Orozco v. Texas, 641

• Decision Date: 25 March 1969
• Docket Number: No. 641,641
• Parties: Reyes Arias OROZCO, Petitioner, v. TEXAS
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

394 U.S. 324

89 S.Ct. 1095

22 L.Ed.2d 311

Reyes Arias OROZCO, Petitioner,

v TEXAS.

No. 641.

Argued Feb. 26, 1969.

Decided March 25, 1969.

Charles W. Tessmer, Dallas, Tex., for petitioner.

Lonny F. Zwiener, Austin, Tex., for respondent.

Mr. Justice BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court.

The petitioner, Reyes Arias Orozco, was convicted in the Criminal District Court of Dallas County, Texas, of murder without malice and was sentenced to serve in the state prison not less than two nor more than 10 years. The Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas affirmed the conviction, rejecting petitioner's contention that a material part of the evidence against him was obtained in violation of the provision of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment, that: 'No per- son * * * shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.'¹

The evidence introduced at trial showed that petitioner and the deceased had quarreled outside the El Farleto Cafe in Dallas shortly before midnight on the date of the shooting. The deceased had apparently spoken to petitioner's female companion inside the restaurant. In the heat of the quarrel outside, the deceased is said to have beaten petitioner about the face and called him 'Mexican Grease.' A shot was fired killing the deceased. Petitioner left the scene and returned to his boardinghouse to sleep. At about 4 a.m. four police officers arrived at petitioner's boardinghouse, were admitted by an unidentified woman, and were told that petitioner was asleep in the bedroom. All four officers entered the bedroom and began to question petitioner. From the moment he gave his name, according to the testimony of one of the officers, petitioner was not free to go where he pleased but was 'under arrest.' The officers asked him if he had been to the El Farleto restaurant that night and when he answered 'yes' he was asked if he owned a pistol. Petitioner admitted owning one. After being asked a second time where the pistol was located, he admitted that it was in the washing machine in a backroom of the boardinghouse. Ballistics tests indicated that the gun found in the washing machine was the gun that fired the fatal shot. At petitioner's trial, held after the effective date² of this Court's decision in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694, 10 A.L.R.3d 974 (1966), the trial court allowed one of the officers over the objection of petitioner's lawyer, ³ to relate the statements made by petitioner concerning the gun and petitioner's presence at the scene of the shooting. The trial testimony clearly shows that the officers questioned petitioner about incriminating facts without first informing him of his right to remain silent, his right to have the advice of a lawyer before making any statement, and his right to have a lawyer appointed to assist him if he could not afford to hire one. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals held, with one judge dissenting, that the admission of testimony concerning the statements petitioner had made without the above warnings was not precluded by Miranda. We disagree and hold that the use of these admissions obtained in the absence of the required warnings was a flat violation of the Self-Incrimination Clause of the Fifth Amendment as construed in Miranda.

The State has argued here that since petitioner was interrogated on his own bed, in familiar surroundings, our Miranda holding should not apply. It is true that the Court did say in Miranda that 'compulsion to speak in the isolated setting of the police station may well be greater than in courts or other official investigations, where there are often impartial observers to guard against intimidation or trickery.' 384 U.S., at 461, 86 S.Ct., at 1621. But the opinion iterated and reiterated the absolute necessity for officers interrogating people 'in custody' to give the described warnings. See Mathis v. United States, 391 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1503, 20 L.Ed.2d 381 (1968). According to the officer's testimony, petitioner was under arrest and not free to leave when he was questioned in his bedroom in the early hours of the morning. The Miranda opinion declared that the warnings were required when the person being interrogated was 'in custody at the station or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way.' 384 U.S., at 477, 86 S.Ct., at 1629. (Emphasis supplied.) The decision of this Court in Miranda was reached after careful consideration and lengthy opinions were announced by both the majority and dissenting Justices. There is no need to canvass those arguments again. We do not, as the dissent implies, expand or extend to the slightest extent our Miranda decision. We do adhere to our well-considered holding in that case and therefore reverse⁴ the conviction below.

Reversed.

Mr. Justice FORTAS took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

Mr. Justice HARLAN, concurring.

The passage of time has not made the Miranda case any more palatable to me than it was when the case was decided. See my dissenting opinion, and that of Mr. Justice White, in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 504, 526, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694, 10 A.L.R.3d 974 (1966).

Yet, despite my strong inclination to join in the dissent of my Brother WHITE, Ican find no acceptable avenue of escape from Miranda in judging this case, especially in light of Mathis v. United States, 391 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1503, 20 L.Ed.2d 381 (1968), which has already extended the Miranda rules beyond the police station, over the protest of Justices Stewart, White, and myself, id., at 5—8, 88 S.Ct. 1503. Therefore, and purely out of respect for stare decisis, I reluctantly feel compelled to acquiesce in today's decision of the Court, at the same time observing that the constitutional condemnation of this perfectly understandable, sensible, proper, and indeed commendable piece of police work highlights the unsoundness of Miranda.

Mr. Justice WHITE, with whom Mr. Justice STEWART joins, dissenting.

This decision carries the rule of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694, 10 A.L.R.3d 974 (1966), to a new and unwarranted extreme. I continue to believe that the original rule amounted to a 'constitutional straitjacket' on law enforcement which was justified neither by the words or history of the Constitution, nor by any reasonable view of the likely benefits of the rule as against its disadvant ges. 384 U.S., at 526, 86 S.Ct. 1602. Even accepting Miranda, the Court extends the rule here and draws the straitjacket even tighter.

The opinion of the Court in Miranda was devoted in large part to an elaborate discussion of the subtle forms of psychological pressure which could be brought to bear when an accused person is interrogated at length in unfamiliar surroundings. The 'salient features' of the cases decided in Miranda were 'incommunicado interrogation of individuals in a police-dominated atmosphere.' 384 U.S., at 445, 86 S.Ct. at 1612. The danger was that in such circumstances the confidence of the prisoner could be eroded by techniques such as successive interrogations by police acting out friendly or unfriendly roles. These techniques are best developed in 'isolation and unfamiliar surroundings,' 384 U.S., at 450, 86 S.Ct. at 1615. And they take time: 'the major qualities an interrogator should possess are patience and perserverance.' Ibid. The techniques of an extended period of isolation, repeated interrogation, cajolery, and trickery often enough produced admissions which were actually coerced in the traditional sense so that new safeguards were deemed essential.

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