Brewer v. Williams

Mr. Justice Blackmun,

with whom Mr. Justice White and Mr. Justice Rehnquist join, dissenting.

The State of Iowa, and 21 States and others, as amici curiae, strongly urge that this Court’s procedural (as distinguished from constitutional) ruling in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966), be re-examined and overruled. I, however, agree with the Court, ante, at 397, that this is not now the case in which that issue need be considered.

What the Court chooses to do here, and with which I disagree, is to hold that respondent Williams’ situation was in the mold of Massiah v. United States, 377 U. S. 201 (1964), that is, that it was dominated by a denial to Williams of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel after criminal proceedings had been instituted against him. The Court rules that the Sixth Amendment was violated because Detective Learning “purposely sought during Williams’ isolation from his lawyers to obtain as much incriminating information as possible.” Ante, at 399, and Powell, J., concurring, ante, at 410-413. I cannot regard that as unconstitutional per se.

First, the police did not deliberately seek to isolate Williams from his lawyers so as to deprive him of the *439 assistance of counsel. Cf. Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U. S. 478 (1964). The isolation in this case was a necessary incident of transporting Williams to the county where the crime was committed. 1

Second, Leaming’s purpose was not solely to obtain incriminating evidence. The victim had been missing for only two days, and the police could not be certain that she was dead. Leaming, of course, and in accord with his duty, was “hoping to find out where that little girl was,” ante, at 399, but such motivation does not equate with an intention to evade the Sixth Amendment. 2 Moreover, the Court seems to me to place an undue emphasis, ante, at 392, 400, and aspersion on what it and the lower courts have chosen to call the “Christian burial speech,” and on Williams’ “deeply religious” convictions.

Third, not every attempt to elicit information should be regarded as “tantamount to interrogation,” ante, at 400. I am not persuaded that Leaming’s observations and comments, made as the police car traversed the snowy and slippery miles between Davenport and Des Moines that winter afternoon, were an interrogation, direct or subtle, of Williams. Contrary to this Court’s statement, ibid., the Iowa Supreme Court appears to me to have thought and held otherwise, State v. Williams, 182 N. W. 2d 396, 403-405 (1970), and I agree. Williams, after all, was counseled by lawyers, and warned by the arraigning judge in Davenport and by the *440 police, and yet it was he who started the travel conversations and brought up the subject of the criminal investigation. Without further reviewing the circumstances of the trip, I would say it is clear there was no interrogation. In this respect, I am in full accord with Judge Webster in his vigorous dissent, 509 F. 2d 227, 234-237 , and with the views implicitly indicated by Chief Judge Gibson and Judge Stephenson, who joined him in voting for rehearing en banc.

In summary, it seems to me that the Court is holding that Massiah is violated whenever police engage in any conduct, in the absence of counsel, with the subjective desire to obtain information from a suspect after arraignment. Such a rule is far too broad. Persons in custody frequently volunteer statements in response to stimuli other than interrogation. See, e. g., United States v. Cook, 530 F. 2d 145, 152-153 (CA7), cert. denied, 426 U. S. 909 (1976) (defendant engaged officers in conversation while being transported to magistrate); United States v. Martin, 511 F. 2d 148, 150-151 (CA8 1975) (agent initiated conversation with suspect, provoking damaging admission); United States v. Menichino, 497 F. 2d 935, 939-941 (CA5 1974) (incriminating statements volunteered during booking process); Haire v. Sarver, 437 F. 2d 1262 (CA8), cert. denied, 404 U. S. 910 (1971) (statements volunteered in response to questioning of defendant’s wife). When there is no interrogation, such statements should be admissible as long as they are truly voluntary. 3

The Massiah point thus being of no consequence, I would vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand *441 the case for consideration of the issue of voluntariness, in the constitutional sense, of Williams’ statements, an issue the Court of Appeals did not reach when the case was before it.

One final word: I can understand the discomfiture the Court obviously suffers and expresses in Part IV of its opinion, ante, at 406, and the like discomfiture expressed by Justice (now United States District Judge) Stuart of the Iowa court in the dissent he felt compelled to make by this Court’s precedents, 182 N. W. 2d, at 406 . This was a brutal, tragic, and heinous crime inflicted upon a young girl on the afternoon of the day before Christmas. With the exclusionary rule operating as the Court effectuates it, the decision today probably means that, as a practical matter, no new trial will be possible at this date eight years after the crime, and that this respondent necessarily will go free. That, of course, is not the standard by which a case of this kind strictly is to be judged. But, as Judge Webster in dissent below observed, 509 F. 2d, at 237 , placing the case in sensible and proper perspective: “The evidence of Williams’ guilt was overwhelming. No challenge is made to the reliability of the fact-finding process.” I am in full agreement with that observation.

Neither attorney McKnight nor attorney Kelly objected to Williams’ being returned to Des Moines, although each sought assurance that he would not be interrogated. That “the entire setting was conducive to . . . psychological coercion,” Powell, J., concurring, ante, at 412, was more attributable to Williams’ flight from Des Moines than to any machinations of the police. Surely the police are not to be blamed for the facts that the murder was committed on Christmas Eve and that the weather was ominous.

Indeed, Williams already had promised Leaming that he would tell “the whole story” when he reached Des Moines. Ante, at 392.

With all deference to the Court, I do not agree that Massiah regarded it as “constitutionally irrelevant” that the statements in that case were surreptitiously obtained, ante, at 400. The Massiah opinion quoted with approval the dissenting Circuit Judge’s statement that “Massiah was more seriously imposed upon . . . because he did not even know that he was under interrogation by a government agent.” 377 U. S., at 206 .