Title: State v. Powell
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: SC07-2295
State: Florida
Issuer: Florida Supreme Court
Date: June 16, 2011

Supreme Court of Florida 
 
 
____________ 
 
No. SC07-2295 
____________ 
 
STATE OF FLORIDA,  
Petitioner, 
 
vs. 
 
KEVIN DEWAYNE POWELL,  
Respondent. 
 
[June 16, 2011] 
CORRECTED OPINION 
 
PER CURIAM. 
This case comes before this Court on remand from the decision of the United 
States Supreme Court in Florida v. Powell, 130 S. Ct. 1195 (2010).  The issue 
presented concerns the scope of the pre-interrogation warnings required by the 
Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, as described in Miranda v. 
Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), and by article I, section 9 of the Florida 
Constitution, as described in Traylor v. State, 596 So. 2d 957 (Fla. 1992).  After 
giving due consideration to the Supreme Court‟s decision in Powell, we find that 
the warnings given in this case adequately advised the respondent of his rights 
under the United States and Florida Constitutions. 
 
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STATEMENT OF THE CASE 
Previously, in State v. Powell, 998 So. 2d 531 (Fla. 2008), we upheld a 
decision of the Second District Court of Appeal reversing respondent Kevin 
Powell‟s conviction for possession of a firearm by a felon.  The factual predicate 
for the conviction took place on August 10, 2004, when police officers discovered 
a nine-millimeter handgun after arriving at a residence to investigate the 
respondent.  Powell was arrested and transported to police headquarters, where he 
was given the following warnings: 
You have the right to remain silent.  If you give up the right to remain 
silent, anything you say can be used against you in court.  You have 
the right to talk to a lawyer before answering any of our questions.  If 
you cannot afford to hire a lawyer, one will be appointed for you 
without cost and before any questioning.  You have the right to use 
any of these rights at any time you want during this interview. 
 
Id. at 532.  Powell agreed to talk to the officers and subsequently made 
incriminating statements during the interrogation.  See id.  At trial, Powell‟s 
counsel objected to the introduction of the statements into evidence, arguing that 
the warnings were deficient because they did not expressly state that Powell had 
the right to have an attorney present during questioning.  The trial court overruled 
the objection and admitted the statements.  Powell was convicted by the jury and 
sentenced to ten years in prison.  See id. at 532-33. 
On appeal, the Second District Court of Appeal reversed the conviction, 
holding that the warnings were inadequate under both the Fifth Amendment and 
 
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article I, section 9.  See Powell v. State, 969 So. 2d 1060, 1061 (Fla. 2d DCA 
2007), approved, 998 So. 2d 531 (Fla. 2008).  The district court reasoned that to 
advise a suspect that he “has the right „to talk to a lawyer before answering . . . any 
of our questions‟ constitutes a narrower and less functional warning than that 
required by Miranda.”  Id. at 1064.  However, the Second District certified the 
following question to this Court as a matter of great public importance: 
DOES THE FAILURE TO PROVIDE EXPRESS ADVICE OF THE 
RIGHT TO THE PRESENCE OF COUNSEL DURING 
QUESTIONING VITIATE MIRANDA WARNINGS WHICH 
ADVISE OF BOTH (A) THE RIGHT TO TALK TO A LAWYER 
“BEFORE QUESTIONING” AND (B) THE “RIGHT TO USE” THE 
RIGHT TO CONSULT A LAWYER “AT ANY TIME” DURING 
QUESTIONING? 
 
Id. at 1067-68. 
 
