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

Heading: Application of the Berghuis Standard

Text: As Berghuis instructs, the relevant inquiry is whether the defendant unambiguously invoked his Miranda rights. Berghuis, 130 S.Ct. at 2260. Here, we conclude he did not. [2] As a preliminary matter, it is undisputed that Plugh did not expressly state that he wanted to remain silent or that he wanted to consult with an attorney. See Plugh, 522 F.Supp.2d at 488 (The defendant never specifically requested an attorney, nor did he ever-specifically indicate that he did not want to speak with law enforcement.); cf. Berghuis, 130 S.Ct. at 2260 (Had [the defendant] made either of those simple, unambiguous statements, he would have invoked his [rights]. Here he did neither, so he did not invoke his right[s]. (internal quotation marks omitted)). Indeed, Plugh's only statements'I am not sure if I should be talking to you' and `I don't know if I need a lawyer'were appropriately deemed ambiguous by the Plugh I majority. Plugh I, 576 F.3d at 142. Those facts alone give us strong reason to doubt that Plugh successfully invoked his rights in a manner sufficient to cut off all further questioning. Cf. Davis, 512 U.S. at 462, 114 S.Ct. 2350 (Unless the suspect actually requests an attorney, questioning may continue. (emphasis added)); see also Berghuis, 130 S.Ct. at 2276 (Sotomayor, J., dissenting) (characterizing Berghuis as announcing a clear-statement rule). Plugh instead argues that he invoked his Miranda rights through his unequivocal refusal to sign a waiver of rights form. We disagree. While we do not question the Plugh I majority's conclusion that Plugh gave an unequivocally negative answer with respect to the waiver form, Plugh I, 576 F.3d at 142, as this case amply demonstrates, a refusal to waive rights, however unequivocal, is not necessarily equivalent to an unambiguous decision to invoke them. Indeed, the Supreme Court has made clear that [i]nvocation and waiver are entirely distinct inquiries, and the two must not be blurred by merging them together. Smith v. Illinois, 469 U.S. 91, 98, 105 S.Ct. 490, 83 L.Ed.2d 488 (1984) (per curiam). Accordingly, invocation and waiver are governed by different standards, see, e.g., Berghuis, 130 S.Ct. at 2259-60, and carry critically different consequences, compare Davis, 512 U.S. at 458, 114 S.Ct. 2350 (If the suspect . . . waives his right to counsel after receiving the Miranda warnings, law enforcement officers are free to question him.), with Edwards, 451 U.S. at 484, 101 S.Ct. 1880 ([W]e now hold that when an accused has invoked his right to have counsel present during custodial interrogation. . .. [he cannot be] subject to further interrogation by the authorities until counsel has been made available to him. . ..); see also Smith, 469 U.S. at 98, 105 S.Ct. 490 (The importance of keeping the two inquiries distinct is manifest.). Consistent with Miranda, all criminal defendants must be apprised of certain rights before a custodial interrogation may begin, including, of course, the right to remain silent and be afforded the assistance of counsel. But once those warnings are properly administeredas they, without question, were in this casea defendant is left to make his own choice as to how best to proceed. See Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298, 308, 105 S.Ct. 1285, 84 L.Ed.2d 222 (1985) (Once warned, the suspect is free to exercise his own volition in deciding whether or not to make a statement to the authorities.). Without question, the most legally remarkable and distinct choices a defendant can make are to (1) unambiguously invoke those rights and thereby cut off further questioning or (2) knowingly and voluntarily waive those rights and cooperate fully. But between those two analytic end posts is a significant middle groundone all too familiar to those with law enforcement experience occupied by those suspects who are simply unsure of how they wish to proceed. With respect to these defendants, Miranda and its progeny impose no further burdens on law enforcement officers because once a defendant has been fully apprised of his rights, the law has no preference as between invocation and waiver. Plugh I, 576 F.3d at 149 (Jacobs, C.J., dissenting); see also Davis, 512 U.S. at 462, 114 S.Ct. 2350 ([W]e are unwilling to create a third layer of prophylaxis to prevent police questioning when a suspect might want a lawyer.). Plugh's conduct, on the whole, makes clear that he found himself in that middle ground. While his refusal to sign the form