Opinion ID: 2299910
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Initiation by the accused.

Text: Thomas asserts that the police, and not Thomas, initiated the discussions that followed Thomas' original negative response to the fourth question on the PD-47 rights card, relating to his willingness to answer questions without an attorney. The judge found, to the contrary, that the defendant initiated further communication by stating, after being told by Detective Corbett that they had to stop talking because he wrote no to the fourth question, stating that he wanted to talk, he wanted to tell the police what happened. Thomas concedes that the judge's finding is supported by the evidence, but claims that, in context, Corbett's response to Thomas' invocation of rights  specifically, Corbett's statement that there could be no further discussion of the case because Thomas had answered the fourth question on the PD-47 in the negative  amounted to interrogation within the meaning of Rhode Island v. Innis, supra note 12, 446 U.S. at 301, 100 S.Ct. 1682. We believe that the judge's resolution of this issue was right on the mark: Turning to the facts of this case, no common-sense understanding of what Detective Corbett did after Mr. Thomas wrote no to the fourth question can be construed as a question or an interrogation. He simply stated the reality. The questioning had to stop now. They couldn't talk any more because Mr. Thomas wrote no to the fourth question. That's not a question. It's not a declarative sentence that can be construed as an interrogative sentence. We know there are some kinds of conduct that have been found in Supreme Court decisions and the decisions of the lower courts to constitute a question, even though they're not asked as a question. This doesn't fall into that category. This is a simple statement by the detective that questioning has to stop because the defendant had answered no to the fourth question. What happens next, again, in any common-sense understanding of what Mr. Thomas did, has to be considered an initiation by the defendant of further conversation, exchanges, or communications with the police. Very simply: Mr. Thomas wanted to talk. He wanted to talk about this case. That desire came out over and over again in his own testimony at this hearing. He admitted that he wanted to know why the police considered him a suspect, and he understood that the only way he was going to get that question answered was by giving a statement. We recently reiterated in Morris that the motivating factor behind Edwards is to discourage police interference with the exercise of the right to counsel. At 1222 (citation omitted). We noted that in Edwards, officials had extensively badgered the defendant to persuade him to waive his rights, and that the prophylactic rule of that case was designed to protect an accused in police custody from being badgered by police officers in the manner in which the defendant in Edwards was. Id. at 1221 (quoting Oregon v. Bradshaw, 462 U.S. 1039, 1044, 103 S.Ct. 2830, 77 L.Ed.2d 405 (1983) (plurality opinion)). We went on to hold that, in the absence of police badgering or interference with the exercise of the right to counsel of the kind that occurred in Edwards, the prophylactic doctrine of that case should not be expansively interpreted to apply, out of context, to situations critically different from the circumstances before the Supreme Court. Id. at 1222 (citation omitted). To treat Detective Corbett's statement that he would, in effect, comply with the Edwards rule (by not questioning Thomas further) as a violation of that rule would expand the decision in Edwards beyond recognition, and it would compel officers to walk a perilous tightrope; almost anything they said or did in response to a suspect's invocation of the right to counsel could lead to suppression of a voluntary confession, even if the suspect fully understood his rights. [21] Edwards' prophylactic rule was intended to serve as a protection of the right to counsel, not as a heads I win, tails you lose trap for the conscientious officer. [22]