Opinion ID: 3051134
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: conclusion

Text: ASKED A LEGITIMATE CLARIFYING QUESTION WAS AN UNREASONABLE DETERMINATION OF THE FACTS [5] Anderson’s unambiguous, unequivocal invocation should have brought an immediate end to questioning. Notably, the Supreme Court’s commitment to Miranda’s fundamental tenet—that police must “scrupulously honor[ ]” a suspect’s right to remain silent by immediately ceasing questioning when the suspect invokes this right, 384 U.S. at 479 (emphasis added)—has never wavered. See Mosley, 423 U.S. at 103 (Miranda’s “critical safeguard” is “a person’s ‘right to cut off questioning’ ”); see also Arizona v. Roberson, 486 U.S. 675, 683 (1988); Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U.S. 352, 368 n.6 (1983) (Brennan, J., concurring); cf. Dickerson, 530 U.S. at 440 (reaffirming constitutional requirement that “the exercise of [Miranda] rights must be fully honored”). [6] Instead of scrupulously honoring the request, the interrogating officer decided to “play dumb,” hoping to keep Anderson talking by inquiring, “Plead the Fifth. What’s that?” This effort to keep the conversation going was almost comi1392 ANDERSON v. TERHUNE cal. At best, the officer was mocking and provoking Anderson. The officer knew what “I plead the Fifth” meant. It is thus baffling that the state court determined that “[b]y asking defendant what he meant by pleading the Fifth, the officers asked a legitimate clarifying question.” The need for clarification presumes some ambiguity or uncertainty. Nothing needed clarification. This situation brings to mind the phrase attributed to a Canadian judge— “won’t take no for an answer”—and later popularized in country music as “What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?”5 What about the words “I plead the Fifth” is unclear, ambiguous, or confusing to a reasonable officer? Nothing. See Connecticut v. Barrett, 479 U.S. 523, 529 (1987) (holding in the context of the invocation of the right to counsel that “[i]nterpretation is only required where the defendant’s words, understood as ordinary people would understand them, are ambiguous”). Rather, the officer hoped Anderson would explain more about the murder, the exact topic Anderson did not want to talk about. The officer thought that continuing the interrogation was “reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response” from Anderson. Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U.S. 291, 303 (1980). And he was right. In the right-to-counsel context, the Supreme Court has countenanced clarifying questions only to ascertain whether a suspect’s ambiguous or equivocal statement is actually an invocation of his Fifth Amendment right. See Davis, 512 U.S. at 461; Miranda, 384 U.S. at 445 (focusing only on the threshold question of whether the accused “indicate[d] in any manner that he d[id] not wish to be interrogated” when deciding whether police had honored the accused’s Fifth Amendment rights); cf. Smith v. Illinois, 469 U.S. 91, 95 (1984) 5 See The Phrase Finder, What part of no don’t you understand?, http:// www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/what-part-of-no.html (last visited Nov. 30, 2007); LORRIE MORGAN, What Part of No (words and music by Wayne Perry and Gerald Smith), on WATCH ME (BNA Records 1992). ANDERSON v. TERHUNE 1393 (holding that “[t]his case concerns the threshold inquiry: whether Smith invoked his right to counsel in the first instance”). Ignoring this principle, the state court found that the comments were ambiguous “because they could have been interpreted as not wanting officers to pursue the particulars of his drug use as opposed to not wanting to continue the questioning at all.” [7] The state court’s rationale collapses beneath its own weight, because the officer’s comment showed that the interrogating officers did not believe that Anderson’s statement was ambiguous. The officer did not ask Anderson what subject he did not want to discuss; nor did any of his follow-up questioning address this topic. Similarly, the officer did not ask him if he wished to remain silent or whether he simply did not want to talk about the drug issue. The officer did not even ask Anderson what he meant. No reasonable officer could legitimately be in doubt about the meaning of “I plead the Fifth.” The state court’s characterization is a fanciful reimagining of the colloquy between Anderson and the officer, and under AEDPA, an unreasonable determination of the facts. The state court’s conclusion that “[i]t was the defendant, not the interrogators, who continued the discussion,” ignores the bedrock principle that the interrogators should have stopped all questioning.6 A statement taken after the suspect invoked his right to remain silent “cannot be other than the product of compulsion, subtle or otherwise.” Miranda, 384 U.S. at 474. Finally, it makes no sense to split hairs and say that maybe, 6 As the Third Circuit aptly stated, “[u]nder Miranda, the onus was not on [the suspect] to be persistent in her demand to remain silent. Rather, the responsibility fell to the law enforcement officers to scrupulously respect her demand.” United States v. Lafferty, 503 F.3d 293, 304 (3d Cir. 2007). 