People v. Frank

47 Misc. 2d 557, 262 N.Y.S.2d 997, 1965 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 1556
CourtNassau County District Court
DecidedAugust 26, 1965
StatusPublished

This text of 47 Misc. 2d 557 (People v. Frank) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Nassau County District Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Frank, 47 Misc. 2d 557, 262 N.Y.S.2d 997, 1965 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 1556 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 1965).

Opinion

Raymond L. Wilkes, J.

When does the right to counsel accrue?

Between the Scylla of arrest and the Charybdis of arraignment lies this still burgeoning controversy of our time. Although Ulysses sailed successfully between his legendary perils it has long since become transparently clear that the philosophical pilgrimage of judicial interpretation relative to the foregoing query may not be quite so adroit. It seems rough strewn with the hazards of inconsistency, and the frustrations of an ever-embattled federalism. The mythological allusion only serves to symbolically illuminate the “ crime and the courts ” embroglio of this day and age.

Pursuant to our State law a voluntary confession is admissible in evidence unless a defendant is refused permission to see an attorney after he has requested one (People v. Donovan, 13 N Y 2d 148). The fact that a defendant is not advised of his right to remain silent or his right to counsel does not of itself invalidate his confession by State standards (People v. Gunner, 15 N Y 2d 226).

More recently, namely, on May 20, 1965, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit covering New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware reversed two New Jersey murder convictions because the police had not advised the defendants prior to taking their confessions of: (1) their right to remain silent; and (2) their right to counsel (United States ex rel. Russo v. New Jersey and United States ex rel. Bisignano v. New Jersey). In so deciding, the Circuit Court extended the now historic decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Escobedo v. Illinois (378 U. S. 478) in which the court reversed an Illinois conviction because the defendant had confessed to a murder after the police had refused to permit him [559]*559to see his attorney who was in the same station house as the defendant at the time of the defendant’s request. Since Danny Escobedo had requested counsel and had, in fact, already retained an attorney, the ruling of the court in his case left open the question as to whether or not a request was necessary and left somewhat ambiguous the question of whether the suspect had to be advised of his right to remain silent. On its literal facade the Escobedo decision appeared only to extend the right to counsel at the moment when police investigation “ has begun to focus on a particular suspect ” after a defendant had requested counsel. However, Justice Byrow White in his discerning dissent to Justice Goldberg’s majority opinion clearly illumined and indeed foreshadowed the possible future predilections of the majority of the court when he said (p. 495): Although the [majority] opinion purports to be limited to the facts of this case, it would be naive to think that the new constitutional right announced will depend upon whether the accused has retained his own counsel * * * or has asked to consult with counsel in the course of interrogation * ° * At the very least the Court holds that once the accused becomes a suspect and, presumably, is arrested, any admission made to the police thereafter is inadmissible in evidence unless the defendant has waived his right to counsel.”

In the most truly lay sense Escobedo was the first case in which the Supreme Court extended the right to counsel to a defendant while he was undergoing interrogation in a police station. It not only entitled the accused to counsel’s advice and aid in preparing for trial but in the words of Justice White (p. 496): “ stands as an impenetrable barrier to any interrogation once the accused has become a suspect ”, or as the majority of the courts so trenchantly concluded (p. 492): 1 ‘ when the process shifts from investigatory to accusatory ”. The Escobedo case did not touch upon the question of retroactivity leaving it to the lower courts to determine whether or not it applied to persons previously convicted when only coerced confessions were inadmissible.

The proliferation of problems and the diversity of decisions which have since ensued have found their ultimate distillation by some State courts limiting the Escobedo decision to its facts (People v. Gunner supra), (People v. Ordog and Rush, decided July 12, 1965, Supreme Ct., N. J.) by not requiring defendants to be advised of their constitutional rights to remain silent or of their right to counsel. Conversely in United States ex rel. Russo v. New Jersey and United States ex rel. Bisignano v. New Jersey the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the [560]*560Third Circuit has .held precisely the contrary and has added the additional fillip of retroactivity to its fiat. In addition, the State of California in People v. Durado (62 Cal. 2d 350), had previously forthrightly espoused this latter Federal view.

The lid of the Pandora’s box which Escobedo left but slightly ajar has by now opened “ Wide as a church door and deep as a well.” The issue of federalism (the independence of the States in our Federal system of Government), long one of the wellsprings of the ever-emerging eminence of our Federal judiciary, has once again been raised at the empyrean levels of our law.

Fortunately, however, we endure and indeed persevere as a Nation under a system of law which is at once of marble constancy and yet infinite variety. We seem less concerned today about federalism and more about national ideals of elemental fairness. Mr. Justice Brennan of the United States Supreme Court indicated this difference in attitude during the course of an address which preceded the ruling of the Supreme Court in Mapp v. Ohio (367 U. S. 643) (the application of the Federal “exclusionary” rule controlling search and seizure to courts of State jurisdiction) when he said: “ Federalism should not be raised to the plane of an absolute nor the Bill of Rights be reduced to a precatory trust * * * Far too many cases come from the States to the Supreme Court presenting dismal pictures of official lawlessness, of illegal searches and seizures, illegal detentions attended by prolonged interrogation and coerced admissions of guilt, of the denial of counsel ”.

Contrawise, the Attorney General of the United States Nicholas de B. Katzenbach most recently eloquently espoused the understandably pragmatic view of those invested with the responsibility of law enforcement when he said in his correspondence with Judge David L. Bazelon of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia:

‘ ‘ It would be ridiculous to state that the overriding purpose of any criminal investigation is to insure equal treatment.

‘1 Regulation through judicial decision of investigation procedures should (not) have as its purpose to remedy all inequities which may exist in our society as a result of our social and economic and intellectual differences.

“ I have never understood why gangsters should be made the model and all others raised in the name of equality to his level of success in suppressing evidence. Because we cannot solve all crimes and cannot convict all criminals is no reason to release those guilty whom we can convict.”

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Related

Mallory v. United States
354 U.S. 449 (Supreme Court, 1957)
Mapp v. Ohio
367 U.S. 643 (Supreme Court, 1961)
Jackson v. Denno
378 U.S. 368 (Supreme Court, 1964)
Escobedo v. Illinois
378 U.S. 478 (Supreme Court, 1964)
Bevan v. California Employment Stabilization Commission
294 P.2d 524 (California Court of Appeal, 1956)
People v. Ressler
45 Misc. 2d 995 (New York County Courts, 1965)

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Bluebook (online)
47 Misc. 2d 557, 262 N.Y.S.2d 997, 1965 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 1556, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-frank-nydistctnassau-1965.