Gilbert v. State of California

Decision Date12 June 1967
Docket NumberNo. 223,223
PartiesJesse James GILBERT, Petitioner, v. STATE OF CALIFORNIA
CourtU.S. Supreme Court

Luke McKissack, Los Angeles, Cal., for petitioner.

Norman H. Sokolow and William E. James, Los Angeles, Cal., for respondent.

Mr. Justice BRENNAN delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case was argued with United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149, and presents the same alleged constitutional error in the admission in evidence of in-court identifications there considered. In addition, petitioner alleges con- stitutional errors in the admission in evidence of testimony of some of the witnesses that they also identified him at the lineup, in the admission of handwriting exemplars taken from him after his arrest, and in the admission of out-of-court statements by King, a co-defendant, mentioning petitioner's part in the crimes, which statements, on the co-defendant's appeal decided with petitioner's, were held to have been improperly admitted against the codefendant. Finally, he alleges that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated by a police seizure of photographs of him from his locked apartment after entry without a search warrant, and the admission of testimony of witnesses that they identified him from those photographs within hours after the crime.

Petitioner was convicted in the Superior Court of California of the armed robbery of the Mutual Savings and Loan Association of Alhambra and the murder of a police officer who entered during the course of the robbery. There were separate guilt and penalty stages of the trial before the same jury, which rendered a guilty verdict and imposed the death penalty. The California Supreme Court affirmed, 63 Cal.2d 690, 47 Cal.Rptr. 909, 408 P.2d 365. We granted certiorari, 384 U.S. 985, 86 S.Ct. 1902, 16 L.Ed.2d 1003, and set the case for argument with Wade and with Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 87 S.Ct. 1967, 18 L.Ed.2d 1199. If our holding today in Wade is applied to this case, the issue whether admission of the in-court and lineup identifications is constitutional error which requires a new trial could be resolved on this record only after further proceedings in the California courts. We must therefore first determine whether petitioner's other contentions warrant any greater relief.

I.

THE HANDWRITING EXEMPLARS.

Petitioner was arrested in Philadelphia by an FBI agent and refused to answer questions about the Alham- bra robbery without the advice of counsel. He later did answer questions of another agent about some Philadelphia robberies in which the robber used a handwritten note demanding that money be handed over to him, and during that interrogation gave the agent the handwriting exemplars. They were admitted in evidence at trial over objection that they were obtained in violation of petitioner's Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights. The California Supreme Court upheld admission of the exemplars on the sole ground that petitioner had waived any rights that he might have had not to furnish them. '(The agent) did not tell Gilbert that the exemplars would not be used in any other investigation. Thus, even if Gilbert believed that his exemplars would not be used in California, it does not appear that the authorities improperly induced such belief.' 63 Cal.2d, at 78, 47 Cal.Rptr., at 920, 408 P.2d, at 376. The court did not, therefore, decide petitioner's constitutional claims.

We pass the question of waiver since we conclude that the taking of the exemplars violated none of petitioner's constitutional rights.

First. The taking of the exemplars did not violate petitioner's Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. The privilege reaches only compulsion of 'an accused's communications, whatever form they might take, and the compulsion of responses which are also communications, for example, compliance with a subpoena to produce one's papers,' and not 'compulsion which makes a suspect or accused the source of 'real or physical evidence' * * *.' Schmerber v. State of California, 384 U.S. 757, 763—764, 86 S.Ct. 1826, 1833, 16 L.Ed.2d 908. One's voice and handwriting are, of course, means of communication. It by no means follows, however, that every compulsion of an accused to use his voice or write compels a communication within the cover of the privilege. A mere handwriting exemplar, in contrast to the content of what is written, like the voice or body itself, is an identifying physical characteristic outside its protection. United States v. Wade, supra, 388 U.S., at 222—223, 87 S.Ct., at 1929—1930. No claim is made that the content of the exemplars was testimonial or communicative matter. Cf. Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 6 S.Ct. 524, 29 L.Ed. 746.