1394 ANDERSON v. TERHUNE just maybe, Anderson wanted to talk about the murder and not about his drug use because, in fact, the drug use was inextricably intertwined with the murder. The victim’s body was found next to a methamphetamine pipe. Anderson’s drug use that day could well tie him to the murder. He was taken in for questioning about the murder, not on a potential drug charge. It is precisely this kind of conjecture and hair-splitting that the Supreme Court wanted to avoid when it fashioned the bright-line rule in Miranda. Cf. Davis, 512 U.S. at 461 (noting that, where the suspect asks for counsel, the benefit of the bright-line rule is the “clarity and ease of application” that “can be applied by officers in the real world without unduly hampering the gathering of information” by forcing them “to make difficult judgment calls” with a “threat of suppression if they guess wrong”). No guess work was required here. Under the state court’s application of Miranda and its progeny, every time a suspect unequivocally invokes the right to remain silent, the police can ask follow-up questions to clarify whether he really, really wants to invoke the right and to parse the subject matter—“what specifically do you not want to talk about?” Such a practice is tantamount to endless reinterrogation. The Sixth Circuit’s decision in McGraw v. Holland, 257 F.3d 513 (6th Cir. 2001), where the defendant stated “I don’t want to talk about it,” illustrates the error of the state court’s approach: In the criminal proceeding against Tina McGraw, the state trial court declined to hold the confession inadmissible under Miranda since Tina ‘never demanded or requested to terminate the interview.’ Although Tina said that she did not want to talk about the rape itself, in other words, her confession that she assisted in the rape was held to be admissible under Miranda because she never said that she did not want to talk ANDERSON v. TERHUNE 1395 about subjects other than the rape. This, in our view, was an unreasonable application of Miranda and its progeny. Id. at 518. Here, the state court’s loose paraphrasing of the officer’s question—“Plead the [F]ifth. What’s that?”—as “asking defendant what he meant by pleading the Fifth” is unconvincing and an unreasonable determination of the facts. As the transcript reveals, the officer did not even pretend not to understand what Anderson meant. Instead, incredibly, he feigned ignorance of the Fifth Amendment. [8] Where the initial request to stop the questioning is clear, “the police may not create ambiguity in a defendant’s desire by continuing to question him or her about it.” Barrett, 479 U.S. at 535 n.5 (Brennan, J., concurring). By parsing Anderson’s invocation into specific subjects, “the police failed to honor a decision of a person in custody to cut off questioning, either by refusing to discontinue the interrogation upon request or by persisting in repeated efforts to wear down his resistance and make him change his mind.” Mosley, 423 U.S. at 105-06. The net result is that such follow-up questions allowed the officer to avoid honoring the Fifth Amendment and, as in a right to counsel situation, enabled “the authorities through ‘badger[ing]’ or ‘overreaching’—explicit or subtle, deliberate or unintentional—[to] wear down the accused and persuade him to incriminate himself.” Smith, 469 U.S. at 98. [9] Looking at this case through the AEDPA lens of deference, as we must, does nothing to change these conclusions. The state court’s decision to ignore an unambiguous declaration of the right to remain silent is an unreasonable application of Miranda, as was the decision to allow continued questioning. See Runnels, 421 F.3d at 867. Finally, the state court’s labeling of Anderson’s statements as ambiguous and 1396 ANDERSON v. TERHUNE characterizing the officer’s response as a legitimate clarifying inquiry were unreasonable determinations of fact.