Opinion ID: 222669
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Plugh I

Text: Plugh was indicted in January 2007 on nine counts of receipt and possession of child pornography, see 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(2)(A), (a)(5)(B), and defense counsel moved to suppress, among other things, Plugh's post-arrest statements. The district court held an evidentiary hearing on the motion, and then granted it in relevant part. Framing the inquiry as whether Plugh's conduct [could] reasonably be construed to be an expression of a desire for the assistance of an attorney or to remain silent, Plugh, 522 F.Supp.2d at 491-92, the district court concluded that Plugh's unequivocal[ ] refusal to sign the waiver-of-rights form was sufficiently clear to meet that standard, id. at 495. Accordingly, it determined that the agents should have ceased all questioning in the face of that refusal to sign the form and suppressed the ensuing statements. Id. at 496. The government appealed, and a divided panel of this Court affirmed. Relying heavily on the prior opinion of this Court in United States v. Quiroz, 13 F.3d 505 (2d Cir.1993), which it read to stand for the proposition that when a custodial officer specifically asks a suspect if he will waive his rights by signing a form and does so in such a way that the accused would interpret a refusal to sign as a negative answer, the suspect has taken sufficient action to trigger the . . . prophylactic rule announced in Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 68 L.Ed.2d 378 (1981), the Plugh I majority concluded that Plugh had taken sufficient action on these facts to trigger that rule. Plugh I, 576 F.3d at 141-42. While acknowledging that Plugh's statements, `I am not sure if I should be talking to you' and `I don't know if I need a lawyer' appear ambiguous, the majority found that Plugh's ultimate actionhis refusal to sign [the advice-of-rights form]constituted an unequivocally negative answer to the question posed . . . namely, whether he was willing to waive his rights. Id. at 142 (quoting Plugh, 522 F.Supp.2d at 487). In so concluding, the Plugh I majority expressly rejected application of the standard articulated in Davis, 512 U.S. at 452, 114 S.Ct. 2350, whereby a defendant must unambiguously invoke his rights in order to cut off questioning. The panel majority reasoned, in reliance on its view of the law at the time Plugh I was decided, that Davis applies only in circumstances in which a defendant makes a claim that he subsequently invoked previously waived Fifth Amendment rights. Plugh I, 576 F.3d at 143. Chief Judge Jacobs dissented, arguing principally that the Davis standard should apply on these facts and that Plugh's conduct, considered in totem, besp[oke] indecision and ambiguity. Id. at 146 (Jacobs, C.J., dissenting). With respect to the refusal to sign the waiver-of-rights form in particular, Chief Judge Jacobs argued that, in context, it was wholly consistent with the expression of uncertainty and was thus insufficient to unambiguously invoke the defendant's Fifth Amendment rights. Id. at 145.