# Smith v. United States

> District of Columbia Court of Appeals · August 10, 1987 · 529 A.2d 312

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9702333

## Case

- **Full name:** Dennis G. SMITH, Jr., Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee
- **Court:** District of Columbia Court of Appeals
- **Decided:** August 10, 1987
- **Citations:** 529 A.2d 312; 56 U.S.L.W. 2120; 1987 D.C. App. LEXIS 414
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Terry
- **Judges:** Newman, Belson, Terry
- **Cited by:** 16 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9702333

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- finding that where a necessary element to convict is supplied only by the tainted evidence, the error is not harmless
- acknowledging that “it is conceivable that an individual might say the word ‘no’ with a look or a tone of voice communicating some ambiguity or confusion”

## Opinion text

*319 TERRY, Associate Judge,
concurring:
I join in the opinion and judgment of the court. I add these few words to emphasize that our reversal of appellant’s conviction is not based on any finding of trickery or deviousness on the part of Detective Cor-boy. Appellant suggests that Corboy may have acted improperly by instructing the transporting officers not to talk to appellant, or that the manner in which he dealt with appellant may have been slyly designed to elicit a confession that would appear to have been volunteered, and therefore beyond the reach of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 , 86 S.Ct. 1602 , 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). The record simply does not support such an argument; on the contrary, it makes plain — at least to me— that everything Corboy did was done entirely in good faith. We are reversing appellant’s conviction solely because Detective Corboy asked one question too many. Once appellant answered “no” to the fourth question on the PD-47, Corboy should have said nothing more. The confession that resulted from the ensuing conversation must be suppressed under Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477 , 101 S.Ct. 1880 , 68 L.Ed.2d 378 (1981), and Smith v. Illinois, 469 U.S. 91 , 105 S.Ct. 490 , 83 L.Ed.2d 488 (1984).

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9702333. Public record. Not legal advice.