State v. Fuller
State v. Fuller
Opinion of the Court
The State has filed a motion for rehearing requesting that we reconsider our analysis concerning the admissibility of the testimony of Clark concerning statements made to him by the defendant while Clark was equipped with a transmitter. Upon further consideration we have concluded that our original opinion holding the testimony was admissible was in error.
At the time the statements were made, the defendant was confined in prison as a result of having been convicted and sentenced on other charges. Since Clark was acting as a police agent, this was custodial interrogation and the defendant was entitled to the warnings required by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, 86 S. Ct. 1602, 16 L. Ed. 2d 694. See, Mathis v. United States, 391 U. S. 1, 88 S. Ct. 1503, 20 L. Ed.
That part of our opinion in State v. Fuller, 203 Neb. 233, 278 N. W. 2d 756, which held the testimony admissible is withdrawn. The motion for rehearing is overruled.
Motion for rehearing overruled.
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the holding of the supplemental opinion which makes inadmissible the testimony of the inmate Clark as to his conversations with the defendant Fuller. It is my view that the opinion of the United States Supreme Court in Mathis v. United States, supra, does not require such a result.
In Mathis, because the Miranda warnings had not been given, the court excluded evidence relating to violation of the income tax laws obtained by an agent of the Internal Revenue Service as a result of an interview of a defendant while he was incarcerated in the penitentiary on other charges. Miranda applies to in-custody interrogations by officers about matters which may tend to incriminate. Part of the rationale is that confinement, plus the official presence, tends to intimidate.
Neither Miranda nor Mathis involves the testimony of an informer. It surely cannot be contended that every time one inmate talks to another the Miranda warnings must be given. The fact that the informer in this case was acting for the investigators is irrelevant to the purpose of the Miranda rule where the intimidation of official presence is absent in a situation such as this where the defendant knows only that he is talking to a fellow prisoner.
United States Circuit Judge Henry J. Friendly, in an article entitled “The Fifth Amendment Tomorrow: The Case For Constitutional Change,” 37 Uni. of Cincinnati L. Rev., p. 671, has characterized the Mathis decision as “the most inexplicable decision yet rendered in this area.” Then in a footnote he adds the following: “The doctrinal evolution of this decision shows how the Court goes about its work of constantly expanding the privilege. The fifth amendment says that no person ‘shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.’ There is every reason to believe the framers meant just whg,t they said; as the historian of the amendment has written: ‘The element of compulsion or involuntariness was always an ingredient of the right and, before the right existed, of protests against incrimin
Other courts have not, just because the person be
“Adoption of Cervantes’ contention would not only be inconsistent with Miranda but would torture it to the illogical position of providing greater protection to a prisoner than to his nonimprisoned counterpart. We cannot believe the Supreme Court intended such a result. Thus, while Mathis may have narrowed the range of possible situations in which on-the-scene questioning may take place in a prison, we find in Mathis no express intent to eliminate such questioning entirely merely by virtue of the interviewee’s prisoner status.”
The Supreme Court of the United States, in Oregon v. Mathiason, 429 U. S. 492, 97 S. Ct. 711, 50 L. Ed. 2d 714 (1977), seems to make it clear that Miranda relates to interrogation by police or other officials. In that case they said: “Any interview of one suspected of a crime by a police officer will have coercive aspects to it, simply by virtue of the fact that the police officer is part of a law enforcement system which may ultimately cause the suspect to be charged with a crime. But police officers are not required to administer Miranda warnings to everyone whom they question. Nor is the requirement of
The compulsion of official presence is absent in the case of interrogation by police informers. In the case before us, Clark and Fuller were alone when Fuller disclosed to Clark the full details of how air was injected into the victim’s blood vessels. Furthermore, the general nature of what had occurred was already known by Clark from having been present during Gerheardt’s earlier attempts to inject air into his bloodstream and from having information he obtained while present at the time of the acts which resulted in Gerheardt’s death, when, although feigning sleep, he overheard what was happening although not actually seeing the events.
No cases have been cited in which the Miranda rule has been applied to information given by informants. See the annotation: Custodial Interrogation Within Rule of Miranda v. Arizona, 31 A. L. R. 3d 565. Interrogation by persons, other than police officers or in the presence of police officers or other officials, have almost uniformly been held to be noncustodial. 31 A. L. R. 3d 666 et seq.
The fact that Clark was in this case cooperating with the prosecutor and the investigating officers does not supply any factor of compulsion. As far as Fuller was concerned, the situation was not any different than if Clark were acting entirely on his owh initiative and then later supplied the information to the prosecution.
In addition to Miranda and Mathis, the supplemental opinion cites: Beatty v. United States, 377 F. 2d 181, reversed, 389 U. S. 45, 88 S. Ct. 234; United States ex rel. Milani v. Pate, 425 F. 2d 6; State v. Peters, 545 S. W. 2d 414 (Mo. App., 1976). These cases are not at all in point and introduce into the opinion an element of confusion of principle. All
Miranda, on the other hand, has to do with the voluntariness of the statements as tested by the objective standard laid down in that case. Before indictment the right of counsel may be waived.
Mathis does not require the result reached by the court in this case because the alleged coercive effect of official presence was absent.
The rule announced in Mathis, even if one accepts it on its own facts, is, if it is to be interpreted by this court as embracing information obtained through informants prior to indictment, an unsound rule for it would require that in any investigation of a crime occurring in a penal institution Miranda warnings be given to every inmate interrogated, whether or not he is a suspect. Such a procedure would inevitably, in a large number of cases, make it impossible to get any information at all, for everyone questioned would immediately believe he is a suspect. Investigation of crimes committed in penitentiaries already must be difficult and this court should not place additional unwarranted procedural obstacles in the path. That is not in society’s best interest. It is not in the best interest of the general welfare of penal
The probable effect of the court’s ruling is to prevent prosecution of Fuller for the murder which he has admitted. Even worse, perhaps, is the obstacle which the opinion places in the way of appropriate and effective investigation of crimes committed in our penal institutions. The facts of the present case uniquely illustrate the problem. The felonious act occurred in the cell occupied by Gerheardt and three others. It was immediately apparent to the investigating authorities after the autopsy that if Gerheardt was murdered the other three occupants of the same cell were the prime suspects. They were also, as the only occupants of the cell, the probable witnesses. Only Clark gave information and later testified for the State. The information came only after he was assured of protection from the retribution which would be his as a “snitch.”
I add one further explanatory item which is not properly part of this dissent, but an explanation of my view of the purport of the court’s original opinion. The Attorney General, as indicated by the comments in his brief in support of the motion for rehearing, appears to have some difficulty in understanding that opinion even though the critical portion of it is printed in italics. The statement given by the defendant to the prosecutor was excluded because it was clearly induced by the misrepresentation made to Fuller to the effect that he could not give a mitigating statement to the prosecutor if he insisted on having counsel present at the interrogation. That, of course, simply was not true. The fact that the representation was made is not in dispute. Presence of counsel would not prevent the accused from making a statement. The effect of the misstatement was to induce Fuller not to exercise his right to counsel after he had already stated that he
Reference
- Full Case Name
- State of Nebraska, Appellee, v. Duane Fuller, Appellant
- Cited By
- 10 cases
- Status
- Published