U.S. v. Charlton

• Decision Date: 07 December 1977
• Docket Number: Nos. 76-1454,s. 76-1454
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. James Arthur CHARLTON, Defendant-Appellant, Franklin N. Jacek, a/k/a Frank Royce, Defendant-Appellant, James Francis Swartz, Defendant-Appellant. to 76-1456.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 86

565 F.2d 86

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. James Arthur CHARLTON, Defendant-Appellant, Franklin N. Jacek, a/k/a Frank Royce, Defendant-Appellant, James Francis Swartz, Defendant-Appellant.

Nos. 76-1454 to 76-1456.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued Nov. 30, 1976.

Decided Oct. 21, 1977.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 7, 1977.

John L. Bowers, U. S. Atty., Edward E. Wilson, Richard K. Harris, Asst. U. S. Attys., Knoxville, Tenn., for plaintiff-appellee.

Philip P. Durand, Ambrose, Wilson, Lockridge & Grimm, Knoxville, Tenn. (court-appointed), for defendant-appellant in No. 76-1455.

Edward Michael Ellis, Knoxville, Tenn. (court-appointed), for defendant-appellant in No. 76-1456.

Before PHILLIPS, Chief Judge, and EDWARDS and ENGEL, Circuit Judges.

ENGEL, Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal by three defendants convicted of forging and counterfeiting fifty-cent postage stamps worth approximately $200,000, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 501 and 2. ¹ Of the numerous grounds asserted for reversal, only one merits extended treatment. Defendant James Arthur Charlton claims that in-custody oral statements given to the government agents on the evening of his arrest were made involuntarily. We hold that Charlton's statements, while voluntary under traditional tests, were taken in violation of the specific proscriptions of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), and should not have been admitted into evidence against him. Nevertheless, we hold that the introduction of those statements was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt under Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967).

Charlton was arrested without a warrant at his home shortly after 10:00 p. m. on June 25, 1975. Earlier that evening special Thereafter Charlton made the incriminating statements which were later introduced into evidence. The interrogation continued until about 3:00 a. m. No attorney was ever procured and Charlton refused to sign a written statement concerning the counterfeiting operation.

agents of the United States Secret Service, pursuant to a search warrant, entered offices rented by Charlton at 214 East Harper Street in Maryville, Tennessee, and seized large quantities of the counterfeit stamps and the paraphernalia for manufacturing them. Upon his arrest, Charlton was taken to the courthouse in Knoxville, Tennessee, where he was fingerprinted and otherwise processed in connection with his arrest. Approximately two hours later he was fully advised of his constitutional rights. He declined to sign a written waiver of those rights and instead responded that he wanted an attorney. He expressed no desire to talk to the agents. However, they questioned him, for only a short period apparently, in spite of his request. Shortly after 1:00 a. m. Special Agent MacVean Sweazey came into the room and said, "Well, got your son up here. What are you going to do about that?" Charlton did not answer Sweazey immediately, but the officer persisted with words to the effect that "if you want to keep your son, Mark, out of the case, he is (sic you are) going to have to explain how he was (sic you were) involved and show how Mark could be all around the counterfeiting operation and not know about it."

At a pretrial suppression hearing Charlton readily admitted that he had understood his rights, but claimed that he had been fatigued because the hour was late and he had worked all of the previous day in his employment as a draftsman for the Tennessee Valley Authority. In answering a question on direct examination as to whether he made the statement to the government of his own free will, Charlton stated:

A. I talked to the postal inspector and Mr. Sweazey. I told them I would talk to them but the only thing, clear everybody out of the room and what I was going to say would be off the record.

Q. Listen to my question. Did you speak to them of your own free will?

A. Not really. It wasn't, not in the way you put it. In other words

They actually got me mad because they kept hinting to the fact I didn't care anything about my son, and they actually used my son until they got me mad, really.

On cross examination Charlton basically repeated the story and explained:

Well, they had stopped, this was about an hour later when they came back into the room and they said that my son had made a statement to them and that (sic) I want to help him. That is when they started using my son and that's when they got me mad, when they started using my son.

Charlton further claimed that the statement he gave was entirely fictitious.

At the conclusion of the hearing, the trial judge ruled:

I hold that this statement can go to the jury, everything that was said there. There was no coercion, this man's coercion, that's well, there isn't any basis for you saying that, Counsel, according to his own testimony. He said he was mad.

