Opinion ID: 1765408
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Heading: The Edwards Analysis

Text: There also are grave problems with the majority's legal analysis of the Fifth Amendment issue. When Johnson told police not to question his client, he plainly was invoking one aspect of the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination  the right to refuse to be interrogated without counsel being present. [54] On this question, the United States Supreme Court's case law teaches that once a suspect asserts the right, not only must the current interrogation cease, but he may not be approached for further interrogation until counsel has been made available to him, [ Edwards, ] 451 U.S., at 484-485, 101 S.Ct., at 1884-1885  which means, we have most recently held, that counsel must be present, Minnick v. Mississippi, 498 U.S. ___, 111 S.Ct. 486, 112 L.Ed.2d 489 (1990). If the police do subsequently initiate an encounter in the absence of counsel (assuming there has been no break in custody), the suspect's statements are presumed involuntary and therefore inadmissible as substantive evidence at trial, even where the suspect executes a waiver and his statements would be considered voluntary under traditional standards... . The Edwards rule, moreover, is not offense-specific: once a suspect invokes the Miranda right to counsel for interrogation regarding one offense, he may not be reapproached regarding any offense unless counsel is present. Arizona v. Roberson, 486 U.S. 675, 108 S.Ct. 2093, 100 L.Ed.2d 704 (1988). McNeil v. Wisconsin, ___ U.S. ___, 111 S.Ct. 2204, 2208, 115 L.Ed.2d 158 (1991). The only exception to this rule is that situation in which the suspect voluntarily discloses information to the authorities without prompting, Minnick, 111 S.Ct. at 489, which clearly had not occurred here based on the trial court's factual findings. In its Minnick opinion, the Court rejected the contention that the right recognized in Edwards somehow could be waived without further assistance of counsel. The Court stated: Whatever the ambiguities of our earlier cases on this point, we now hold that when counsel is requested, interrogation must cease, and officials may not reinitiate interrogation without counsel present, whether or not the accused has consulted with his attorney. ... . A single consultation with an attorney does not remove the suspect from persistent attempts by officials to persuade him to waive his rights, or from the coercive pressures that accompany custody and that may increase as custody is prolonged. Id. at 491. The Court went on to say: We noted in Miranda that [e]ven preliminary advice given to the accused by his own attorney can be swiftly overcome by the secret interrogation process. Thus, the need for counsel to protect the Fifth Amendment privilege comprehends not merely a right to consult with counsel prior to questioning, but also to have counsel present during any questioning if the defendant so desires. Id. One might argue that the foregoing holdings should not be applied to the present case because only the Alabama authorities  not the Florida authorities  were aware that Traylor had invoked his Edwards right. However, this question was resolved to the contrary in Roberson. There, the United States Supreme Court stated: [W]e attach no significance to the fact that the officer who conducted the second interrogation did not know that respondent had made a request for counsel. In addition to the fact that Edwards focuses on the state of mind of the suspect and not of the police, custodial interrogation must be conducted pursuant to established procedures, and those procedures in turn must enable an officer who proposes to initiate an interrogation to determine whether the suspect has previously requested counsel.... Whether a contemplated reinterrogation concerns the same or a different offense, or whether the same or different law enforcement authorities are involved in the second investigation, the same need to determine whether the suspect has requested counsel exists. Roberson, 108 S.Ct. at 2101. In other words, the burden falls on law enforcement to learn whether the Edwards right has been asserted. The failure to do so renders any subsequent interrogation impermissible, even if the Miranda rights are waived by the suspect. See id. Significantly, the majority expressly codifies the principles of the Edwards line of cases, discussed above, within article I, section 9 of the Florida Constitution. Majority op. at 966 n. 14. With this, I have no quarrel. However, the majority's error occurs in its treatment of the role of counsel. The majority concludes that the defendant is required to personally assert the Fifth Amendment right, and that counsel cannot assert the right on the client's behalf. Majority op. at 971. In support of this conclusion, the majority cites no precedent and provides no analysis whatsoever. Even when viewed without the aid of legal theory, the majority's conclusion