[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

________________________

No. 11-14343

Non-Argument Calendar

________________________

D.C. Docket No. 2:09-cv-01877-RDP-PWG

CHRISTOPHER JORDAN JACKSON, 

 Petitioner-Appellant,

 versus

WARDEN, 

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF 

THE STATE OF ALABAMA, 

 Respondents-Appellees. 

________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Alabama

________________________

(April 8, 2013)

Before HULL, MARCUS and JORDAN, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM: 

Case: 11-14343 Date Filed: 04/08/2013 Page: 1 of 6 
2

Christopher Jordan Jackson, an Alabama prisoner serving a life sentence 

without parole for attempted murder, appeals the district court’s denial of his 28 

U.S.C. § 2254 federal habeas corpus petition. In his petition, Jackson alleged that 

Lieutenant Tony Richardson brought him to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s 

Department for questioning about an attempted murder. According to Jackson, 

after he requested a lawyer, Richardson told him that the interrogation had ended, 

shut off the audio recorder, and left Jackson alone in the interrogation room for an 

hour. Unbeknownst to Jackson, Richardson recorded incriminating cell phone 

conversations that Jackson made on a cell phone while alone. Jackson argued, 

inter alia, that the state trial court’s ruling that these cell phone conversations were 

admissible contravened Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), and other 

Supreme Court cases.

We granted a certificate of appealability on the following issue:

Whether Jackson’s rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 . . .

(1966), were violated when, after he was read his Miranda rights and 

invoked his right to counsel, and a detective indicated that questioning had 

ceased, devices continued to record statements that Jackson made while 

talking on a cellphone? 

On appeal, Jackson argues that, after he invoked his right to counsel, Lieutenant 

Richardson performed the functional equivalent of interrogation by recording his 

cell phone conversations in violation of Miranda. After careful review, we affirm. 

Case: 11-14343 Date Filed: 04/08/2013 Page: 2 of 6 
3

We review a district court’s denial of a habeas petition under § 2254(d) de 

novo. Sims v. Singletary, 155 F.3d 1297, 1304 (11th Cir. 1998). Relevant here, § 

2254(d) provides that a federal court may not grant habeas relief on claims that 

were previously adjudicated in state court, unless the state court’s adjudication 

resulted in a decision that involved an unreasonable application of clearly 

established Supreme Court law. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). The “unreasonable 

application” clause within § 2254(d)(1) permits federal habeas relief if the state 

court correctly identified, but unreasonably applied, the governing legal principle 

from Supreme Court precedent to the facts of petitioner’s case. Borden v. Allen, 

646 F.3d 785, 817 (11th Cir. 2011), cert. denied, 132 S.Ct. 1910 (2012). For a 

state court’s application of Supreme Court precedent to be deemed “unreasonable,” 

the state court’s adjudication cannot merely be “incorrect or erroneous;” it must 

have been “objectively unreasonable.” Id. “A state court’s determination that a 

claim lacks merit precludes habeas relief so long as fairminded jurists could 

disagree on the correctness of the state court’s decision.” Id. (quotations omitted). 

The Fifth Amendment provides that “[n]o person . . . shall be compelled in 

any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” U.S. Const. amend. V. In 

Miranda, the Supreme Court held that the government “may not use statements, 

whether exculpatory or inculpatory, stemming from custodial interrogation of the 

defendant unless it demonstrates the use of procedural safeguards effective to 

Case: 11-14343 Date Filed: 04/08/2013 Page: 3 of 6 
4

secure the privilege against self-incrimination.” 384 U.S. at 444. As part of these

procedural safeguards, the government must inform the defendant that he has the 

right to consult with a lawyer and have a lawyer present with him during 

interrogation. Id. at 467-73. Once the accused invokes his right to counsel, 

authorities may not subject him to further interrogation until counsel has been 

made available to him, unless the accused himself initiates further communication 

with the police. Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 484-85 (1981). 

