People v. Quarles

• Decision Date: 30 December 1964
• Citation: 255 N.Y.S.2d 599,44 Misc.2d 955
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of New York v. Raymond QUARLES, Defendant.
• Court: New York Supreme Court

Page 599

255 N.Y.S.2d 599

44 Misc.2d 955

The PEOPLE of the State of New York v. Raymond QUARLES, Defendant.

Supreme Court, Special and Trial Term, Bronx County, Part XII.

Dec. 30, 1964.

Isidore Dollinger, Dist. Atty., Bronx County, Alexander E. Scheer, Asst. Dist. Atty., for the People.

Henry B. Rothblatt, New York City, for defendant.

FRANCIS T. MURPHY, Jr., Justice.

Defendant, indicted for robbery in the first degree, seeks pretrial discovery and inspection of transcribed statements made by him to law enforcement authorities after his arrest at a time when he was without the assistance of counsel, together with other related items of information.

The defendant's affidavit avers, in substance, that he was arrested on June 7, 1964 at about 10: P.M.; that he was questioned for approximately 3 1/2 hours at the 138th Street Precinct by a detective, and an Assistant District Attorney; that by reason of the lateness of the hour and the length of his interrogation he is unable to recall everything he said; that during the interrogation the detective took notes on a sheet of yellow paper; and an employee of the District Attorney recorded stenographically the questions asked by the Assistant District Attorney and the answers made by the defendant; that thereafter he was asked to sign the statement transcribed by the detective during the interrogation; that the statement so made was made without the benefit of counsel and without waiver of his right to counsel. The defendant refused to sign the statement as transcribed by the detective and it is this paper that is the subject of the discovery herein, as well as, the questions and answers recorded stenographically.

The basis of the New York Law of pretrial discovery and inspection in a criminal case lies in the visionary pronouncement of Judge Cardozo in People ex rel. Lemon v. Supreme Court, 245 N.Y. 24, 156 N.E. 84, 52 A.L.R. 200. After recognizing that '(a)t common law, no right of inspection of documents before trial was conceded to the accused * * *' (6 Wigmore, Evidence, 475 [3rd ed. 1940]), the court declared:

'The supervisory control, whatever it may be, that belongs to courts of common law in respect of a criminal prosecution, is an autochthonous growth, a thing evolving from within * * * The decision of this case does not require us to affirm or deny the existence of an inherent power in courts of criminal jurisdiction to compel the discovery of documents in furtherance of justice. The beginning or at least the glimmerings of such a doctrine are to be found * * *.' (Id. at p. 32, 156 N.E. at p. 86.)

During the more than thirty-five years that have elapsed since People ex rel. Lemon v. Supreme Court, supra, the prophetic wisdom of Judge Cardozo has become a reality. Today, few would deny the discretionary power of the court 'to grant a motion for inspection of documents in the possession of the prosecutor'.

The power per se, however, does not provide the court with a standard to test its proper exercise. Nor does this mean that the application of the court's inherent power may be determined in a theoretical vacuum. In moulding the law to reflect that 'fundamental fairness essential to the very concept of justice' (Lisenba v. State of California, 314 U.S. 219, 236, 62 S.Ct. 280, 290, 86 L.Ed. 166), the United States Supreme Court has enunciated the 'dictates of fairness in the conduct of criminal causes and the fundamental rights of persons charged with crime' (People v. Waterman, 9 N.Y.2d 561, 565, 216 N.Y.S.2d 70, 75, 175 N.E.2d 445, quoted with favor in Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201, 205, 84 S.Ct. 1199, 12 L.Ed.2d 246). These 'imperatives of fundamental justice' (Blackburn v. Alabama, 361 U.S. 199, 211, 80 S.Ct. 274, 4 L.Ed.2d 242), prescribe standards which no court may transgress and which thus define mandatory constitutional minima to guide the exercise of the court's inherent power to compel pretrial disclosure of transcribed statements made by a defendant to the police or district attorney in a criminal case.

It is the opinion of this court that commencing with the now noted pronouncement of Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799, the Supreme Court has so defined and clarified the Constitutional right to counsel and a fair trial as to compel the pretrial disclosure of this defendant's transcribed or written statements made at the time of his arrest without the assistance of counsel, as 'essential to a fair trial'.

