Opinion ID: 1674080
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The Right to Advice Concerning Counsel and to Remain Silent

Text: The contention that the admissions, reenactments and confessions were inadmissible in evidence because they were made outside the presence of counsel and because the accused were not advised of their right to counsel or told that they could remain silent is also without merit. Prior to the decision in Miranda v. State of Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694, decided June 13, 1966, Louisiana had no law excluding, and the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution had not been extended to exclude, confessions made where the accused had not been advised of his right to counsel or told that he could remain silent. The case at bar was tried when the law was in that condition. Since the decision in the Miranda case these standards have been altered to require advice to a suspect of his right to counsel before an in-custody interrogation can take place, otherwise a violation of constitutional rights occurs. U.S.Const. amend. VI. But in Johnson v. State of New Jersey, 384 U.S. 719, 86 S.Ct. 1772, 16 L.Ed. 2d 882, decided June 20, 1966, the Federal Supreme Court held that the requirement that the accused be advised of his right to counsel would not be retrospective in effect and would not apply to trials begun before June 13, 1966, the date of the Miranda decision. The Johnson case also held that the advice relating to the right to counsel required by the decision in Escobedo v. State of Illinois, 378 U.S. 478, 84 S.Ct. 1758, 12 L.Ed.2d 877 (1964), upon which defendants rely, would not be imposed in trials begun prior to June 22, 1964, the date of the Escobedo decision. Trial in the instant case was begun on September 21, 1964. Miranda, therefore, is not pertinent, whereas the Escobedo decision would be controlling if the facts of the case before us were similar to those in Escobedo. The precise holding of Escobedo was that statements elicited by the police during an interrogation may not be used against the accused at a criminal trial:    [Where] the investigation is no longer a general inquiry into an unsolved crime but has begun to focus on a particular suspect, the suspect has been taken into police custody, the police carry out a process of interrogations that lends itself to eliciting incriminating statements, the suspect has requested and been denied an opportunity to consult with his lawyer, and the police have not effectively warned him of his absolute constitutional right to remain silent   . (Emphasis added.) See also Johnson v. State of New Jersey, supra, and State v. Bourg, 248 La. 844, 182 So.2d 510 (1966). As the State's brief points out, the factual situation which formed the basis for the decision in Escobedo does not exist herethat is, the accused in this prosecution did not ask to consult with a lawyer before talking to the police, nor did they have a lawyer who sought to speak to them.