This Court granted discretionary review,1 answered the certified question in 
the affirmative, and approved the decision of the Second District.  See Powell, 998 
So. 2d at 532.  In our decision, we agreed with the Second District that the 
warnings were deficient and that the trial court had erred in admitting Powell‟s 
statements into evidence.  See id. at 542.  This Court first discussed the contours of 
the privilege against self-incrimination as afforded by both federal and Florida law.  
With regard to the requirements of the United States Constitution, we explained 
that the United States Supreme Court has held that the following warnings are 
                                         
 
1.  See art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const. 
 
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required to ensure that any statement obtained during a custodial interrogation 
complies with the federal privilege against self-incrimination afforded by the Fifth 
Amendment: 
[A suspect] must be warned prior to any questioning [1] that he has 
the right to remain silent, [2] that anything he says can be used against 
him in a court of law, [3] that he has the right to the presence of an 
attorney, and [4] that if he cannot afford an attorney one will be 
appointed for him prior to any questioning if he so desires. 
 
Id. at 534 (quoting Miranda, 384 U.S. at 479). 
With regard to the requirements of Florida law, we explained that similar 
warnings are required by the self-incrimination clause of article I, section 9 of the 
Florida Constitution.  Under article I, section 9, suspects must be informed: 
[1] that they have a right to remain silent, [2] that anything they say 
will be used against them in court, [3] that they have a right to a 
lawyer‟s help, and [4] that if they cannot pay for a lawyer one will be 
appointed to help them. 
 
Powell, 998 So. 2d at 535 (footnote omitted) (quoting Traylor, 596 So. 2d at 966).  
We noted that the right to a lawyer‟s help means that “the suspect has the right to 
consult with a lawyer before being interrogated and to have the lawyer present 
during interrogation.”  Id. at 535 n.2 (quoting Traylor, 596 So. 2d at 966 n.13).  For 
the purposes of our decision on remand, however, we observe here that, “[t]hough 
our analysis in Traylor was grounded in the Florida Constitution, our conclusions 
were no different than those set forth in prior holdings of the United States 
Supreme Court.”  State v. Owen, 696 So. 2d 715, 719 (Fla. 1997). 
 
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After evaluating the specific pre-interrogation warnings that were read to 
Powell, we agreed with the Second District that the warnings were deficient.  Our 
analysis focused on two portions of the warnings that were read by the 
interrogating officers.  First, Powell was informed:  “You have the right to talk to a 
lawyer before answering any of our questions.”  Powell, 998 So. 2d at 540.  
Second, a catch-all statement was included at the end of the warnings, which 
stated:  “You have the right to use any of these rights at any time you want during 
this interview.”  Id. 
 
We determined that the Miranda rights as they were described to Powell did 
not advise him of his right to have an attorney present during questioning.  See id.  
With regard to the first portion of the warning, we found the statement misleading 
because Powell was informed only that he had the right to speak with an attorney 
before answering any questions.  We stated:  “The „before questioning‟ warning 
suggests to a reasonable person in the suspect‟s shoes that he or she can only 
consult with an attorney before questioning; there is nothing in that statement that 
suggests the attorney can be present during the actual questioning.”  Id. at 541. 
 
We also concluded that the final statement, informing Powell of his right to 
use his rights “at any time . . . during this interview” did not cure the deficiency: 
The Second District . . . found that language could not cure the 
deficiency because Powell was never unequivocally informed that he 
had the right to have an attorney present at all times during his 
custodial interrogation.   See Powell, 969 So. 2d at 1067.  We agree 
 
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with the Second District and hold that Powell should have been 
clearly informed of his right to the presence of counsel during the 
custodial interrogation.  The catch-all language did not effectively 
convey to Powell his right to the presence of counsel before and 
during police questioning.  This last sentence could not effectively 
convey a right the defendant was never told he had.  In other words, 
how can a defendant exercise at any time during an interrogation a 
right he did not know existed?  The catch-all phrase did not supply the 
missing warning of the right to have counsel present during police 
questioning because a right that has never been expressed cannot be 
reiterated. 
 
