Justices Curb Use of Statements to Police Informants : Incriminating Data Can’t Be Admitted at Trial Even if Defendant Initiated Conversation

The Supreme Court, restricting the permissible role of police informants, ruled Tuesday that incriminating statements made by a defendant to an informer may not be used as evidence to support pending charges against the defendant.

In a 5-4 decision that dissenters called “bizarre,” the court said that the “knowing exploitation” by police officers of an opportunity to obtain such statements from a defendant without the presence of his lawyer violates the constitutional right to counsel--even when the defendant initiates contact with the informant.

Suing Prison Officials

The decision was one of two in which the justices rejected legal claims made by the Reagan Administration on behalf of law enforcement and prison authorities. In the other case, the court held, 6 to 3, that officials who serve on prison disciplinary panels may be sued for damages for violating an inmate’s civil rights.

There are tens of thousands of disciplinary hearings annually in the nation’s prisons. The Justice Department, supported by California and three other states, had warned that, unless prison officials were granted absolute immunity, prison discipline would be weakened and the courts would be “overwhelmed” with suits by inmates.

In the informant case, the court expanded a 1964 ruling in which it had barred the use of incriminating statements that were “deliberately elicited” from indicted defendants by informants acting at the direction of police.

The court, in an opinion by Justice William J. Brennan Jr., held Tuesday that, even if the police had not deliberately “set up” a meeting between the two, statements to a police informant by an indicted defendant in the absence of his lawyer still may not be used.

Breach of Obligation

“Knowing exploitation by the state of an opportunity to confront the accused without counsel being present is as much a breach of the state’s obligation not to circumvent the right to the assistance of counsel as is the intentional creation of such an opportunity,” Brennan wrote.

In a sharp dissent, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, joined by Justices Byron R. White and William H. Rehnquist, criticized the majority for needlessly barring “highly probative and reliable evidence” from trial. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor also dissented, joining partly in Burger’s opinion.

The case (Maine vs. Moulton, 84-786) arose when authorities in Waldo County, Me., brought charges of theft against Perley Moulton Jr. and Gary Colson. Shortly before trial, Colson contacted police, contending that Moulton had suggested killing a witness against them. Colson admitted his guilt in the theft case and agreed to cooperate with authorities in exchange for lenient treatment.

Wore Transmitter

Moulton contacted Colson and proposed a meeting to consider trial strategy. At the suggestion of police, Colson wore a concealed transmitter to the meeting so the conversation could be overheard. Moulton made several incriminating statements, which were used as evidence against him at trial.

The Supreme Judicial Court of Maine overturned Moulton’s subsequent conviction, saying that the statements should not have been admitted. Maine officials, supported by the Justice Department, appealed to the Supreme Court.

Brennan’s opinion was joined by Justices Thurgood Marshall, Harry A. Blackmun, Lewis F. Powell Jr. and John Paul Stevens.

The court rejected the Administration’s contention that the statements were admissible because the police had “other, legitimate” reasons for listening in on the conversation--the alleged plan to kill a witness.

In the prison case (Cleavinger vs. Saxner, 84-732), the court, in an opinion by Blackmun, upheld awards of $4,500 each to two former federal prisoners in Indiana who had been placed in solitary confinement for urging a work strike in protest against the death of an inmate in a prison hospital.

Had the court granted absolute immunity to such officials, it would have prevented their being sued even for the most serious misconduct. In dissent, Rehnquist, joined by Burger and White, noted that tensions run high in prisons and that officials there are much more likely to be subject to harassing litigation.