in this regard is quite surprising. It is tantamount to saying that an attorney cannot speak for a client on legal issues. It effectively says that an attorney who has consulted with the client behind the opaque veil of the attorney-client privilege [55] is powerless to act upon that consultation by asserting the client's rights. This is an absurd conclusion, [56] since it is utterly contrary to the most fundamental conceptions of an attorney's role in representing a client. Moreover, I can find absolutely no authority and no legal theory supporting the majority's conclusion in this regard. Florida law, for example, has long been settled that the acts of an attorney are imputed to the client so completely that the attorney legally is the alter ego of the client except in extreme circumstances clearly inapplicable here, such as outright fraud or a serious violation of professional ethics. In effect, the voice of the attorney is the voice of the client. Griffith v. Investment Co., 92 Fla. 781, 110 So. 271 (1926); Small v. Colonial Investment Co., 92 Fla. 503, 109 So. 433 (1926); see Abney v. Hurner, 97 Fla. 240, 121 So. 883 (1929); State ex rel. Gutierrez v. Baker, 276 So.2d 470 (Fla. 1973) (acts of attorney are binding on client). Other jurisdictions are in general agreement with this principle. [57] E.g., United States v. DiMucci, 879 F.2d 1488, 1496 (7th Cir.1989); McNeal v. Wainwright, 722 F.2d 674, 676-77 (11th Cir.1984); Camp v. United States, 352 F.2d 800 (5th Cir.1965). The selfsame principle has been applied in cases involving an attorney's assertion of a client's constitutional rights. In Brewer v. Williams, 430 U.S. 387, 97 S.Ct. 1232, 1235-36, 1240-41, 51 L.Ed.2d 424 (1977), the United States Supreme Court held that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel had been violated when police interrogated a defendant after the attorney had asked the police not to do so. This message was communicated to police by the attorney after he had consulted with the client by telephone. The Court could only have found a violation of the Constitution if the attorney in fact had authority to assert the right on behalf of the client. Also relying on the Sixth Amendment, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has underscored the holding of the Brewer Court: After counsel for a person who has been charged with and arrested for a criminal offense has directed the police not to interrogate the accused in the absence of counsel, a confession elicited from the accused by police questioning in counsel's absence is inadmissible even though the police have given him a Miranda warning. Felder v. McCotter, 765 F.2d 1245, 1246 (5th Cir.1985), cert. denied, 475 U.S. 1111, 106 S.Ct. 1523, 89 L.Ed.2d 921 (1986). Obviously, this holding is premised on the belief that an attorney has complete authority to assert constitutional rights on behalf of the client. Accord United States v. Lilla, 534 F. Supp. 1247 (N.D.N.Y. 1982); United States v. Callabrass, 458 F. Supp. 964 (S.D.N.Y. 1978). Other courts have extended these same principles into the Fifth Amendment context. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, for example, has directly recognized that an attorney can assert a Fifth Amendment right on behalf of the client in dealings with the police. Janecka v. State, 739 S.W.2d 813, 828 (Tex. Crim. App. 1987); Wilkerson v. State, 657 S.W.2d 784 (Tex. Crim. App. 1983), cert. denied, 470 U.S. 1008, 105 S.Ct. 1371, 84 L.Ed.2d 390 (1985); Phifer v. State, 651 S.W.2d 774 (Tex. Crim. App. 1983); Stone v. State, 612 S.W.2d 542 (Tex. Crim. App. 1981); Williams v. State, 566 S.W.2d 919 (Tex. Crim. App. 1978). A similar conclusion was reached by the Oregon Court of Appeals in State v. Barmon, 67 Or. App. 369, 679 P.2d 888, 892, review denied, 297 Or. 227, 683 P.2d 91 (1984), which also concluded that the attorney's statements were binding on the police under Edwards. In a case addressing the precise issue before us today, a unanimous panel of Florida's Second District Court of Appeal held that an attorney's assertion of the Fifth Amendment right recognized in Edwards is binding on the police: The state concedes that prior to the questioning of the defendant by Officer Price at the jail, the defendant was visited by his attorney. The attorney informed the booking officer at the jail that he represented the defendant and did not want him questioned without the attorney's presence. The defendant thus clearly invoked his right to have counsel present during custodial interrogation. Del Duca v. State, 422 So.2d 40, 40 (Fla.2d DCA 1982) (citing Edwards ). Nowhere does the majority address this holding or purport to overrule it. I agree there are some limited exceptions to the general principle that an attorney can invoke a client's Edwards right with regard to the police. For example, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has held that the right cannot be invoked by an attorney who has not yet even spoken with the