People v. Adorno Lorenzana

93 P.R. 768
CourtSupreme Court of Puerto Rico
DecidedDecember 15, 1966
DocketNos. CR-65-150; CR-65-151
StatusPublished

This text of 93 P.R. 768 (People v. Adorno Lorenzana) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Puerto Rico primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Adorno Lorenzana, 93 P.R. 768 (prsupreme 1966).

Opinion

per curiam :

Honorio Adorno Lorenzana, appellant herein, was convicted by a jury of the offense of murder in the second degree and a violation of the Weapons Law. The facts may be summarized as follows.

Rafael Pérez Balzac, the victim, was assistant to the Dean of Administration of the University of Puerto Rico. In the performance of his duties Pérez Balzac was appellant’s superior. Appellant had been a University guard and at the time of the occurrence he was special investigator for the University. Pérez Balzac, as Adorno’s immediate supervisor, had had to call the latter’s attention on several occasions because of faults he had committed in the discharge of his duties: he had availed himself of a copy of a master key without authorization to do so; had taken courses at the University during working hours without permission from his supervisors, and other violations.

[770]*770Pérez Balzac had summoned appellant to his office the morning of June 21, 1962. That morning Adorno appeared at Pérez Balzac’s office; Balzac asked him to sit down to which Adorno refused, saying to his superior: “Tell me what you have to say that I’ll listen standing up.” Pérez Balzac told Adorno that at a certain future date he would cease as special investigator but that he could submit an application for guard at the University.

Adorno left Pérez Balzac’s office, took a car and went to Urbanización Victoria, to his compadre Juan Matos Ortiz’ home and once there commissioned the latter to do some things for him in case he, Adorno, “did not return within the next two or three days.” From there Adorno went to Country Club Development where he lived. There, at his home, he took a revolver, loaded it, put some extra bullets in his pocket, took the car again and went back to the University. He parked the car in front of the University Tower and, armed with the revolver, went to Rafael Pérez Balzac’s office. Adorno entered the office and firing five shots killed him. He fired seven times, for which he had to reload the revolver after firing the first six bullets. (He used a 38 Colt Cobra, which is a short-barrel six-shooter revolver, caliber 38.) Two of the shots hit Pérez Balzac when he was already on the floor.

On appeal he assigns the following errors:

1. “Admissions of appellant obtained in violation of his constitutional rights were admitted in evidence.”
2. “Appellant was not advised of his constitutional right to legal counsel during the investigatory stage.”
3. “Appellant was not advised of his constitutional right to remain silent and not incriminate himself.”
4. “Appellant was submitted to a psychiatric examination in violation of his constitutional rights.”
5. “The trial court made prejudicial comments in the presence of the jury which deprived appellant of his right to an impartial trial.”
[771]*7716. “The instructions given to the jury were erroneous and confusing.”
7. “The additional instructions requested by appellant were erroneously denied and evidence in support thereof erroneously excluded.”

I.

Let us examine assignments one, two and three. These errors are based on the admission in evidence of the testimony of policeman Angel Feliciano. Feliciano talked to appellant at the Río Piedras police station on the morning of the occurrence. The policeman’s testimony challenged by appellant is as follows:

First, in the absence of the jury:

“Q. Could you tell the court under which circumstances you had occasion to talk to him?
“A. I asked Honorio Lorenzana if he had fired the six bullets and he, who was very nervous, answered yes but. . . .
“A. I asked him about the reasons for the investigation of the case and Lorenzana told me that he had been laid off.”

Then, in the presence of the jury:

“A. Well, for the. investigation I was conducting I asked Honorio Adorno Lorenzana whether he had fired the six shots and Adorno. . . .
“A. Whether he had fired the six bullets and Adorno Lorenzana answered yes but that he did not remember how many bullets there had been.
“A. I asked him what reasons he had and he told me that he had been laid off by Balzac and that he had gone to Balzac’s office to ask for an explanation for the motives, and Balzac did not tell him.
“To ask for the reasons Balzac had for his lay off, and Balzac [772]*772did not tell him which gave rise to a discussion between them, Honorio Adorno left and came back later when he fired the shots.”

This testimony is challenged because it contains admissions of appellant made during the investigatory stage of the proceeding. The fact that those admissions were free and spontaneous, without the least trace of deceit or physical or psychological coercion is not questioned. The commission of the offense was not denied either. When policeman Feliciano testified his testimony was not challenged in any way or evidence contrary to it introduced.

Since appellant, in arguing these three first errors, bases himself principally on Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478 (1964) and on Rivera Escuté v. Delgado, Warden, 92 P.R.R. 746 (1965), it is necessary to point out the following. When the trial in this case was held (last days of July and first days of August 1963) the cases of Escobedo, Rivera Escuté, and Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966) had not yet been decided. Appellant’s trial was held in accordance with the law then in force. As we have pointed out, it was a year after said trial had been held that the Supreme Court of the United States passed on the Escobedo case and it was in October 1965 that we decided the Rivera Escuté case where we adhered to the constitutional criteria of Escobedo. Nevertheless, in Rivera Escuté we did not issue the habeas corpus requested therein.

After the radical rules of Escobedo and Miranda had been established by the Supreme Court of the United States, it is in Johnson v. New Jersey, 384 U.S. 719 (1966) where said Court, speaking through its Chief Justice Warren, explains the ratio decidendi in those opinions. The Court has been especially concerned, as shown by its most recent decisions and as it clearly appears from its opinion in Johnson v. New Jersey, with the very integrity of the fact-finding process and avoiding the clear danger of convicting the innocent. [773]*773384 U.S. 728. From a study of that recent case law it can be noticed that that concern for the integrity of the fact-finding process was spurred by the excesses committed by the police of some states.

As the concurring opinion in the Rivera Escuté case points out, fortunately we do not have in Puerto Rico a notorious record of those proscribed practices. Escobedo and Miranda

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Related

Escobedo v. Illinois
378 U.S. 478 (Supreme Court, 1964)
Miranda v. Arizona
384 U.S. 436 (Supreme Court, 1966)
Johnson v. New Jersey
384 U.S. 719 (Supreme Court, 1966)
Early v. People
352 P.2d 112 (Supreme Court of Colorado, 1960)
State v. Myers
67 S.E.2d 506 (Supreme Court of South Carolina, 1951)
Clements v. State
210 S.W.2d 912 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 1948)

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Bluebook (online)
93 P.R. 768, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-adorno-lorenzana-prsupreme-1966.