Id.  Thus, we agreed with the Second District that the warnings were deficient.  
After finding that the admission of the statements was not harmless beyond a 
reasonable doubt, we upheld the district court‟s decision.  See id. at 541-42. 
The United States Supreme Court subsequently granted certiorari and 
reversed this Court‟s decision.  See Florida v. Powell, 130 S. Ct. 1195 (2010).  The 
High Court first addressed the issue of its jurisdiction to decide the case.  In 
Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 729 (1991), the High Court explained that it 
would not “review a question of federal law decided by a state court if the decision 
. . . rests on a state law ground that is independent of the federal question and 
adequate to support the judgment.”  However, 
when . . . a state court decision fairly appears to rest primarily on 
federal law, or to be interwoven with the federal law, and when the 
adequacy and independence of any possible state law ground is not 
clear from the face of the opinion, we will accept as the most 
reasonable explanation that the state court decided the case the way it 
did because it believed that federal law required it to do so. 
 
 
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Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 1040-41 (1983).  Applying these principles to 
this Court‟s decision in Powell, the Supreme Court found that although this Court 
had invoked Florida‟s Constitution and precedent in addition to federal law, the 
decision “treated state and federal law as interchangeable and interwoven” and “at 
no point expressly asserted that state-law sources gave Powell rights distinct from, 
or broader than, those delineated in Miranda.”  Powell, 130 S. Ct. at 1202 (citing 
Long, 463 U.S. at 1044).  Accordingly, the High Court determined that it had 
jurisdiction to resolve the question of federal law.  See id. at 1203. 
Turning to the sufficiency of the warnings, the Court explained that when 
reviewing the adequacy of Miranda warnings, “[t]he inquiry is simply whether the 
warnings reasonably „conve[y] to [a suspect] his rights as required by Miranda.‟”  
Id. at 1204 (quoting Duckwoth v. Eagan, 492 U.S. 195, 203 (1989)).  With regard 
to the specific warnings that were given to Powell, the High Court disagreed with 
our conclusion that Powell was not warned of his right to an attorney: 
The Tampa officers did not “entirely omi[t],” any information 
Miranda required them to impart.  They informed Powell that he had 
“the right to talk to a lawyer before answering any of [their] 
questions” and “the right to use any of [his] rights at any time [he] 
want[ed] during th[e] interview.”  The first statement communicated 
that Powell could consult with a lawyer before answering any 
particular question, and the second statement confirmed that he could 
exercise that right while the interrogation was underway.  In 
combination, the two warnings reasonably conveyed Powell‟s right to 
have an attorney present, not only at the outset of interrogation, but at 
all times. 
 
 
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To reach the opposite conclusion, i.e., that the attorney would 
not be present throughout the interrogation, the suspect would have to 
imagine an unlikely scenario:  To consult counsel, he would be 
obliged to exit and reenter the interrogation room between each query.  
A reasonable suspect in a custodial setting who has just been read his 
rights, we believe, would not come to the counterintuitive conclusion 
that he is obligated, or allowed, to hop in and out of the holding area 
to seek his attorney‟s advice.  Instead, the suspect would likely 
assume that he must stay put in the interrogation room and that his 
lawyer would be there with him the entire time. 
 
The Florida Supreme Court found the warning misleading 
because it believed the temporal language—that Powell could “talk to 
a lawyer before answering any of [the officers‟] questions”—
suggested Powell could consult with an attorney only before the 
interrogation started.  In context, however, the term “before” merely 
conveyed when Powell‟s right to an attorney became effective—
namely, before he answered any questions at all.  Nothing in the 
words used indicated that counsel‟s presence would be restricted after 
the questioning commenced.  Instead, the warning communicated that 
the right to counsel carried forward to and through the interrogation:  
Powell could seek his attorney‟s advice before responding to “any of 
[the officers‟] questions” and “at any time . . . during th[e] interview.”  
Although the warnings were not the clearest possible formulation of 
Miranda‟s right-to-counsel advisement, they were sufficiently 
comprehensive and comprehensible when given a commonsense 
reading. 
 