presented to him upon arrest may have unequivocally established that he did not wish to waive his rights at that time, his concurrent statements made equally clear he was also not seeking to invoke his rights and thus cut off all further questioning at that point. Those statements, which as noted, the Plugh I majority deemed ambiguous, bespoke indecisioni.e., `I am not sure if I should be talking to you'and contemplationi.e., `I don't know if I need a lawyer.' Cf. Davis, 512 U.S. at 455, 462, 114 S.Ct. 2350 (finding statement [m]aybe I should talk to a lawyer too ambiguous to successfully invoke the right to counsel.). Plugh then continued to express uncertainty about how he wished to proceed by repeatedly asking the agents, during the drive to the FBI field office, for advice on what to do. Critically, at no point did Plugh unambiguously inform the custodial officers that he wished to invoke his right to remain silent or his right to speak with an attorney, nor was his course of conduct such that the officers should reasonably have been put on notice that, consistent with Michigan v. Mosley, 423 U.S. 96, 104, 96 S.Ct. 321, 46 L.Ed.2d 313 (1975), and Edwards, no further questioning could occur. We note, in this respect, that the Court has long made clear that the purpose of Miranda in the first place was to create clearcut rules that could be readily understood and administered by officers, Miranda, 384 U.S. at 469, 86 S.Ct. 1602. In particular, because it is police officers who must actually decide whether or not they can question a suspect, the law should avoid forcing them to make difficult judgment calls about whether the suspect in fact wants [to invoke his rights], even though he has not [expressly] said so, with the threat of suppression if they guess wrong, Davis, 512 U.S. at 461, 114 S.Ct. 2350; see also Berghuis, 130 S.Ct. at 2260 (A requirement of an unambiguous invocation of Miranda rights results in an objective inquiry that avoids difficulties of proof and . . . provides guidance to officers on how to proceed in the face of ambiguity.) (internal quotation marks, alterations omitted) (ellipsis in original). Consistent with those principles, and because Plugh's conduct and statements were, on the whole, unclear, conflicted, and ambiguous, we cannot conclude that he invoked his rights in a manner sufficient to cut off all further questioning. In concluding otherwise, the Plugh I majority relied heavily on our opinion in Quiroz which, as noted, 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. Plugh I, 576 F.3d at 141. To the extent Quiroz can be read as articulating such a rule, that rule does not survive Berghuis. While we need not and do not decide whether a refusal to sign a waiver-of-rights form could, itself, ever amount to sufficient action to trigger the . . . prophylactic rule announced in Edwards, it suffices to say, as the facts of this case amply demonstrate, that such a refusal will not always constitute sufficient action particularly where, as here, it is accompanied by statements indicating ambivalence or uncertainty. Nor can we accept the proposition that because Plugh's conduct with respect to his rights was not clear, the custodial officers should have instead ask[ed] clarifying questions to determine if [the] suspect [was] exercising his rights. Id. at 140-41 (citing United States v. Ramirez, 79 F.3d 298, 304 (2d Cir.1996)). As the Court has held before and emphasized again in Berghuis, absent an unambiguous invocation, custodial officers have no obligation to stop questioning or to ask only questions intended at clarifying an ambiguous statement. See Berghuis, 130 S.Ct. at 2259-60 (If an accused makes a statement. . . that is ambiguous or equivocal or makes no statement, the police are not required to end the interrogation, or ask questions to clarify whether the accused wants to invoke his or her Miranda rights.  (internal quotation marks, citations omitted) (emphasis added)); see also Davis, 512 U.S. at 461-62, 114 S.Ct. 2350 ([W]e decline to adopt a rule requiring officers to ask clarifying questions. If the suspect's statement is not an unambiguous or unequivocal [invocation] . . ., the officers have no obligation to stop questioning him.). In sum, we conclude on these facts that Plugh did not unambiguously invoke his right to remain silent or to speak with an attorney. As such, the custodial officers were under no obligation to cease all further questioning, nor are Plugh's subsequent statements made without the presence of an attorney automatically inadmissible.