some right to rely on the latest pronouncements of a State’s highest court.
At the oral argument held to consider this question of retro-activity, it appeared that in New York and Bronx Counties combined some 50 homicide convictions and approximately 100 felony nonhomicide convictions would be reversed if Miranda was applied retroactively. The total number of convictions affected in about one third of the counties of the State, exclusive of New York County, was given to us as 221. Retrials of those who could be retried in New York County would, it is asserted, occupy the trial courts of New York County for a full year.
I, therefore, concur in the affirmance of the judgment appealed from.
Dissenting Opinion
(dissenting). Under the Supreme Court’s “ Miranda ” confession rules (384 U. S. 436 [June, 1966]) this defendant’s conviction was illegal, as all must agree. Invariably — until now — the appellate courts of this State have applied to pending appeals the law as it stands on the date of decision of the appeal, unless vested property rights were at stake. Unvarying has been our fealty to the rule of the Schooner Peggy case (1 Cranch [5 U. S.] 103, 110 [1801]) where Chief Justice Maeshall wrote: “It is in the general true that the province of an appellate court is only to inquire whether a judgment when rendered was erroneous or not. But if, subsequent to the judgment, and before the decision of the appellate court, a law intervenes and positively changes the rule which governs, the law must be obeyed, or its obligation denied, * * * In such a case the court must decide according to existing laws, and if it be necessary to set aside a judgment, rightful when rendered, but which cannot be affirmed but in violation of law, the judgment must be set aside ” (quoted in our opinions in Robinson v. Robins Dry Dock & Repair Co., 238 N. Y. 271, 281, and Boardwalk & Seashore Corp. v. Murdock, 286 N. Y. 494, 498-499). In Black Riv. Regulating Dist. v. Adirondack League Club (307 N. Y. 475, 486-487) we stated, as the rationale for this fundamental, ‘ ‘ our unwillingness to perpetuate a judgment contrary to existing law ”. Contrary to existing law the criminal judgment here on appeal certainly is, yet it is being affirmed and perpetuated in the form of a 20-year-to-life imprisonment. The rule should be as it always has been, and must be
Right up to this case we have been insisting in every criminal appeal that the current law, including changes shortly theretofore made, be enforced on appeal (see, for instance, People v. Huntley, 15 N Y 2d 72 [1965]; People v. Friedlander, 16 N Y 2d 248 [1965]; People v. Gunner, 15 N Y 2d 226 [1965]; People v. Sanchez, 15 N Y 2d 387 [1965]; People v. Failla, 14 N Y 2d 178 [1964]; People v. Donovan, 13 N Y 2d 148 [1963]; People v. Loria, 10 N Y 2d 368 [1961]). The cases listed are only a sampling. There are many others, new and old — and none to the contrary till now. Every criminal cause heard on direct appeal in this court has, until we reached this ease and its companions, been decided according to the law as we found it on our day of decision.
What reason do we give for this repudiation of a rule ancient in origin but modern in its justice ? Apparently, we are refusing to apply to this defendant’s appeal the law as we all understand it to be, simply because the Supreme Court, after reversing in Miranda, Vignera and Westover (and on the same ground affirming as to Stewart) on June 13, 1966, announced a week later in Johnson v. New Jersey (384 U. S. 719) that the State courts were not bound to enforce the Miranda rules except as to trials commenced after the Miranda decision date. The United States Supreme Court thus claimed for itself the right, in criminal liti-gations involving constitutional claims, to order that a new rule be prospective only in application ‘ ‘ ‘ where the exigencies of the situation require such an application ’ ” (384 U. S. 726, 727). But this court has never until now asserted such a right for itself, nor has it ever considered any exigencies as suspending the operation of the basic rule that each man’s case is to be decided on appeal according to the law as is. Our court today is obeying, as it must, the new confession rules announced in Miranda, but it seems to be overlooking the explicit statement in Johnson v. New Jersey (384 U. S. 733) that the States “ are still entirely free * * * to apply those standards in a broader range of- cases than is required by this decision ’ ’ — that is to say, we may apply the new rules to currently argued appeals just as New York has always done in the past. There is nothing in
Our court presaged the Escobedo v. Illinois decision (378 U. S. 478) in People v. Donovan (13 N Y 2d 148, supra) and we have consistently applied the Donovan rule to cases which were in the normal appellate process at the time Donovan was decided. (See, e.g., People v. Failla, 14 N Y 2d 178, supra; People v. Gunner, 15 N Y 2d 226, supra; People v. Sanchez, 15 N Y 2d 387, supra; People v. Friedlander, 16 N Y 2d 248, supra.) Thus we are applying the Donovan-Escobedo doctrine to “a broader range of cases than is required by [Johnson] ” (384 U. S., p. 733). I see no valid reason why we should now depart from our long-settled practice and arbitrarily decline to apply Miranda v. Arizona (supra) in a similar fashion.
Being under no compulsion from the Supreme Court to apply old instead of new law here, we should at least look at the justice of the thing. I see no justification for our deciding this McQueen case in October, 1966 by rules stricter and more severe than those considered by the Supreme Court in June, 1966 (Miranda et al.) to be necessary for the protection of the constitutional rights of persons charged with crime. The Miranda opinion cannot be read as holding anything less than this: that under the Fifth Amendment admission into evidence of a confession secured without compliance with the requirements set out at pages 444 and 445 of 384 U. S. is a violation of the defendant’s constitutional rights. Obeying that decision and its own traditions, the New York Court of Appeals should give this defendant a new trial.
Consider the inequity and inequality, the unequal protection. Compare this defendant’s position with that of Michael Vignera whose appeal was argued in the Supreme Court with that of Miranda and others and whose conviction was reversed, and a new trial ordered" by the Supreme Court on June 13, 1966 (384 U. S. 436). Vignera’s crime had been committed in October, 1960; defendant McQueen’s was in November of that year. Vignera was convicted in a New York court in August, 1961. Mrs. McQueen was found guilty in a New York court in November, 1964. Yet opposite results are ordered by the courts as to the same question of law.
The judgment should be reversed and a new trial ordered.
Upon reargument: Judgment affirmed.