Second. The taking of the exemplars was not a 'critical' stage of the criminal proceedings entitling petitioner to the assistance of counsel. Putting aside the fact that the exemplars were taken before the indictment and appointment of counsel, there is minimal risk that the absence of counsel might derogate from his right to a fair trial. Cf. United States v. Wade, supra. If, for some reason, an unrepresentative exemplar is taken, this can be brought out and corrected through the adversary process at trial since the accused can make an unlimited number of additional exemplars for analysis and comparison by government and defense handwriting experts. Thus, 'the accused has the opportunity for a meaningful confrontation of the (State's) case at trial through the ordinary processes of cross-examination of the (State's) expert (handwriting) witnesses and the presentation of the evidence of his own (handwriting) experts.' United States v. Wade, supra, 388 U.S., at 227—228, 87 S.Ct., at 1932—1933.

II.

ADMISSION OF CO-DEFENDANT'S STATEMENTS.

Petitioner contends that he was denied due process of law by the admission during the guilt stage of the trial of his accomplice's pretrial statements to the police which referred to petitioner 159 times in the course of reciting petitioner's role in the robbery and murder. The statements were inadmissible hearsay as to petitioner, and were held on King's aspect of this appeal to be improperly obtained from him and therefore to be inadmissible against him under California law. 63 Cal.2d, at 699 701, 47 Cal.Rptr., at 914—915, 408 P.2d, at 370—371.

Petitioner would have us reconsider Delli Paoli v. United States, 352 U.S. 232, 77 S.Ct. 294, 1 L.Ed.2d 278 (where the Court held that appropriate instructions to the jury would suffice to prevent prejudice to a defendant from the references to him in a co-defendant's statement), at least as applied to a case, as here, where the co-defendant gained a reversal because of the improper admission of the statements. We have no occasion to pass upon this contention. The California Supreme Court has rejected the Delli Paoli rationale, and relying at least in part on the reasoning of the Delli Paoli dissent, regards cautionary instructions as inadequate to cure prejudice. People v. Aranda, 63 Cal.2d 518, 47 Cal.Rptr. 353, 407 P.2d 265. The California court applied Aranda in this case but held that any error as to Gilbert in the admission of King's statements was harmless. The harmless-error standard applied was that, 'there is no reasonable possibility tha t he error in admitting King's statements and testimony might have contributed to Gilbert's conviction,' a standard derived by the court from our becision in Fahy v. State of Connecticut, 375 U.S. 85, 84 S.Ct. 229, 11 L.Ed.2d 171.1 Fahy was the basis of our holding in Chapman v. State of California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705, and the standard applied by the California court satisfies the standard as defined in Chapman.

It may be that the California Supreme Court will review the application of its harmless-error standard to King's statements if on the remand the State presses harmless error also in the introduction of the in-court and lineup identifications. However, this at best implies an ultimate application of Aranda and only confirms that petitioner's argument for reconsideration of Delli Paoli need not be considered at this time.

III.

THE SEARCH-AND-SEIZURE CLAIM.

The California Supreme Court rejected Gilbert's challenge to the admission of certain photographs taken from his apartment pursuant to a warrantless search. The court justified the entry into the apartment under the circumstances on the basis of so-called 'hot pursuit' and 'exigent circumstances' exceptions to the warrant requirement. We granted certiorari to consider the important question of the extent to which such exceptions may permit warrantless searches without violation of the Fourth Amendment. A closer examination of the record than was possible when certiorari was granted reveals that the facts do not appear with sufficient clarity to enable us to decide that question. See Appendix to this opinion; compare Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 87 S.Ct. 1642, 18 L.Ed.2d 782. We therefore vacate certiorari on this issue as improvidently granted. The Monrosa v. Carbon Black Export, Inc., 359 U.S. 180, 184, 79 S.Ct. 710, 713, 3 L.Ed.2d 723.

IV.

THE IN-COURT AND LINEUP IDENTIFICATIONS.

Since none of the petitioner's other contentions warrants relief, the issue becomes what relief is required by application to this case of the principles today announced in United States v. Wade, supra.

Three eyewitnesses to the Alhambra crimes who identified Gilbert at the guilt stage of the trial had observed him at a lineup conducted without notice to his counsel in a Los Angeles auditorium 16 days after his indictment and after appointment of counsel. The manager of the apartment house in which incriminating evidence was found, and in which Gilbert allegedly resided, identified Gilbert in the courtroom and also testified, in substance, to her prior lineup identification on examination by the State. Eight witnesses...

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