Charlton's testimony concerning the circumstances of his interrogation was unrefuted. The government called no witnesses.

The issue of voluntariness of a confession is a mixed question of fact and law. United States v. Brown, 557 F.2d 541, 547 (6th Cir. 1977). The applicable standard is whether the confession was the product of a free and rational choice, and therefore the focus is upon the state of mind of the accused at the time the confession was made. In Brown, we quoted from Culombe v. Connecticut, 367 U.S. 568, 602, 81 S.Ct. 1860, 6 L.Ed.2d 1037 (1961):

The ultimate test remains that which has been the only clearly established test in Anglo-American courts for two hundred 557 F.2d at 546. See United States v. Washington, 431 U.S. 181, 186, 97 S.Ct. 1814, 52 L.Ed.2d 238 (1977).

years: the test of voluntariness. Is the confession the product of an essentially free and unconstrained choice by its maker? If it is, if he has willed to confess, it may be used against him. If it is not, if his will has been overborne and his capacity for self-determination critically impaired, the use of his confession offends due process.

Upon our examination of the record and according appropriate deference to the trial judge's superior opportunity to observe the demeanor of the witnesses, we conclude that in the traditional sense Charlton's statements were voluntary. There was no lengthy period of detention or repeated rounds of interrogation. There was no indication of any physical abuse. Charlton was informed of his constitutional rights and obviously understood them. He was not an impressionable youth, nor was he lacking in intelligence. See Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 226, 93 S.Ct. 2041, 36 L.Ed.2d 854 (1973).

We have little doubt that the defendant was ultimately persuaded to testify by his anger at discovering that his twenty-year old son, Mark, had also been arrested. It was apparent at the suppression hearing and at the trial that the defendant was highly protective of Mark. Obviously anyone who knows his rights and determines to confess does so for a reason. That the defendant's reason was to protect his son does not, in our judgment, render his confession involuntary or necessitate a finding that he was coerced or that his will was overborne.

Of considerably greater difficulty is whether, although otherwise voluntary, Charlton's statement must nevertheless be suppressed because the government agents persisted in questioning him after he had declined to talk and had requested counsel. Defendant relies upon the following language in Miranda, supra, 384 U.S. at 473-74, 86 S.Ct. at 1627-28:

Once warnings have been given, the subsequent procedure is clear. If the individual indicates in any manner, at any time prior to or during questioning, that he wishes to remain silent, the interrogation must cease. At this point he has shown that he intends to exercise his Fifth Amendment privilege; any statement taken after the person invokes his privilege cannot be other than the product of compulsion, subtle or otherwise. Without the right to cut off questioning, the setting of in-custody interrogation operates on the individual to overcome free choice in producing a statement after the privilege has been once invoked. If the individual states that he wants an attorney, the interrogation must cease until an attorney is present. At that time, the individual must have an opportunity to confer with the attorney and to have him present during any subsequent questioning. If the individual cannot obtain an attorney and he indicates that he wants one before speaking to police, they must respect his decision to remain silent.

(footnote omitted).

While the traditional determination of voluntariness had largely turned on a case-by-case consideration, Miranda required exclusion of any statements stemming from custodial interrogation unless the prosecution demonstrated compliance with its specific, prophylactic safeguards. Thus, if law enforcement officers fail to give the specified warnings before interrogation or fail to follow its guidelines during interrogation, the statement derived therefrom may be suppressed, even though it is otherwise " wholly voluntary." Michigan v. Mosley, 423 U.S. 96, 99-100, 96 S.Ct. 321, 46 L.Ed.2d 313 (1975); Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U.S. 433, 443, 94 S.Ct. 2357, 41 L.Ed.2d 182 (1974).

In Michigan v. Mosley, supra, police questioning was held proper even though the accused had earlier indicated his desire to remain silent. There the Supreme Court rejected a strict rule which would totally preclude all further custodial interrogation. At the same time it observed that to construe Clearly, therefore, neither this passage nor any other passage in the Miranda opinion can sensibly be read to create a per se proscription of indefinite duration upon any further questioning by any police officer on any subject, once the person in custody has indicated a desire to remain silent.

Miranda to require only the immediate cessation of questioning would permit a...