Case Title: Alston v. Commonwealth

Citation: 

Docket Number: 012348

State: virginia

Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Date: 2002-11-01T00:00:00Z

Document:
Present:  All the Justices 
 
ANTHONY T. ALSTON 
 
 
 
OPINION BY 
v.  Record No. 012348 
CHIEF JUSTICE HARRY L. CARRICO 
 
 
 
November 1, 2002 
COMMONWEALTLH OF VIRGINIA 
 
 
FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 
 
 
The question for decision in this case is whether the Court 
of Appeals erred in approving the trial court's admission into 
evidence of an uncounseled custodial statement made by the 
defendant when he was represented by counsel previously 
appointed on an unrelated charge.  Finding that the Court of 
Appeals did not err, we will affirm its judgment. 
 
The record shows that in the early morning hours of 
February 12, 2000, the defendant, Anthony T. Alston, broke into 
the Tidewater Feed and Seed Store (Feed and Seed) in the 3400 
block of George Washington Highway in the City of Portsmouth and 
stole seven leather-studded spiked dog collars.  Each collar had 
a minimum value of $35.00.  The defendant gained entry into the 
store by throwing a large rock through the glass of the front 
door. 
 
Late at night on March 22, 2000, the defendant broke into 
the One Stop Pet Shop (Pet Shop) in the 3900 block of George 
Washington Parkway in Portsmouth and stole a pet python snake 
and a lamp to keep the snake warm.  He gained entry to the shop 
by throwing a rock through a window. 
 
On April 21, 2000, the defendant was arrested on charges of 
burglary and grand larceny arising from the Pet Shop break-in.  
He was arraigned on those charges the next day and counsel was 
appointed to represent him.  He was remanded to jail. 
 
On May 9, 2000, Detective M. B. Logwood of the Portsmouth 
Police Department took the defendant from the jail to the 
detective bureau for questioning about "a couple of burglaries 
that had occurred in the city," including the Feed and Seed and 
Pet Shop burglaries.  At that time, the defendant had not been 
arrested on the Feed and Seed charges.  Logwood advised the 
defendant of his "rights under Miranda."1  The defendant 
indicated he understood the rights, and he agreed to talk with 
Logwood and another detective.  The defendant did not inform the 
detectives that he had an attorney or ask to speak with the 
attorney at any time before or during the interview.  Logwood 
did not know that an attorney had been appointed to represent 
the defendant on the Pet Shop charges. 
 
During the interview, the defendant confessed to the break-
in at Feed and Seed.  He was charged with burglary and grand 
larceny in connection with that break-in, counsel was appointed 
                     
 
1 Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966). 
 
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to represent him, and a grand jury in the Circuit Court of the 
City of Portsmouth later indicted him on the charges. 
 
The defendant filed a motion to suppress the confession in 
which he admitted the Feed and Seed break-in.  The defendant 
cited Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 484-85 (1981) (when 
defendant invokes Fifth Amendment right against self-
incrimination, all questioning must cease until counsel is 
present unless defendant initiates contact with police), and 
Arizona v. Roberson, 486 U.S. 675, 682-83 (1988) (Fifth 
Amendment right against self-incrimination violated when police 
conducted custodial interrogation of defendant regarding a 
separate investigation after he had invoked right to cut off 
questioning until counsel was present).  The defendant argued 
that once he invoked his right to counsel on the Pet Shop 
charges, the right carried over and extended to the Feed and 
Seed charges, with the result that the detectives could not 
question him "unless he initiate[d the] contact [with the 
police,] which is clearly not the case in this situation." 
 
The trial court denied the motion to suppress.  The court 
noted the distinction between a person's Fifth Amendment right 
against self-incrimination and his Sixth Amendment right to 
counsel.2  The court held that, because there was "no evidence 
                     
 
2 "The [Sixth Amendment right to counsel] arises from the 
fact that the suspect has been formally charged with a 
 
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before the Court" showing the defendant had invoked his Fifth 
Amendment right against self-incrimination with respect to the 
Pet Shop offenses, "this case is significantly distinct" from 
Edwards and Roberson, which dealt only with Fifth Amendment 
rights.  Hence, the court concluded, "there is a valid waiver of 
Miranda" and the rule the defendant contended for, i.e., that an 
accused who has invoked his right to counsel cannot be 
questioned further unless he initiates the contact with the 
police, did not "come[] into play" in this case. 
 
