Opinion ID: 2244953
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Admissibility of Statements to Police

Text: Taylor contends that his rights under both the federal and state constitutions were violated when police continued to question him after he said: I don't know what to say. I guess I really want a lawyer, but, I mean, I've never done this before so I don't know. Specifically, Taylor contends that two of his statements made during the interrogation were admitted over his objection and were prejudicial. First, after he was told that Delagrange had confessed, he was asked if Delagrange's story was believable, and he answered affirmatively. Second, Taylor stated that he was involved and that he had lent the shotguns to Delagrange. At trial he explained his admission that he was involved as being limited to having lent the shotguns to Delagrange for hunting. Both statements were made shortly before the interrogation terminated when Taylor unequivocally requested a lawyer. At the outset of the interrogation, Taylor signed a written waiver of rights form and orally acknowledged that he had been advised of his rights and had agreed to waive them. Although Taylor is not always precise in describing the rights he asserts were violated in this case, it is clear his waiver applied to both the right to counsel and the right to be free from self-incrimination under both the state and federal constitutions. The issue, therefore, turns on whether, after the waiver, Taylor asserted a valid right under the federal or state constitution that requires suppression of his subsequent statements. Review of the denial of a motion to suppress is similar to other sufficiency matters. The record must disclose substantial evidence of probative value that supports the trial court's decision. We do not reweigh the evidence and we consider conflicting evidence most favorably to the trial court's ruling. See, e.g., Wilcoxen v. State, 619 N.E.2d 574, 577 (Ind.1993); Warner v. State, 579 N.E.2d 1307, 1309 (Ind.1991). A. Federal constitutional claim Taylor first argues that his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966) were violated when police continued to question him after he made the quoted statement. Assertion of this right is governed by the objective standard set by the U.S. Supreme Court in Davis v. United States, 512 U.S. 452, 114 S.Ct. 2350, 129 L.Ed.2d 362 (1994). Invocation of the Miranda right to counsel requires, at a minimum, some statement that can reasonably be construed to be an expression of a desire for the assistance of an attorney. Id. at 459, 114 S.Ct. at 2355 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). The level of clarity required to meet the reasonableness standard is sufficient clarity such that a reasonable police officer in the circumstances would understand the statement to be a request for an attorney. Id. It is not enough that the defendant might be invoking his rights; the request must be unambiguous. In Davis, the defendant's statement maybe I should talk to a lawyer was held not to be a request for counsel. Id. at 462, 114 S.Ct. at 2357. Consequently, police officers had no duty to stop questioning Davis, and any statements he subsequently made were admissible. Davis established as a matter of Fifth Amendment law that police have no duty to cease questioning when an equivocal request for counsel is made. Nor are they required to ask clarifying questions to determine whether the suspect actually wants a lawyer. In this case, Taylor's statement of I guess I really want a lawyer, but, I mean, I've never done this before so I don't know is an expression of doubt, not a request. A reasonable police officer in the circumstances would not understand that Taylor was unambiguously asserting his right to have counsel present. In fact, Detective Stacey's response to Taylor's comment was: Okay. Like I told you, I can't make that decision for you. This response communicated that Stacey did not take Taylor's statement to be an assertion of the right to counsel and makes clear that if Taylor wanted a lawyer, he would have to communicate that desire. The trial court properly applied the Davis standard in finding that Taylor's purported assertion of his Fifth Amendment rights was not an unambiguous request for a lawyer. The trial court's ruling was also consistent with pre Davis decisions of this Court. [1] B. Indiana constitutional claim Taylor next claims that the same interrogation violated his rights under the Indiana Constitution. Taylor argues that the right to have counsel present during a custodial interrogation is broader under Article I, § 13 of the Indiana Constitution than under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. Specifically, Taylor contends that the right to counsel secured by § 13, unlike the federal Sixth Amendment right to counsel, attaches at an earlier stage than indictment or information. Over forty years before Miranda was decided on Fifth Amendment self-incrimination grounds, this Court held that a suspect's right to counselnot the right to be free from self-incriminationattaches when a suspect is in custody and before any formal proceedings have been initiated. As a result, exclusion of statements obtained after a suspect requested counsel was required by the state right to counsel. Batchelor v. State, 189 Ind. 69, 125 N.E. 773 (1920); Suter v. State, 227 Ind. 648, 88 N.E.2d 386 (1949). This Court has not addressed the question whether the right to counsel under § 13 remains the proper source of the rule, announced in Batchelor and Suter, that statements made in police custody after a request for counsel must be excluded from evidence. That is the result required under the Fourteenth Amendment since 1966 when Miranda was decided not on the basis of incorporation of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel but as a necessary incident to the Fifth Amendment self-incrimination right. See also Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 68 L.Ed.2d 378 (1981) (once suspect requests presence of an attorney, questioning must cease until counsel has been made available or the suspect voluntarily initiates communication with the police). Assuming that the same result Miranda and its progeny now require is also demanded by the Indiana constitutional right to counsel, an unequivocal request for counsel is necessary to require suppression of subsequent statements made while in custody, just as it is required by Davis to invoke the Miranda right to counsel. Suter and Batchelor both involved suspects who unequivocally requested counsel while in police custody, and both emphasized the necessity of a request to invoke the right. We make explicit today what was implied in Suter and Batchelor: the suspect's request must be clear and unequivocal. We agree with the Supreme Court's observation in Davis that a statement either is such an assertion of the right to counsel or it is not. Davis, 512 U.S. at 459, 114 S.Ct. at 2355 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Although an ambiguous statement about invoking the right to counsel may indicate the suspect is considering the idea, it does not reflect a decision to ask for the assistance of counsel. Notably, Taylor later crossed that threshold in the interrogation and unequivocally invoked the right. When he did so, the interrogation stopped. The Indiana Constitution does not require a lawyer to be present during custodial interrogation irrespective of the suspect's wishes. If the suspect requests counsel, that is the end of the matter until counsel is furnished. But it is up to the suspect to make that request after being advised of his right to do so. Taylor also contends that § 13 of the Indiana Bill of Rights requires police to limit the interrogation to clarifying questions when an ambiguous request is made. For this proposition Taylor relies on Sleek v. State, 499 N.E.2d 751 (Ind.1986). However, as noted above in footnote 1, Sleek expressly stated that it was interpreting the Fifth Amendment and makes no mention of the Indiana Constitution. Even if we assume that Sleek would suggest that a request for counsel triggers the same limitation under § 13 as the Fifth Amendment imposes, the U.S. Supreme Court explicitly rejected the clarifying questions limitation in Davis, which held that clarifying questions in the face of an ambiguous statement were good police practice but were not constitutionally required in the absence of a request for counsel. Davis, 512 U.S. at 461, 114 S.Ct. at 2356. As elaborated above, Taylor's statement did not constitute such a request. Taylor offers no authority contrary to the Davis view construing the Indiana constitutional right to counsel, and we discern no good reason for a different rule. Nothing precludes police from attempting to clarify ambiguous statements about invoking the right to counsel, but § 13 does not require that effort. In sum, although requests by the suspect for counsel must be scrupulously honored, a police interrogation is not required to come to a halt merely because the suspect chooses to think out loud about whether to exercise a constitutional right. It is within constitutional bounds for the interrogating officer to place the burden of making an explicit request for counsel on the suspect. This is what Detective Stacey did by responding to Taylor's expressions of indecision by saying that he could not make the decision for Taylor.