Opinion ID: 3051134
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: IN Contravention of MIRANDA, THE STATE COURT

Text: UNREASONABLY CONCLUDED THAT ANDERSON’S INVOCATION (“I PLEAD THE FIFTH”) WAS AMBIGUOUS [1] Following the issuance of Miranda in 1966 and the literally thousands of cases that repeat its rationale, we rarely have occasion to address a situation in which the defendant not only uses the facially unambiguous words “I plead the Fifth,” but surrounds that invocation with a clear desire not to talk any more. The state court accurately recognized that under Miranda, “if [an] individual indicates in any manner, at any time prior to or during questioning, that he wishes to remain silent, the interrogation must cease,” 384 U.S. at 473ANDERSON v. TERHUNE 1389 74, but then went on to eviscerate that conclusion by stating that the comments were “ambiguous in context”: In the present case, the defendant’s comments were ambiguous in context 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. By asking defendant what he meant by pleading the fifth, the officer asked a legitimate clarifying question. [2] Using “context” to transform an unambiguous invocation into open-ended ambiguity defies both common sense and established Supreme Court law. It is not that context is unimportant, but it simply cannot be manufactured by straining to raise a question regarding the intended scope of a facially unambiguous invocation of the right to silence. As the Supreme Court has observed, in invoking a constitutional right, “a suspect need not ‘speak with the discrimination of an Oxford don.’ ” Davis v. United States, 512 U.S. 452, 459 (1994)3 (quoting id. at 476 (Souter, J., concurring in judgment)). Anderson would meet even this erudite standard. Miranda requires only that the suspect “indicate[ ] in any manner . . . that he wishes to remain silent.” Miranda, 384 U.S. at 473-74. [3] This is not a case where the officers or the court were left scratching their heads as to what Anderson meant.4 Noth- 3 We acknowledge that Davis is an invocation of counsel case under Miranda, not a Fifth Amendment right to silence case. We rely on Miranda and Mosley, not Davis, as “clearly established” law. See Evans v. Demosthenes, 98 F.3d 1174, 1176 (9th Cir. 1996) (declining to address whether Davis applies to right to silence cases). Nonetheless, the general principles from cases involving the clarity of invocation of rights during custodial interrogation are instructive as to common sense interpretation of language. 4 The trial court stated, “while the defendant articulated words that could, in the isolation [sic], be viewed as an invocation of his right to remain silent, the defendant did not intend to terminate the interview.” 1390 ANDERSON v. TERHUNE ing was ambiguous about the statement “I plead the Fifth.” Ambiguity means “admitting more than one interpretation or reference” or “having a double meaning or reference.” The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (1993). Even if the preliminary statements “I don’t even wanna talk about this no more” and “I’m through with this. I’m through. I wanna be taken in custody,” were viewed as somewhat equivocal—a dubious conclusion at best—“I plead the Fifth” left no room for doubt. As we recently observed, “neither the Supreme Court nor this court has required that a suspect seeking to invoke his right to silence provide any statement more explicit or more technically-worded than ‘I have nothing to say.’ ” Arnold v. Runnels, 421 F.3d 859, 865 (9th Cir. 2005). We went on to underscore that Arnold’s statement easily met the Fifth Amendment standard: “Indeed, it is difficult to imagine how much more clearly a layperson like Arnold could have expressed his desire to remain silent.” Id. at 866. [4] Anderson did not equivocate in his invocation by using words such as “maybe” or “might” or “I think.” See id. at 865-66 (distinguishing cases in which the court concluded that a qualified invocation was ambiguous from cases in which the invocation of the right to silence was specific and unambiguous). Nor was there anything ambiguous in Anderson declaring, “I plead the Fifth.” Anderson had already twice attempted to stop the police questioning using crystal-clear language: “I don’t want to talk about this no more” and “Uh! I’m through with this. I’m through. I wanna be taken into cus- (emphasis added). Similarly, the state court of appeal stated, “In the present case, the defendant’s comments were ambiguous in context 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.” (emphasis added). Obviously, the court recognized that “I plead the Fifth” was an invocation of the right to silence; it detected ambiguity only as to the scope of the invocation. ANDERSON v. TERHUNE 1391 tody . . . .” Saying that he wanted to be taken into custody was an indication that Anderson did not want to talk about the murder, his drug use, or anything else. Thus, the state court was unreasonable in concluding that the invocation was ambiguous in context because the context, in fact, makes it clear that Anderson wanted to end the interrogation in all respects. Anderson had the right to end the interrogation at any point and the fact that Anderson had answered the officers’ questions for over two hours does not somehow undermine or cast doubt on an unambiguous invocation. Whether these were “statements of frustration,” as the government posited at oral argument, misses the point. A suspect can both be frustrated with an interrogation and seek to terminate it. “Taking the Fifth” is as unequivocal as one can get in invoking the right to remain silent.