Opinion ID: 4577177
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Statements in the Cruiser. This leaves the

Text: statements made by the defendant in the police cruiser after he had received Miranda warnings. With respect to those statements, the district court rebuffed two arguments made by the defendant in favor of suppression: that the defendant had not effectively waived his rights and that, even if he had, he later invoked his 4 The district court noted that there was conflicting evidence as to whether the fentanyl was in a baggie or a plastic container, see Simpkins, 2019 WL 148650, at  n.6, but made no explicit finding in this respect. The parties make nothing of this discrepancy on appeal, and we ascribe no importance to the question of how the fentanyl was packaged. - 17 - right to remain silent. See Simpkins, 2019 WL 148650, at . In this venue, the defendant renews each of these arguments.5 The defendant's first contention — that he never effectively waived his Miranda rights — is unconvincing. Although he says that the trooper segued into substantive questioning without first obtaining an affirmative Miranda waiver from him, the relevant question is not whether the defendant explicitly waived his Miranda rights but, rather, whether the defendant's conduct, evaluated in light of all the attendant circumstances, evinced a knowing and voluntary waiver. See Carpentino, 948 F.3d at 26. To establish such knowledge, the government must show that the defendant understood both the nature of the right being abandoned and the consequences of the decision to abandon it. United States v. Rang, 919 F.3d 113, 118 (1st Cir. 2019) (quoting United States v. Sweeney, 887 F.3d 529, 536 (1st Cir. 2018)), cert. denied, 140 S. Ct. 44 (2019). And to establish voluntariness, the government must show that the defendant's waiver was the product of a free and deliberate choice. Id. Miranda rights furnish important protections to those in custody, and waivers of Miranda rights are serious business. Even 5 In his appellate briefing, the defendant also suggests that an illegal arrest invalidated the statements that he made while in the police cruiser. Because no such argument was ever advanced in the district court, it is deemed waived. See United States v. Torres, 162 F.3d 6, 11 (1st Cir. 1998). - 18 - so, a waiver of Miranda rights need not be explicit. See Berghuis v. Thompkins, 560 U.S. 370, 384 (2010). Where the prosecution shows that a Miranda warning was given and that it was understood by the accused, an accused's uncoerced statement establishes an implied waiver of the right to remain silent. Id. So it is here. The record makes manifest that the trooper gave the defendant an adequate explanation of his Miranda rights. The defendant acknowledged that he understood these rights. And even though the defendant never explicitly affirmed that he was willing to answer the trooper's questions, we discern no clear error in the district court's conclusion that his subsequent interactions with the officer displayed such a willingness. See Simpkins, 2019 WL 148650, at ; see also United States v. Hinkley, 803 F.3d 85, 91 (1st Cir. 2015) (citing Thompkins, 560 U.S. at 384) (holding that defendant made a valid waiver by making uncoerced statements after acknowledging that he understood his Miranda rights). Finally, we come to the defendant's last contention: that he invoked his right to remain silent during the questioning but the trooper ran roughshod over his invocation of that right. We rest this phase of our analysis on bedrock: an accused who wishes to invoke his right to remain silent must do so in an unambiguous manner. See Thompkins, 560 U.S. at 381. - 19 - Here, the defendant asserts that he unambiguously invoked his right to remain silent by telling the trooper more than once that he had nothing to say. It is, however, common ground that words are like chameleons; they frequently have different shades of meaning depending upon the circumstances. United States v. Romain, 393 F.3d 63, 74 (1st Cir. 2004). This case illustrates the point. The defendant insists that his use of the phrase nothing to say was tantamount to stating I don't wish to answer your questions. By contrast, the government insists that the defendant's use of the phrase nothing to say was simply a convenient means of denying that he possessed any guilty knowledge. The district court resolved this contretemps in the government's favor. It found that the larger context of the interview showed that each time the defendant claimed that he had nothing to say, he was in fact protesting his innocence, not asserting his right to remain silent. Simpkins, 2019 WL 148650, at . This finding passes muster. Viewed most charitably to the defendant, both interpretations of the nothing to say language are plausible. And it is settled beyond hope of contradiction that [w]here there are two permissible views of the evidence, the factfinder's choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous. Cumpiano v. Banco Santander P.R., 902 F.2d 148, 152 - 20 - (1st Cir. 1990) (quoting Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 574 (1985)). We add only that, during the interview, the defendant found many ways in which to disavow any knowledge of drugtrafficking and to imply that the authorities were being misled by bad information. Seen in this light, it was reasonable for the district court to infer that the defendant's repeated use of the nothing to say phrase, taken in context, was part and parcel of this pattern of disavowal.6 The district court's determination that there was no unambiguous invocation of the defendant's right to remain silent was fully supportable and, thus, there was no barrier to continued questioning.