Powell, 130 S. Ct. at 1204-05 (footnotes and citations omitted) (alterations in 
original).  The High Court therefore reversed the judgment of this Court and 
remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with its opinion.  See id. at 
1206. 
The Supreme Court‟s decision leaves no doubt that, contrary to our original 
analysis, the warnings sufficiently advised Powell of his right to have an attorney 
 
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present during questioning, as required by Miranda, and did not violate the 
requirements of the United States Constitution.  On remand, Powell asks this Court 
to again hold that the warnings were deficient on the ground that the warnings, 
while sufficient under the Fifth Amendment, nonetheless failed to meet the 
requirements of article I, section 9 of the Florida Constitution, as described in 
Traylor.  The Supreme Court acknowledged in its opinion that individual state 
constitutions may provide greater protections than the federal Constitution.  See 
Powell, 130 S. Ct. at 1203 (“Nothing in our decision today, we emphasize, 
trenches on the Florida Supreme Court‟s authority to impose, based on the State‟s 
Constitution, any additional protections against coerced confessions it deems 
appropriate.”).  Thus, pursuant to basic federalist principles, this Court retains the 
authority to again uphold the decision of the Second District if we find that the 
warnings were deficient under the Florida Constitution. 
As we have previously explained, however, our conclusions in Traylor 
“were no different than those set forth in prior holdings of the United States 
Supreme Court.”  Owen, 696 So. 2d at 719.  Moreover, we find no basis for 
concluding that different pre-interrogation warnings are required by the Florida 
Constitution than are required by the Fifth Amendment.  Because the United States 
Supreme Court has determined that the warnings sufficiently conveyed the right to 
the presence of counsel as required by the Federal Constitution, we find that the 
 
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warnings were likewise sufficient under the Florida Constitution.  Accordingly, we 
now conclude that the trial court did not err in admitting Powell‟s post-Miranda 
statements into evidence. 
CONCLUSION 
In light of the decision of the United States Supreme Court reversing our 
original decision, we hold that the Miranda warnings at issue in this case 
sufficiently advised the respondent of his rights as required by the Fifth 
Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 9 of the Florida 
Constitution.  Therefore, we now answer the certified question in the negative, 
quash the decision of the Second District, and remand this case to the district court 
for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. 
 
It is so ordered. 
LEWIS, POLSTON, LABARGA, and PERRY, JJ., concur. 
PARIENTE, J., dissents with an opinion, in which QUINCE, J., concurs. 
QUINCE, J., dissents with an opinion, in which PARIENTE, J., concurs. 
CANADY, C.J., recused. 
 
NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION, AND 
IF FILED, DETERMINED. 
 
PARIENTE, J., dissenting. 
When the United States Supreme Court in Florida v. Powell, 130 S. Ct. 1195 
(2010), reversed our decision in Powell v. State, 998 So. 2d 531 (Fla. 2008), the 
Court expressly stated that “[n]othing in our decision today, we emphasize, 
 
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trenches on the Florida Supreme Court‟s authority to impose, based on the State‟s 
Constitution, any additional protections against coerced confessions it deems 
appropriate.”  130 S. Ct. at 1203.  I agree with Justice Quince‟s dissent that it is 
appropriate and in keeping with this Court‟s interpretation of Florida‟s independent 
state constitutional right that we require specific warnings that expressly inform 
suspects of their right to an attorney before and during questioning.  For that 
reason, I have joined in her dissenting opinion. 
I write separately to urge law enforcement throughout this state to adopt 
standard warnings that specifically inform suspects of their right to an attorney 
before and during questioning.  The majority of law enforcement agencies have 
already done so, and it is good law enforcement practice to make sure that the 
warnings are as clear as possible. 
While the United States Supreme Court in Powell observed that the 
warnings given by the Tampa police to Powell were not deficient under the Federal 
Constitution, the Court also recognized that the warnings were not “the clearest 
possible formulation of Miranda‟s right-to-counsel advisement.”  130 S. Ct. at 
1205.  The Court pointed to the following warnings as “exemplary”: 
The standard warnings used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation 
are exemplary.  They provide, in relevant part:  “You have the right to 
talk to a lawyer for advice before we ask you any questions.  You 
have the right to have a lawyer with you during questioning.”   
Id. at 1206. 
 
