United States v. Glover

• Decision Date: 27 January 1967
• Docket Number: Docket 30701.,No. 302,302
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Charles J. GLOVER, Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

372 F.2d 43 (1967)

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Charles J. GLOVER, Appellant.

No. 302, Docket 30701.

United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit.

Argued January 10, 1967.

Decided January 27, 1967.

Joshua N. Koplovitz, New York City (Anthony F. Marra, New York City, on the brief), for appellant.

Frank M. Tuerkheimer, Asst. U. S. Atty., So. District of New York (Robert M. Morgenthau, U. S. Atty., and John S. Allee, Asst. U. S. Atty., on the brief), for appellee.

Before WATERMAN, SMITH and KAUFMAN, Circuit Judges.

J. JOSEPH SMITH, Circuit Judge.

Charles J. Glover appeals from a finding and commitment for juvenile delinquency in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, Thomas F. Murphy, Judge. Appellant was charged in a one count information with juvenile delinquency by passing a forged and altered money order, knowing a material signature or endorsement thereon to be false. Appellant was found a juvenile delinquent and committed to the custody of the Attorney General for the duration of his minority. On appeal, Glover asserts that a statement taken from him and placed in evidence was inadmissible and that the evidence was insufficient to warrant conviction. We hold the statement inadmissible and reverse and remand for new trial.

Appellant was arrested at 6:00 p. m. by New York City police and spent the night in the juvenile unit of the Federal House of Detention. At 9:00 a. m. the following morning, he was brought before Postal Inspector David Silbert, at the office of Silbert, who advised him that he need not make a statement, that if he made a statement it could be used against him and that he was entitled to counsel. Glover proceeded to make a statement which was recorded by 9:20. He was then brought to the United States Courthouse by 10:00 and went before the United States Commissioner for arraignment between 10:30 and 11:00.

The circumstances of the offense testified to at trial were that at about 6:00 p. m. on March 1, 1966, Glover, then 17 years of age, entered a check cashing store on West 44th Street, Manhattan, to cash a $90 U. S. Postal Money Order, payable to one Fellows. When presented for cashing, the money order bore Fellows' name and that of Donald Long on the back. Langholtz, the proprietor of the store, asked for identification, whereupon Glover produced a Social Security Card and a Selective Service Registration Card, both in Fellows' name. Langholtz found that the money order was on a list of stolen money orders, and locked the front door by remote control. When Glover tried to leave, Langholtz held him at gunpoint until police, summoned by Langholtz, arrived. Before the police arrived Glover told Langholtz that another person was with him and was 200 or 300 feet from the store.

In the statement taken from Glover at at the office of the Postal Inspectors,¹ Glover admitted knowing that Fellows had signed the name of Long on the back of the order. The statement was admitted in evidence as Exhibit 5 over objection that it was obtained during an unreasonable delay in arraignment. In testimony on trial Glover stated that the first time he discovered that Fellows had signed Long's name was after arrest when he compared the color of the ink in Long's name with the color of ink in a pen Fellows had given Glover. The version in the written statement was obviously material to proof of Glover's knowledge that Long's signature was false, a material element of the crime charged. Indeed, when the Court questioned whether all elements of the crime had been established, the government argued that the element of knowledge was provided by the statement in Exhibit 5 that Glover had in effect seen Fellows sign Long's name.

Appellant attacks the admissibility of the statement on two grounds, that it was obtained in violation of a section of the Juvenile Delinquency Act, 18 U.S. C. § 5035,² and of Rule 5(a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure³ (the McNabb-Mallory rule). We find it unnecessary to determine whether there was a violation of Rule 5(a),⁴ since we hold that there was clearly a violation of the Juvenile Act.

Section 5035 evidences a strong Congressional concern with the protection of the rights of juveniles. Unless the juvenile is taken "forthwith" before a committing magistrate, detention shall not "be for a longer period than is necessary to produce the juvenile before a committing magistrate." (Emphasis supplied.) There is here no hint of any purpose to allow detention for any other objective than prompt arraignment, before a judicial officer, so that the magistrate may explain and protect the juvenile's rights — among others, the right against compulsory self-incrimination and the right to the assistance of counsel. The Act makes plain the concern of the Congress that those of adolescent age be kept separate from hardened adult offenders. We may assume that it was no less concerned with the greater need of the young and inexperienced for independent, unbiased advice as to the right to counsel and the right to refrain from self-incrimination, when interrogated by the police authorities.

Miranda v. State of Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 444, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 1612, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1965), held that "the prosecution may not use statements, whether exculpatory or inculpatory, stemming from custodial interrogation of the defendant unless it demonstrates the use of procedural safeguards effective to secure the privilege against self-incrimination." In the case of a juvenile, compliance with the mandate of the Juvenile Act should be the minimum requirement of such safeguards. Treatment of an accused juvenile after arrest as a chattel in the possession of the officers, deliverable at will to the inspectors' offices for interrogation is a plain departure from the command of the statute for forthwith production of the juvenile before a magistrate. Statements taken while the statute is being ignored in...