53 N.Y.2d 213 | NY | 1981
Lead Opinion
OPINION OF THE COURT
Crucial to these three appeals, each emanating from a conviction of a felony unrelated to the others, is a common question. It calls upon us to determine what retrospective effect, if any, is to be accorded our decision in People v Samuels (49 NY2d 218), where in essence we held that once an accusatory instrument has been filed a defendant cannot waive his constitutional right to counsel save in the presence of counsel.
The Samuels rationale rested on a fundamental and uncomplicated principle, that once an accusatory instrument is filed, viewed realistically, the defendant is no longer a suspect but an accused, and the People’s role may then be said to have shifted from the more neutral theater of investigation to the far more aggressive one of prosecution. In this posture, unless our adversary system of criminal justice is to flounder on the happenstance of whether, for example, a particular defendant is ignorant or sophisticated, “any discussions relating thereto should be conducted by counsel [for] at that point the parties are in no position to safeguard their rights” (People v Settles, 46 NY2d 154, 164 [criminal proceeding initiated by indictment]).
The relevancy of the retroactivity of this holding to the cases at hand appear in the.following contexts:
In People v Pepper and People v Utter, statements were elicited from the defendants after felony complaints had been filed and arrest warrants had issued. In Pepper, the executing officers took the defendant to the police barracks; in Utter, it was to a police substation. At each location, it is established that, though the custodial warnings com
In People v Torres, two statements, one an oral confession made to a police detective and the other a stenographically recorded statement made to an Assistant District Attorney, were obtained from the defendant under circumstances sufficiently similar for the People to concede that Samuels is factually apposite. But, for present purposes, this case is distinguished from Pepper and Utter in the important respect that, after the trial court, here the Supreme Court sitting in Kings County, had denied suppression, the Appellate Division, before whom the appeal arrived before rather than after we ruled in Samuels, affirmed. To be precise, though sentence had been pronounced on Torres on March 3, 1976 and the Appellate Division affirmed his conviction on June 26, 1978, it was not until more than a year and a half later, January 15, 1980, that we decided Samuels. Long before then, on August 15, 1978, a Judge of this court had denied Torres’ application for leave to appeal (45 NY2d 831). The ultimate grant that presently brings up the defendant’s appeal was on an application for reconsideration presented post-Samuels (50 NY2d 1064).
The position of each party on the pivotal prospective versus retrospective issue is pointed. In all three cases, emphasizing, among a miscellany of considerations, that
None of the arguments submitted to aid us in fixing the most appropriate date for putting the overruling in question into effect is new. All have figured in the extensive attention the subject has received from jurists and commentators who in the last half century have searched for ways in which principled mitigation of the hardships that at times may accompany abrupt changes in decisional law can be achieved (see Overruling Decision — Application, Ann., 10 ALR3d 1371; Fairchild, Limitation of New Judge-Made Law to Prospective Effect Only, 51 Marq L Rev 254; Cardozo, Address Before the New York State Bar Association, 1932 NYSBA Report 263, 296-298).
As a result, over the years, in some instances the historic common-law rule, that all cases on direct appeal must be decided in accordance with any newly declared but conceptually always existent principle, has been tempered where there was significant reliance on a now overruled and, therefore, in theory, erroneously stated precedent (see People v Morales, 37 NY2d 262, 267-268, and authorities cited thereat; Snyder, Retroactive Operation of Overruling Decisions, 35 Ill L Rev 121; Schaefer, Control of “Sun
The conflict between these opposing forces has not left the area of criminal procedure untouched. In a series of opinions, both this court and the United States Supreme Court have addressed the subject, both in cases pending on direct appeal and, if the appellate process has been exhausted, where relief is sought in collateral proceedings (see, e.g., United States v Peltier, 422 US 531; People v Morales, 37 NY2d 262, 268-269, supra, and cases cited thereat).
This is not to say that definitive standards have evolved. But neither is the field untracked. As we noted in Morales (37 NY2d 262, 269, supra), useful, if general, guideline, are available. In judging whether it is more appropriate to adhere to rather than deviate from the common-law convention, be it to grant full retroactive application (permitting a collateral attack on a conviction no longer in normal appellate channels) or to limit relief to prospective police conduct or trials, in Desist v United States (394 US 244, 249), the Supreme Court stressed, and in Morales we had occasion to weigh, three factors: “(a) the purpose to be served by the new standards, (b) the extent of the reliance by law enforcement authorities on the old standards, and (c) the effect on the administration of justice of a retroactive application of the new standards”. In this formulation, the extent of the reliance and the nature of the burden on the administration of justice are of substantial significance only when the answer to the retroactivity question is not to be found in the purpose of the new rule itself (Desist v United States, supra, p 249).
In contrast to the extremes described in these Federal cases, as our own decisions have made clear, a defendant’s right to counsel in pretrial encounters falls within a middle ground. So, while we have found retroactivity in order in such cases, its application has been limited to those still on direct review at the time the change in law occurred (e.g., People v Albro, 52 NY2d 619, 624; People v Bell, 50 NY2d 869; People v Singer, 44 NY2d 241, 251; People v Macedonio, 42 NY2d 944). In counterpoint, we have denied retroactive application where that process has been exhausted (People v Wooden, 46 NY2d 938; People v Robles, 42 NY2d 1051; People v Rivera, 16 NY2d 879).