Interrogation occurs “whenever a person in custody is subjected to either 

express questioning or its functional equivalent,” which refers to words or actions 

that the police should know are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating 

response. Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U.S. 291, 300-01 (1980). In Innis, a suspect 

was arrested for murder with a shotgun and invoked his Sixth Amendment right to 

counsel. Id. at 293-94. While officers drove the suspect to the police station, one 

of the officers told another officer that a school for handicapped children was 

located near the scene of the murder and that, “God forbid one of [the children]

might find a weapon with shells and they might hurt themselves.” Id. at 294-95. 

The suspect then told the officers that he wanted to show them where the gun was 

located. Id. at 295. The Supreme Court held that the officers’ conversation did not 

constitute interrogation because the officers should not have known that their 

conversation was reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response. Id. at 303. 

Case: 11-14343 Date Filed: 04/08/2013 Page: 4 of 6 
5

Moreover, the Supreme Court has held that officers do not interrogate a 

suspect simply by hoping he will incriminate himself. Arizona v. Mauro, 481 U.S. 

520, 529 (1987) (holding that no interrogation occurred when officers were merely 

silent third parties to a conversation between the accused and his wife). Similarly, 

“[p]loys to mislead a suspect or lull him into a false sense of security that do not 

rise to the level of compulsion or coercion to speak are not within Miranda’s 

concerns.” Illinois v. Perkins, 496 U.S. 292, 297-98 (1990) (upholding inmate’s 

confession to an undercover agent posing as cellmate in response to agent’s inquiry 

whether inmate had ever killed anyone). The Supreme Court has said that if “the 

suspect does not know that he is speaking to a government agent there is no reason 

to assume the possibility that the suspect might feel coerced.” Id. at 299. 

In this case, there is no dispute that Jackson properly invoked his right to 

counsel and that any interrogation that followed thus violated his Fifth Amendment 

rights. Edwards, 451 U.S. at 484-85. The issue is whether Lieutenant 

Richardson’s recording of Jackson’s cell phone conversations amounted to 

interrogation. We hold, on this record, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals’s 

implicit conclusion that this situation did not constitute interrogation was not an 

unreasonable application of clearly established Supreme Court law. See 28 U.S.C. 

§ 2254(d)(1). Indeed, Jackson cites no Supreme Court case holding that a factual 

situation similar to his constituted interrogation. Although he argues that his case 

Case: 11-14343 Date Filed: 04/08/2013 Page: 5 of 6 
6

is analogous to United States v. Terzado-Madruga, 897 F.2d 1099, 1110 (11th Cir. 

1990) (holding that the government violated a defendant’s Sixth Amendment rights 

by recording conversations between the defendant and an undercover informant), 

we ask on federal habeas review whether a state court reasonably applied Supreme 

Court precedent. Parker v. Matthews, 132 S.Ct. 2148, 2155 (2012) (explaining 

that circuit precedent “cannot form the basis for habeas relief under AEDPA”). 

In any event, the Supreme Court has said that ploys to lull a suspect into a 

false sense of security that do not rise to the level of “compulsion or coercion to 

speak” do not violate Miranda. Perkins, 496 U.S. at 297. While Lieutenant 

Richardson’s statement that questioning had ceased might have led Jackson to 

believe that he was not being listened to, it cannot be said that the government

compelled or coerced him into making the calls. As we see it, Richardson’s 

actions were no more likely to lead to an incriminating response than were the 

actions of the officers in Innis, who worried in the presence of the accused that, if 

they did not find the murder weapon, children at a handicapped school could be 

harmed. Innis, 446 U.S. at 294-95. Therefore, we cannot say that the Alabama 

Court of Criminal Appeals’s conclusion that Richardson did not interrogate 

Jackson by recording his cell phone conversations was unreasonable under 

Supreme Court precedent. Accordingly, we affirm.

AFFIRMED. 

Case: 11-14343 Date Filed: 04/08/2013 Page: 6 of 6