In a bench trial, the court convicted the defendant of both 
Feed and Seed charges and sentenced him to the penitentiary.  
The defendant appealed his convictions to the Court of Appeals.  
That court awarded the defendant an appeal and, in an 
unpublished opinion, affirmed the judgment of the trial court.  
Alston v. Commonwealth, Record No. 2382-00-1 (Sept. 25, 2001).  
We awarded the defendant this appeal. 
 
The Fifth and the Sixth Amendments both implicate the right 
to counsel, but they work in different ways.  The right involved 
in the Fifth Amendment is the right against self-incrimination, 
                                                                  
particular crime and thus is facing a state apparatus that has 
been geared up to prosecute him. The [Fifth Amendment right 
against self-incrimination] is protected by the prophylaxis of 
having an attorney present to counteract the inherent pressures 
of custodial interrogation, which arise from the fact of such 
interrogation and exist regardless of the number of crimes under 
investigation or whether those crimes have resulted in formal 
charges."  Arizona v. Roberson, 486 U.S. 675, 685 (1988). 
 
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and the "prophylaxis of Miranda and Edwards provides the right 
to have counsel present during interrogation as an additional 
safeguard in the exercise of the right against self-
incrimination."  Commonwealth v. Gregory, 263 Va. 134, 147, 557 
S.E.2d 715, 722 (2002).  The Fifth Amendment right against self-
incrimination "is not offense specific," and once the right is 
invoked "for interrogation regarding one offense, [the suspect] 
may not be reapproached regarding any offense unless counsel is 
present."  McNeil v. Wisconsin, 501 U.S. 171, 177 (1991). 
 
The Sixth Amendment right, however, is "offense specific," 
and "[i]t cannot be invoked once for all future prosecutions, 
for it does not attach until a prosecution is commenced, that 
is, at or after the initiation of adversary judicial criminal 
proceedings."  Id. at 175 (inner quotation marks omitted). 
 
Here, the defendant does not claim any violation of his 
Fifth Amendment rights.  We are only concerned, therefore, with 
the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. 
 
In that regard, the defendant does not contend that 
adversary judicial criminal proceedings had been initiated 
against him at the time of the interrogation on the Feed and 
Seed charges so as to trigger a Sixth Amendment right to 
counsel.  Rather, the defendant argues that the Sixth Amendment 
right carried over from the adversary judicial criminal 
proceedings held in the Pet Shop case.  The defendant says the 
 
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right then attached to the interrogation conducted in the Feed 
and Seed case because the offenses involved in the two cases 
were so closely related in place, time, and modus operandi as to 
make the interrogation in the Feed and Seed case "a part and 
parcel of a single prosecution." 
 
The defendant maintains that the "single prosecution" 
nature of this case distinguishes it from Texas v. Cobb, 532 
U.S. 162 (2001), which the Court of Appeals cited in approving 
the trial court's denial of the defendant's motion to dismiss.  
In Cobb, the defendant confessed to a burglary but denied 
knowledge of a woman's and child's disappearance from the 
burglarized home.  After he was appointed counsel on the 
burglary charge, he was interrogated about the missing woman and 
child.  He waived his rights under Miranda and confessed to the 
murders of the woman and child.  In the Texas Court of Criminal 
Appeals, the defendant argued that his Sixth Amendment right to 
counsel attached when counsel was appointed on the burglary 
charge and that his confession should be suppressed because 
counsel was not present when he was interrogated.  The court 
agreed with the defendant, holding that "once the right to 
counsel attaches to the offense charged, it also attaches to any 
other offense that is very closely related factually to the 
offense charged."  Id. at 166-67 (internal quotation marks 
omitted). 
 
