Pinto v. Pierce
Opinion of the Court
Respondent was indicted by the grand jury of Essex County, New Jersey, on July 2, 1959, for the crime of robbery while armed. Following a plea of not guilty, he was tried before a jury, convicted and sentenced to a term of from 16 to 23 years in the New Jersey State Prison. On June 6, 1966, respondent filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. The District Judge determined from the transcript of respondent’s trial that the trial court had heard in the presence of the jury testimony regarding the voluntariness of an incriminating statement sought to be introduced by the' prosecution, held that under prior decisions of this Court this procedure violated respondent’s constitutional rights and
The petition for certiorari is granted and the judgment is reversed. This Court has never ruled that all volun-tariness hearings must be held outside the presence of the jury, regardless of the circumstances. Jackson v. Denno, 378 U. S. 368 (1964), held that a defendant’s constitutional rights are violated when his challenged confession is introduced without a determination by the trial judge of its voluntariness after an adequate hearing. A confession by the defendant found to be involuntary by the trial judge is not to be heard by the jury which determines his guilt or innocence. Hence, because a disputed confession may be found involuntary and inadmissible by the judge, it would seem prudent to hold voluntariness hearings outside the presence of the jury.
Since trial counsel consented to the evidence on vol-untariness being taken in the presence of the jury, and the judge found the statement voluntary, respondent was deprived of no constitutional right. The motion of respondent for leave to proceed in forma pauperis and the petition for certiorari are granted, the judgment is reversed and the case is remanded to the District Court with instructions to dismiss the writ of habeas corpus.
The New Jersey Supreme Court has recently announced that from September 11, 1967, hearings on admissibility shall be outside the presence of the jury if the defendant so requests. See State v. Broxton, 49 N. J. 373, 386, n. 2, 230 A. 2d 489, 496, n. 2 (1967).
In United States v. Carignan, 342 U. S. 36 (1951), relied upon by the trial court, reversal of a conviction was affirmed because the trial judge, after hearing some evidence concerning voluntariness with the jury present, refused to permit the defendant to testify on the subject.
The other cases cited by the District Court granted writs of habeas corpus in cases in which trial judges had made no independent determination of voluntariness. See, for the citations to those eases, United States ex rel. Pierce v. Pinto, 259 F. Supp. 729, 731 (D. C N. J. 1966).
Concurring Opinion
concurring in the result.
I concur in the result because of trial counsel’s consent to the taking of evidence on voluntariness in the presence of the jury. Otherwise, I disagree. The rule of Jackson v. Denno, 378 U. S. 368 (1964), should be more than ritual. It was not intended to assure a determination by the judge at the cost of diluting the jury’s role in the determination of voluntariness and the weight to be given to admissions. “Just as questions of admissibility of evidence are traditionally for the court, questions of credi
Jackson v. Denno means that the judge and the jury must each make an independent judgment of volun-tariness of an admission, the judge for purposes of admissibility and the jury for evidentiary acceptability, credibility, and weight. A telescoped hearing before judge and jury, in which the judge finds voluntariness for purposes of admissibility, in reality reduces the jury function to an echo. Hearing the evidence simultaneously with the judge, the jury is not apt to approach disagreement with him. I believe that the procedure here sanctioned, by reducing the effectiveness of the jury, gravely impairs the constitutional principle of excluding involuntary confessions which Jackson v. Denno sought to serve.
The jury is the traditional and preferred arbiter of facts. The procedure countenanced here, by dicta, sanctions, in effect, a direction to the jury to accept and give full credence to the admission — because the judge, hearing the same testimony, has ruled that the admission is voluntary.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Pinto, Prison Farm Superintendent v. Pierce
- Cited By
- 130 cases
- Status
- Published