We see no reason to depart from that course here. While we cannot say that uncounseled station house interrogations necessarily go to the ultimate issue of guilt or innocence, they are not insignificant events. Aside from the avoidance of incriminating statements, the benefits of introduction of counsel at that stage, with its concomitant advantages of early advice and investigation, are not to be ignored.
In addition, in balancing the importance of the right Samuels guarantees against its effect on other pending cases, we cannot lose sight of the fact that the relatively early terminal point of retroactivity limited to cases young
The People’s reliance argument is even less impressive. For one thing, our decision need not have taken the People by surprise. Given the broad philosophical language of People v Hobson (39 NY2d 479, 484), which, in turn, had been more than foreshadowed by People v Arthur (22 NY2d 325) and the still earlier cases cited therein, it was hardly unanticipated. Indeed, since, as Justice Jackson put it realistically, “any lawyer worth his salt will tell the suspect in no uncertain terms to make no statement to police under any circumstances” (Watts v Indiana, 338 US 49, 59), it is difficult to perceive how they could have ended up in a different position from the one in which suppression leaves them, i.e., without the statement.
Appellant Torres, however, is not entitled to benefit from the change in law. The normal appellate process came to an end for him upon the original unconditional denial of his application for leave to appeal to this court (People v Muller, 11 NY2d 154, 156, cert den 371 US 850).
Accordingly, each of the orders appealed from should be affirmed.
. As required by People v Welcome (37 NY2d 811), the application for reconsideration was made to the Judge who initially denied leave to appeal. (See, also, 22 NYCRR 500.8 [b].)
. We note that, while a Judge of this court has discretion to reconsider a prior denial of an application for leave to appeal, that discretion is exercised rarely (see People v Welcome, 37 NY2d 811, supra). All the more is this so in light of the availability of a proceeding to vacate a judgment pursuant to GPL article 440 in circumstances in which a decisional law must be given complete retroactivity (see People v Pohl, 23 NY2d 290).
Concurrence Opinion
(concurring). I concur in the results reached by the majority in these appeals, but would base my conclusion on somewhat narrower grounds.
The question presented by these appeals is whether the rule enunciated in People v Samuels (49 NY2d 218) should be applied retroactively to cases on appeal at the time the
Our holding in Samuels was based upon People v Hobson (39 NY2d 479), which was routinely applied to cases that were in the appellate process at the time that decision was handed down (see, e.g., People v Macedonio, 42 NY2d 944). Indeed, each time there has been a new development in the line of cases based upon Hobson, the new rule has been applied in a similar retroactive manner (see, e.g., People v Albro, 52 NY2d 619; and People v Bell, 50 NY2d 869 [applying People v Rogers (48 NY2d 167) retroactively] ; People v Lucas, 53 NY2d 678; People v Prince, 50 NY2d 883 [applying People v Cunningham (49 NY2d 203) retroactively]). There is simply no logical justification for treating the Samuels rule differently.
In fact, the arguments in favor of according Samuels retroactive effect are particularly compelling, since the holding in that case was foreshadowed and even perhaps mandated by prior case law. In People v Settles (46 NY2d 154) we held that once an indictment is filed the “indelible” right to counsel attaches and the accused can no longer effect a valid waiver of his rights unless his attorney is present (see People v Hobson, supra [overruling People v Lopez (28 NY2d 23, cert den 404 US 840)]; 51 St John’s L Rev 216, 220-222; see, also, People v Blake, 35 NY2d 331). Although Settles involved an indicted defendant, the holding in that case was predicated upon the broader notion that a suspect is entitled to the full panoply of protections inherent in the State constitutional right to counsel when “the character of the police function shifts from investigative to accustory” (46 NY2d, at p 163). Settles thus made it perfectly clear that the formal commencement of a crimi
In light of the history of the Samuels rule, it is evident that the decisions of the Appellate Division in the Pepper and Utter cases should be affirmed. In each case, the Appellate Division, relying upon Samuels, reversed the conviction and ordered the inculpatory statement in question suppressed. Since the rights of both defendants were indisputably violated under our holding in Samuels and since Samuels is clearly applicable to cases such as these, which were in the appellate process at the time that decision was announced, there is no legal basis for upsetting the rulings made below.
A different analysis must be applied, however, in the case of defendant Torres, whose application for leave to appeal to this court was denied some 17 months before Samuels was handed down. Unlike defendants Pepper and Utter, the defendant in the Torres case had already exhausted his appellate remedies by the time Samuels was decided (see People v Muller, 11 NY2d 154, cert den 371 US 850), and, as our prior decisions indicate, he is therefore not entitled to have his conviction reopened on the basis of the Samuels rule (see People v Wooden, 46 NY2d 938; People v Robles, 42 NY2d 1051).
Judges Jones, Wachtler and Meyer concur with Judge Fuchsberg; Judge Gabrielli concurs in a separate opinion in which Chief Judge Cooke and Judge Jasen concur.
In each case: Order affirmed.
Indeed, we have already applied the holding in Samuels to cases which arose before that decision was announced (People v Lucas, 53 NY2d 678; People v Cullen, 50 NY2d 168, 174). In my view, these cases alone are sufficient to dispose of the issues presented in the Pepper and Utter appeals.