People v. Walker
| Decision Date | 02 December 1963 |
| Docket Number | No. 57,57 |
| Citation | 124 N.W.2d 761,371 Mich. 599 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Lee Dell WALKER, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
Albert Best, Detroit, for appellant.
Frank J. Kelley, Atty. Gen., Robert A. Derengoski, Sol. Gen., Samuel H. Olsen, Pros. Atty., Samuel J. Torina, Chief Appellate Lawyer, Angelo A. Pentolino, Asst. Pros. Atty., Detroit, for the People.
Rolland R. O'Hare, Chairman, Erwin B. Ellmann, General Counsel, American Civil Liberties Union by Lionel H. Frankel, Donald H. Gordon, Donald B. King, Charles W. Quick, Detroit, amici curiae.
Before the Entire Bench.
On June 28, 1954, Lee Dell Walker was convicted of murder in the first degree by a jury empaneled in the recorder's court of the city of Detroit. Thereafter on July 12, 1954, he was sentenced to life imprisonment without recommendation. On March 15, 1962, an order was entered in this Court granting him leave to file delayed appeal from his conviction. On July 11, 1962, the order granting leave was modified by permitting appeal on a typewritten brief and appendix. Transposing statements of questions involved to claims of error, they are as follows:
The court erred:
(1) In admitting into evidence defendant's confession because it was obtained 3 days and 20 hours after his arrest;
(2) In failing to instruct the jury that the prosecution did not meet its burden of proof of the voluntariness of the confession;
(3) In injecting the element of truth or falsity of the confession in its instructions.
(4) In failing to instruct the jury that it could consider: (a) The length of detention and interrogation between arrest and confession; (b) The statutory duty of the police requiring an accused to be brought before a judicial officer without unnecessary delay;
(5) In refusing the jury's request to have excerpts of testimony read, and remarking 'I don't mean to be stern or anything, but I don't see anything so very difficult about this case.'
(6) In referring to the fact that defendant did not take the witness stand;
(7) In denying a motion for a new trial (no specific grounds included).
The foregoing wording is basically appellant's.
This cause was originally docketed without request for oral argument by defendant. Sua sponte this Court directed resubmission with argument by defendant. A motion to strike certain specified material was made and granted and it is not considered herein. Leave was granted the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan to file a brief amicus curiae. Letters were directed to our clerk calling our attention to cases decided since the argument before us, and we have noted them. A communication in propria persona objecting to an extension of time to appellee to answer the amicus curiae brief is acknowledged, as is a letter objecting to alleged extra-record material in appellee's reply to the amicus curiae brief.
Before embarking upon decision proper in the case at bar certain observations are indicated by reason of the manner in which the statement and counterstatement of facts were prepared.
It is contended by the appellee that extra-record material was included in appellant's appendix. Instead of moving to strike in the manner provided by rule, appellee chose to add more admittedly extra-record material. As noted, by order of this Court all extra-record material was ordered stricken and it has not been considered. The result of the charges and counter-charges, unbecoming at best in appellate procedure, this Court has been required to make a microscopic examination of over 500 pages of trial transcript and a bulky supplemental record made on motion for a new trial and for delayed appeal, in one of which additional testimony was taken. The total record then had to be cross-referenced to the excerpts quoted and objected to in the the appendices.
We deplore the practice employed in this case and suggest that we are not without means of dealing summarily with such travesties upon prescribed procedure. Only the nature of the case constrained us not to invoke them.
To all and each of the errors claimed we have applied ourselves. Meritorious and controlling are 2:
(1) Was defendant's confession inadmissible as a matter of law, and thus reversibly erroneously admitted?
(2) Did the trial court err, when in denying the jury's request for the reading of excerpts from the testimony, he added: 'I don't see anything so very difficult about this case?'
To consider the first question, the following factual background is requisite. On February 17, 1954 a Detroit shopkeeper was shot and killed in his place of business in the course of an attempted holdup. Present at the time were deceased's wife and a 17-year-old helper in the shop, Robert Hines. In the course of the police investigation Hines indicated he believed he could identify the holdup men. Routine police investigation ensued. Up to this point defendant was not--so far as the police knew--remotely connected with the affair. On Friday, March 26, he reported his car stolen to the Detroit police by telephone. The police refused to accept the phoned report. On the day he reported the alleged theft and for reasons we may not discuss and which are not to the purpose of the precise legal question presented, he was arrested 'on information' (trial transcript p. 207) by plain clothespolice detectives of the holdup bureau, at between 4 and 4:30 a. m. He was brought to headquarters and confined in the Wayne county jail. This was a Saturday. Meanwhile, and on the same day, the automobile which he had telephonically attempted to report as stolen the night before, had been recovered on the street by the Detroit police. They impounded it and in checking the motor number found a 32 caliber revolver wrapped in cloth wedged against the container for windshield wiping fluid. Defendant was held in custody from his arrest on Saturday morning without a charge being preferred until 2:00 p. m. the following Monday, March 29, at which time a hearing on a writ of habeas corpus was had in circuit court. Because of its importance to the issue of alleged unlawful detention as it bears upon his later-made confession, the proceeding on the return on the writ is herewith set out:
March 29, 1954, 2:00 P.M.
'APPEARANCES:
'Edgar A. Beauchamp, Esq.
For Petitioner.
Whatever violation of defendant's constitutional rights may be claimed to have occurred in the interlude between his arrest early Saturday morning and his appearance before the circuit court Monday afternoon, they cannot bear upon the voluntary character of his later confession under the theory urged by defendant that it was inadmissible as a matter of law by reason of the holding in People v. Hamilton, 359 Mich. 410, 102 N.W.2d 738, and its Federal antecedent, Mallory v. United States, 354 U.S. 449, 77 S.Ct. 1356, 1 L.Ed.2d 1479.
In Hamilton, counsel engaged for the defendant was refused 'even limited conference' with him. Here defendant not only was represented by counsel but his alleged illegal detention was tested by the historic safeguard of habeas corpus. As the return makes clear, defendant was in custody of the parole department, and the court, with counsel's acquiescence, determined his detention and confinement as of that time was lawful.
We pick up now the chronology after Monday, March 29, at 2:00 p. m. Admittedly, later in the day on Monday, periodically on Tuesday and again at intervals on Wednesday, defendant was questioned by Detroit police detectives. He was, with other accuseds, put through 'show-ups' for possible identification.
The record does not disclose, and we may not speculate on what, if any objection was made by or on behalf of defendant to his continued confinement after his remand to custody by the circuit judge on habeas corpus. It was prima facie legal. No appeal was sought from the circuit judge's action. The illegal confinement without charge and arraignment which rendered the confession in Hamilton inadmissible as a matter of law is not paralleled here. Hamilton and those Federal cases of similar legal rationale are not applicable. There does arise a different question. Was defendant, while prima facie legally confined, in fact abused, brutalized, coerced, mentally or physically, thus rendering his alleged admissions and formal confession inadmissible? This question is soluble...
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