People v. Donovan
243 N.Y.S.2d 841, 193 N.E.2d 628, 13 N.Y.2d 148 (1963)
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Rule of Law:
Under New York law, a confession is inadmissible if it is obtained from a suspect in custody after the police have denied a request from the suspect's retained attorney to confer with the suspect.
Facts:
- On May 10, 1961, James Beatty, a payroll guard, was shot and killed during a robbery in Queens County.
- Police apprehended Donovan on May 11, 1961, and took him to a police station for interrogation.
- While Donovan was in police custody, his family retained an attorney for him.
- The attorney went to the police station where Donovan was being held and requested to see and speak with him.
- The police refused the attorney's request for access to Donovan.
- Following the denial of access to his attorney, Donovan gave a written confession to the police.
Procedural Posture:
- Donovan and Mencher were charged with murder in the first degree and tried in a New York trial court.
- At trial, Donovan’s written confession was admitted into evidence.
- The trial court jury returned verdicts convicting both Donovan and Mencher of murder in the first degree.
- Donovan and Mencher appealed their convictions directly to the New York Court of Appeals, the state's highest court.
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Issue:
Is a written confession obtained from a defendant during a period of detention inadmissible when, prior to the confession, police refused to allow an attorney retained for the defendant to see or speak with him?
Opinions:
Majority - Fuld, J.
Yes. A confession taken from a defendant, during a period of detention, after his attorney had requested and been denied access to him, must be excluded. This rule is required by New York's constitutional and statutory provisions for the privilege against self-incrimination and the right to counsel. It is fundamentally unfair and incongruous for the state's lawyer (the district attorney) to extract a confession from an accused while the accused's own lawyer is kept away by the police. The right to counsel extends to pre-trial proceedings, as the need for a lawyer is as great during interrogation as it is at trial, to preserve the client's privilege against self-incrimination.
Concurring - O'Brien, J.
Yes. The confession was improperly admitted because it was signed after the defendant's retained attorney was denied permission to confer with him. This misconduct was compounded by the fact that the police were illegally detaining Donovan in violation of the prompt arraignment statute. The integrity of the judicial process requires that even a seemingly guilty defendant must be justly and fairly convicted according to fundamental principles of jurisprudence, which were violated here.
Dissenting - Burke, J.
No. The confession should be admissible. The denial of access to counsel is merely one factor to consider in the voluntariness analysis, not a reason for automatic exclusion. This new rule departs from established precedent and creates an unfair system where a defendant with the means to retain a lawyer has greater rights than one who does not. The court should not use the rules of evidence to control police procedures when the confession itself is voluntary and not coerced.
Dissenting - Van Voorhis, J.
No. The confession should be admissible. The test for admissibility should be voluntariness, and Donovan never requested a lawyer himself. Significantly, Donovan had already made an oral confession and revealed the location of the murder weapon and stolen money before his attorney even arrived. This new rule would not only exclude the later written confession but could also, under the 'fruit of the poisonous tree' doctrine, lead to the suppression of critical physical evidence. It unfairly distinguishes between defendants based on whether they have outside connections to procure a lawyer.
Dissenting - Foster, J.
No. The confession should be admissible. The majority's rationale inevitably leads to the proposition that a suspect may not be interrogated without counsel present to advise them to remain silent. Such a protective policy, if adopted, should apply to all suspects, not just those whose families have the means to hire an attorney. The court should not prohibit the use of voluntary confessions, which are not currently barred by law.
Analysis:
This decision established a significant protection for the right to counsel under New York law, predating the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision in Miranda v. Arizona. It created a per se rule of exclusion, moving beyond the flexible, totality-of-the-circumstances 'voluntariness' test. The case expanded the right to counsel by making it attach during pre-arraignment custodial interrogation as soon as an attorney retained on the suspect's behalf enters the picture, significantly limiting the ability of police to conduct incommunicado interrogations.