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It is a worthwhile goal that does not cost any money for law enforcement 
agencies in this state to have the “clearest possible” formulation of Miranda‟s 
advisement of constitutional rights.  I would urge the Attorney General in 
conjunction with the state attorneys, Florida Highway Patrol, sheriffs, police 
chiefs, and any other law enforcement agencies to promulgate a standard form and 
to encourage law enforcement throughout the state to use the form pointed to by 
the United States Supreme Court so that we have an “exemplary” warning that 
would leave no doubt that a suspect was properly advised of his or her rights under 
both the Federal and Florida Constitutions. 
QUINCE, J., concurs. 
 
 
 
QUINCE, J., dissenting. 
 
 
As in Rigterink v. State, No. SC05-2162 (Fla. June 16, 2011), I respectfully 
dissent because I conclude that the warnings in this case failed to meet the 
requirements of the Florida Constitution.  We recognized in Traylor v. State, 596 
So. 2d 957, 962 (Fla. 1992), that “[w]hen called upon to decide matters of 
fundamental rights, Florida‟s state courts are bound under federalist principles to 
give primacy to our state Constitution and to give independent legal import to 
every phrase and clause contained therein.”  We also explained that “the Self-
Incrimination Clause of Article I, Section 9, Florida Constitution, requires that 
 
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prior to custodial interrogation in Florida suspects must be told . . . that they have a 
right to a lawyer‟s help.”  Id. at 966.  Traylor explicitly states that this right “means 
that the suspect has the right to consult with a lawyer before being interrogated and 
to have the lawyer present during interrogation.”  Id. at 966 n.13.  Thus, under the 
Florida Constitution a suspect has a greater right than that afforded under the Fifth 
Amendment. 
 
In this case, however, Powell was not informed that he had the right to have 
a lawyer with him in the interrogation room during questioning.  He was informed 
only that he had “the right to talk to a lawyer before answering any of [the 
officers‟] questions.”  State v. Powell, 998 So. 2d 531, 532 (Fla. 2008) (emphasis 
added).  The clear insufficiency of this warning is not amended by the catch-all 
language informing the respondent that he had “the right to use any of these rights 
at any time . . . during this interview.”  Id.  As we explained in our previous 
decision in this case, “The catch-all phrase did not supply the missing warning of 
the right to have counsel present during police questioning because a right that has 
never been expressed cannot be reiterated.”  Id. at 541. 
 
Notwithstanding the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Florida 
v. Powell, 130 S. Ct. 1195 (2010), we cannot ignore our independent obligation to 
review all pre-interrogation warnings to determine whether they satisfy the 
requirements of our state Constitution.  See Rigterink v. State, 2 So. 3d 221, 241 
 
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(Fla. 2009) (explaining that in the context of the rights afforded by article I, section 
9, “the federal Constitution sets the floor, not the ceiling, and this Court retains the 
ability to interpret the right against self-incrimination afforded by the Florida 
Constitution more broadly than that afforded by its federal counterpart”).  Here, 
where the warnings failed to meet the requirements of article I, section 9 of the 
Florida Constitution, as set out in Traylor, the trial court erred in allowing Powell‟s 
statements to be used against him at trial.  For that reason, I conclude that the 
proper result in this case is for this Court to once again approve the decision of the 
Second District. 
PARIENTE, J., concurs. 
 
 
 
Application for Review of the Decision of the District Court of Appeal - Certified 
Great Public Importance  
 
 
Second District - Case No. 2D05-646 
 
 
(Hillsborough County) 
 
Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, Tallahassee, Florida, and Robert J. Krauss, 
Senior Assistant Attorney General, Bureau Chief, and Susan M. Shanahan, 
Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, Florida, 
 
 
for Petitioner 
 
James Marion Moorman, Public Defender, and Cynthia J. Dodge, Assistant Public 
Defender, Tenth Judicial Circuit, Bartow, Florida, 
 
 
for Respondent