Beginning with Gideon v. Wainwright, supra, the Supreme Court has chosen the right of counsel safeguard to serve as the assurance that an accused will be afforded the right to be heard in his defense and the right to a fair trial. The right of counsel has thus been fashioned as the implementing guarantee that the constitutional rights of an accused will be transformed into reality. It is within the context of this underlying theme that the case of Gideon v. Wainwright, supra, and later cases (Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201, 84 S.Ct. 1199, 12 L.Ed.2d 246; Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478, 84 S.Ct. 1758, 12 L.Ed.2d 977) fortifying the fundamental right first recognized in gideon v. Wainwright, supra, must be viewed; for it is through the development of the law as set forth in those cases by our highest court that the matter presently before this court must be determined.

Gideon v. Wainwright, supra, demonstrates the 'principle of growth in the law' and the Supreme Court's role in formulating the guiding 'constitutional principles established to achieve a fair system of justice'. (id. at p. 344, 83 S.Ct. at p. 796) In its now classic pronouncement, the nation's highest tribunal sublimated the Sixth Amendment right of counsel, to the status of a fundamental right inherent in the concept of due process, and as such immune from state abridgement as well as federal invasion. To so hold, the court was required to expressly overrule the controlling precedent to the contrary (Betts v. Brady, 316 U.S. 455, 62 S.Ct. 1252, 86 L.Ed. 1595) as 'no longer a reality' and an 'anachronism'.

'The right to be heard' the court declared, at pages 344, 345, 83 S.Ct. at page 797, in adopting the moving words of Mr. Justice Sutherland in Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 68-69, 53 S.Ct. 55, 77 L.Ed. 158, "would be, in many cases, of little avail if it did not comprehend the right to be heard by counsel. Even the intelligent and educated layman has small and sometimes no skill in the science of law. If charged with crime, he is incapable, generally, of determining for himself whether the indictment is good or bad. He is unfamiliar with the rules of evidence. Left without the aid of counsel he may be put on trial without a proper charge, and convicted upon incompetent evidence, or evidence irrelevant to the issue or otherwise inadmissible. He lacks both the skill and knowledge adequately to prepare his defense, even though he have a perfect one. He requires the guiding hand of counsel at every step in the proceedings against him. Without it, though he be not guilty, he faces the danger of conviction because he does not know how to establish his innocence."

The court thus recognized that the essence of the right to counsel is the right to be heard in one's defense and that as a pragmatic courtroom reality, such right to be heard would be meaningless without the aid of counsel. 'With us it is a universal principle of constitutional law, that the prisoner shall be allowed a defense by counsel.' (1 Cooley's Const.Lim., 8th ed. 700.) (Emphasis supplied.) Moreover, this 'defense by counsel' necessarily comprehends more than the right to the presence of counsel at the trial. '[T]he denial of opportunity for appointed counsel to confer, to consult with the accused and to prepare his defense, could convert the appointment of counsel into a sham and nothing more than a formal compliance with the Constitution's requirement that an accused be given the assistance of counsel. The Constitution's guarantee of assistance of counsel cannot be satisfied by mere formal appointment.' (Avery v. Alabama, 308 U.S. 444, 446, 60 S.Ct. 321, 322, 84 L.Ed. 377.)

Recent Supreme Court decisions have not only reaffirmed the foregoing reasoning, but clearly constitute a caveat that mere formalistic adherence to the basis tenet enunciated in Gideon v. Wainwright, supra, will not be condoned. One of the first decisions after Gideon v. Wainwright, supra, to demonstrate the strong convictions of the Supreme Court with regard to the right of counsel was Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201, 84 S.Ct. 1199, decided May 18, 1964, in which the Supreme Court held that an accused 'was denied the basic protections of that guarantee [Sixth Amendment, right to counsel] when there was used against him at his trial evidence of his own incriminating words, which federal agents had deliberately elicited from him after he had been indicted and in the absence of his counsel.' (emphasis added; id. at p. 206, 84 S.Ct. at p. 1203.)

Most significant in tracing the court's development of the right of counsel as the bulwark of the right of an accused is the court's declaration that, 'a Constitution which guarantees a defendant the aid of counsel at * * * trial could surely vouchsafe no less to an indicted defendant under interrogation by the police in a completely extrajudicial proceeding. Anything less * * * might deny a defendant 'effective representation by counsel at the only stage when legal aid and advice would help him.'' (Id. at p. 204, 84 S.Ct. at p. 1202.)

The significance of the Massiah case, supra, was profoundly illustrated by the later decision of the United States Supreme Court in Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478, 84 S.Ct. 1758, 12 L.Ed.2d 977. 'The critical question in this case', the Supreme Court stated, 'is whether, under the circumstances, the refusal by the police to honor petitioner's request to consult with his lawyer during the...