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The Supreme Court said that when it held in McNeil that the 
Sixth Amendment right to counsel is "offense specific," it 
"meant what it said."  Id. at 164.  The Court rejected the 
"factually related" exception some courts had read into the 
McNeil offense-specific definition, id. at 168, and held that 
when the Sixth Amendment right to counsel attaches, it 
encompasses offenses not formally charged but only if they would 
be considered the same offense under the test enunciated in 
Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 304 (1932) (the test 
to be applied to determine whether there are two offenses or 
only one is whether each provision requires proof of a fact 
which the other does not).  Cobb, 532 U.S. at 173.  The Court 
held further that burglary and murder were not the same offense 
under Texas law and, accordingly, "the Sixth Amendment right to 
counsel did not bar police from interrogating [Cobb] regarding 
the murders, and [his] confession was therefore admissible."  
Id. at 174. 
 
Here, the burglaries were separate and distinct offenses, 
committed at different times and locations and against different 
victims.  The throwing of a rock through a glass door or a 
window was the only point of similarity in the two cases, and 
that is de minimis at best.  Furthermore, there is nothing in 
the record to support a finding that the two burglaries arose 
 
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from the same act or transaction.  Indeed, the defendant 
concedes on brief that it was not the same act or transaction. 
 
Finally, each burglary required proof of a fact that the 
other did not.  The February 12 burglary required proof of the 
fact that a break-in occurred at Feed and Seed, and the March 22 
burglary did not require proof of that fact.  The March 22 
burglary required proof of the fact that a break-in occurred at 
the Pet Shop, and the February 12 burglary did not require proof 
of that fact.  Hence, the two break-ins were not the same 
offense under Blockburger, and this case is indistinguishable 
from Texas v. Cobb on the "single-prosecution" ground asserted 
by the defendant. 
 
The defendant argues, however, that the use to which his 
statement was put also indicates that the interrogation 
conducted here was really "a part and parcel of a single 
prosecution."  The defendant says the statement was a "single, 
inseparable statement," it "was intended that the evidence of 
each burglary was to be used in the prosecution of the other," 
and "[t]he evidence was so used." 
 
The record does not show, however, that the statement was 
used in both cases.  The two cases were tried separately, and 
the judge, as the trier of fact in the case under review,  
emphasized that he would consider only the parts of the 
statement relevant to the Feed and Seed burglary, and he said 
 
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that he would treat anything else in the statement as 
surplusage. 
 
Finally, the defendant argues this case is unlike Texas v. 
Cobb in that "there was a history of consent to the type of 
interview that actually occurred" in the Texas case, evidenced 
by Cobb's lawyer having "allowed two thoroughgoing interviews by 
the police," while here, "far from observing [the defendant's] 
right to counsel, the interrogation was done in total disregard 
of it."  We fail to see the relevance of this argument, but 
whatever its relevance, it overlooks the fact that the 
defendant, just as the defendant did in Texas v. Cobb, 
voluntarily waived his rights under Miranda and talked freely 
with the police, constituting tacit "consent to the type of 
interview that actually occurred" in this case.3
 
Because the two break-ins involved in this case were not 
the same offense under Blockburger, we are of opinion that Texas 
v. Cobb is apposite, that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel 
did not bar the police from interrogating the defendant about 
the Feed and Seed break-in, and that his confession was 
                     
 
3 The defendant cites three cases from other jurisdictions 
in support of his argument that Texas v. Cobb is not implicated 
here.  United States v. Crews, 171 F. Supp. 2d 93 (D. Conn. 
2001); United States v. Red Bird, 146 F. Supp. 2d 993 (D. S.D. 
2001); People v. Slayton, 32 P.3d 1073 (Cal. 2001).  All three 
of the cases differ from the present case in their factual bases 
and, hence, are inapposite. 
 
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therefore admissible.  Accordingly, we will affirm the judgment 
of the trial court. 
Affirmed. 
 
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