Opinion ID: 844227
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Inapplicability of the Miranda Waiver Test

Text: The Court of Appeal held that Davis 's objective approach was inappropriate for juveniles and declined to assess defendant's postwaiver statements from the viewpoint of a reasonable officer. Instead, the court relied on Fare, supra, 442 U.S. 707, and Lessie, supra, 47 Cal.4th 1152, to hold that the postwaiver invocation determination required an examination of the totality of the circumstances in order to ascertain whether a juvenile suspect intended to assert the Miranda rights. Upon considering defendant's age, experience, maturity, and sophistication, as well as the length, intensity, and content of the entire interrogation, the court found that defendant's purpose when he first requested to speak with his mother was to secure her assistance to protect his Fifth Amendment rights. [8] (11) The Court of Appeal's analysis is flawed in two significant respects. First, the court erred by focusing on what defendant may have subjectively wanted, instead of considering how a reasonable officer would have understood defendant's statements in the circumstances presented. Fare and Lessie are inapposite because those decisions addressed whether the juveniles involved made valid waivers of their Miranda rights. ( Fare, supra, 442 U.S. at pp. 726-727; Lessie, supra, 47 Cal.4th at pp. 1169-1170.) Here there is no dispute that defendant understood and voluntarily waived his rights, and the only question is whether he subsequently invoked the right to have counsel present or the right to silence. It has long been settled that [i]nvocation and waiver are entirely distinct inquiries, and the two must not be blurred by merging them together. ( Smith v. Illinois (1984) 469 U.S. 91, 98 [83 L.Ed.2d 488, 105 S.Ct. 490]; see People v. Martinez, supra, 47 Cal.4th at p. 951.) Accordingly, Fare and Lessie do not support substitution of a subjective test in place of Davis 's objective approach when evaluating whether a juvenile suspect, having waived the Miranda rights, later asserted the right to counsel or right to silence. (See People v. Martinez, at p. 951.) Second, it is correct that the objectively apparent circumstances in which a suspect made a postwaiver statement are relevant to an officer's understanding of the statement as an assertion of Miranda rights. But contrary to the Court of Appeal's analysis, a finding of a sufficiently clear invocation cannot be predicated upon unrelated discussions or events that occurred after the statement was made. Officers may, of course, try to clarify ambiguous statements ( Davis, supra, 512 U.S. at p. 461), but generally a statement either is, or is not, an assertion of the right to counsel ( Smith v. Illinois, supra, 469 U.S. at pp. 97-98). Thus, while the length, intensity, and content of an entire interrogation are relevant in assessing whether a suspect who waived the Miranda rights was subsequently coerced into involuntarily confessing ( Fare, supra, 442 U.S. at p. 727; People v. Richardson (2008) 43 Cal.4th 959, 992-993 [77 Cal.Rptr.3d 163, 183 P.3d 1146]; cf. People v. Neal (2003) 31 Cal.4th 63, 80-85 [1 Cal.Rptr.3d 650, 72 P.3d 280]), we do not consider such circumstances because that contention is not at issue here. (See ante, fn. 3.)