People v. Waterman

• Court: New York Court of Appeals
• Writing for the Court: FULD; DESMOND, C. J., and DYE and FOSTER, JJ., concur with FULD; VAN VOORHIS
• Citation: 175 N.E.2d 445,216 N.Y.S.2d 70,9 N.Y.2d 561
• Parties: , 175 N.E.2d 445, 90 A.L.R.2d 726 PEOPLE of the State of New York, Appellant, v. Rudolph WATERMAN and Albert Devine, Respondents.
• Decision Date: 18 May 1961

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216 N.Y.S.2d 70 9 N.Y.2d 561, 175 N.E.2d 445, 90
A.L.R.2d 726 PEOPLE of the State of New York, Appellant,
v.
Rudolph WATERMAN and Albert Devine, Respondents. Court of Appeals of New York. May 18, 1961.

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[175 N.E.2d 446] [9 N.Y.2d 562] Isidore Dollinger, Dist. Atty., New York City (Irving Anolik, New York City, of counsel), for appellant.

Paul M. Bernstein, Anthony F. Marra and Charles J. Prentiss, New York City, for Rudolph Waterman, respondent.

[9 N.Y.2d 563] Maximilian W. Kempner and Anthony F. Marra, New York City, for Albert Devine, respondent.

FULD, Judge.

Indicted with two others in February of 1959, under the fictitious designations of 'John Doe' and 'Richard Roe', the defendants Waterman and Devine were convicted of the crimes of robbery in the first

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degree, second degree grand larceny and assault. ¹ The Appellate Division, by a divided court, reversed the judgments of conviction against both defendants and ordered a new trial. It was the Appellate Division's view that it was error to receive in evidence incriminatory statements made by the defendant Waterman in which he also implicated his codefendant Devine under questioning by a police officer during the period between the return of the indictment and his arraignment thereon.

The interrogation by the police officer occurred on two separate occasions in June, 1959, the first time being in the Tombs in Manhattan where Waterman was then incarcerated on another [9 N.Y.2d 564] charge, the second, in the detention cells of the Bronx County Building. On each occasion, the officer testified, Waterman made a complete confession, admitting that he, Devine and their two accomplices had participated in the robbery in question. And there can be no doubt that the police officer knew that Waterman had been indicted for that crime. As the Appellate Division observed, 12 A.D.2d 84, 208 N.Y.S.2d 596, 597, 'While it is not clear when the substitution of names was made in the indictment, it is clear that at the time of the conversations Waterman was in fact an accused' and that the officer was in possession of information, given him by one of the other participants in the robbery, implicating Waterman.

The Appellate Division majority regarded our decision in People v. Di Biasi, 7 N.Y.2d 544, 200 N.Y.S.2d 21, as authority for barring from evidence any admissions obtained from a defendant after indictment under questioning [175 N.E.2d 447] in the absence of counsel. The dissenting Justices, on the other hand, concluded that the decision was to be limited to the special facts there present and was not to be read as prescribing any such flat rule of exclusion.

We are confronted with another facet of the oft-mooted question as to the admissibility of incriminatory statements obtained from an accused as the result of interrogation by police or prosecuting authorities. The problem is that of achieving a balance between the competing interests of society in the protection of cherished individual rights, on the one hand, and in effective law enforcement and investigation of crime, on the other.

In People v. Di Biasi, 7 N.Y.2d 544, 200 N.Y.S.2d 21, supra, this court condemned secret interrogation of a defendant by law enforcement authorities after indictment as violative of the defendant's constitutional rights. The decision marked the adoption of the similar view previously

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expressed by three Judges of this court in dissent in People v. Spano, 4 N.Y.2d 256, 264-267, 173 N.Y.S.2d 793, 799, 802, reversed on other grounds sub nom. Spano v. People of State of New York, 360 U.S. 315, 79 S.Ct. 1202, 3 L.Ed.2d 1265. Such questioning, we held, impinged upon the defendant's twofold rights to the assistance of counsel and to freedom from testimonial compulsion. See People v. Di Biasi, 7 N.Y.2d 544, 550-551, 200 N.Y.S.2d 21, 24-25, supra; see, also, People v. Spano, 4 N.Y.2d 256, 266-267, 173 N.Y.S.2d 793, 801-802, supra, per Desmond, J., dissenting. Although Di Biasi and Spano each involved a [9 N.Y.2d 565] capital case, in which the defendant was at the time of the interrogation represented by counsel who had arranged for his surrender on the pending indictment, the broad principle there announced did not turn on those particular circumstances.

The constitutional and statutory right of a defendant to the assistance of counsel at every stage of a criminal cause...