client. [58] Janecka, 739 S.W.2d at 828. This conclusion is in harmony with the United States Supreme Court's opinion in Moran v. Burbine, 475 U.S. 412, 106 S.Ct. 1135, 89 L.Ed.2d 410 (1986). In Moran, the Court concluded that the Fifth and Sixth Amendments are not offended if police fail to inform an attorney that a suspect will be interrogated, when the attorney had only been contacted by a relative of the suspect and never had talked with the suspect. Accord Edwards v. State, 167 Ga. App. 681, 307 S.E.2d 264 (1983). The rules I distill from the foregoing case law are as follows: First, an attorney acts as the voice and alter ego of the client-defendant under Florida law. E.g., Griffith. As such, the attorney has complete authority to assert a Fifth Amendment privilege (or any other constitutional right, for that matter) to police on behalf of the client. [59] Del Duca. Accord Brewer; Felder. The only prerequisite is that the attorney must have consulted with the client before this assertion is made. Moran; Janecka. Consultation is necessary because counsel cannot claim clairvoyance in knowing what the client wants, but must actively inquire as to that question after giving appropriate legal advice. By engaging in even one prior consultation, however, a conclusive presumption then arises that the attorney is speaking on behalf of the client, since it is not permissible to go behind the veil of the attorney-client privilege to refute such a presumption. § 90.502, Fla. Stat. (1985) (defining the scope of Florida's attorney-client privilege). Second, when the attorney subsequently asserts the right recognized in Edwards on behalf of the client, the police cannot initiate further contacts with the client-suspect, even if the latter is given Miranda warnings and purports to waive the Fifth Amendment right. McNeil; Minnick; Edwards. This restriction applies to all law enforcement agents and agencies, even if they have no actual knowledge that the right has been asserted. Roberson. A very limited form of waiver then can occur only if the client-suspect initiates the contact with police and volunteers information without being interrogated. Minnick. Third, because Fifth Amendment rights are not offense-specific, McNeil, 111 S.Ct. at 2208, they apply at least to all charges that are or may be brought against the accused during the period of incarceration while any single charge is pending. Accordingly, once the attorney asserts the Edwards right on behalf of an incarcerated client, no further police interrogation of the client can occur about any offense, charged or uncharged, unless the attorney is present. Applying these principles to the present case, I find that the procedures employed by both the Alabama and Florida authorities when they interrogated Traylor on August 22, 1980, violated the Edwards rule. Johnson by that time had been appointed counsel and thus was attorney-of-record for Traylor. The trial court specifically found that Johnson had consulted with Traylor and asserted his client's Fifth Amendment rights by instructing the police not to question his client. The record upon which the trial court relied in reaching this conclusion clearly shows that Johnson had consulted with Traylor prior to asserting these rights. Under Roberson, this instruction is imputed to the Florida authorities. Although Traylor did not actively object to the interrogation, he also did not initiate the contact. The trial court so found when it stated [i]t is true that the Defendant did not initiate the interview as such. [60] This finding is supported by overwhelming evidence and must be accepted as true in this review. In fact, the police took Traylor from his jail cell and drove him to the district attorney's office specifically to be questioned, and only then did the interrogation begin. Clearly, the police went to great lengths to initiate the interrogation themselves. Moreover, Officer Grubbs  to whom Johnson previously had asserted Traylor's Fifth Amendment rights  actively participated in this interrogation and failed to tell other officers that the Edwards right had been invoked. The surreptitious nature of the interrogation was only underscored by the fact that the attorney, when he learned of the police activities, interrupted and stopped the ongoing interrogation. Accordingly, all statements made to both the Alabama and Florida authorities during the uncounseled interrogation on August 22 were illegally obtained and were inadmissible. The district court below properly ruled that these statements should have been suppressed. However, I agree with the State's assertion that the error in admitting these statements was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt in light of the other admissible confessions, the threats against the victim, and the physical evidence. In light of the entire record, the State has shown there is no reasonable possibility that the jury's verdict would have been changed had the error not been committed.