Opinion ID: 2442105
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Miranda and Edwards

Text: In Miranda v. Arizona , [6] the Supreme Court held that police must follow certain procedures to protect a suspect's Fifth Amendment privilege against compelled self-incrimination from the inherently compelling pressures of custodial interrogation. [7] Unless those procedures are followed, the Court stated, no statement obtained from the defendant can truly be the product of his free choice. [8] In brief, to counteract the coercive pressure of custodial interrogation, the police must inform a suspect before any questioning that he has both a right to remain silent and a right to the presence of an attorney. [9] If the suspect, at any time prior to or during questioning, invokes his right to remain silent, the interrogation must cease. [10] If the suspect requests counsel, the interrogation must cease until an attorney is present. [11] Furthermore, [e]ven absent the suspect's invocation of these Fifth Amendment rights, his statement during a custodial interrogation is inadmissible at trial unless the prosecution can establish that the accused `in fact knowingly and voluntarily waived [his] rights' when making the statement. [12] For a waiver to be valid, it must be `voluntary in the sense that it was the product of a free and deliberate choice rather than intimidation, coercion, or deception,' and `made with a full awareness of both the nature of the right being abandoned and the consequences of the decision to abandon it.' [13] Thus, any evidence that the [suspect] was threatened, tricked, or cajoled into a waiver will, of course, show that [he] did not voluntarily waive his privilege. [14] And the suspect must be aware that his right to remain silent would not dissipate after a certain amount of time and that police would have to honor his right to be silent and his right to counsel during the whole course of interrogation. [15] In other words, the suspect [must] know [ ] that [his] Miranda rights can be invoked at any time. [16] In Michigan v. Mosley , [17] the Supreme Court emphasized that the critical safeguard in Miranda's framework is the suspect's right to cut off questioning: Through the exercise of his option to terminate questioning [the suspect] can control the time at which questioning occurs, the subjects discussed, and the duration of the interrogation. The requirement that law enforcement authorities must respect a person's exercise of that option counteracts the coercive pressures of the custodial setting.[ [18] ] Accordingly, the Court concluded, the admissibility of statements obtained after the person in custody has decided to remain silent depends under Miranda on whether his `right to cut off questioning' was `scrupulously honored.' [19] In Edwards v. Arizona, [20] the Supreme Court determined that even the requirement of a knowing, intelligent, and voluntary waiver is not sufficient by itself to protect a suspect's Fifth Amendment rights once the suspect has asked for counsel; additional safeguards are necessary. [21] The Court accordingly added what it subsequently called a second layer of prophylaxis, [22] by holding that when an accused has invoked his right to have counsel present during custodial interrogation, a valid waiver of that right cannot be established by showing only that he responded to further police-initiated custodial interrogation even if he has been advised of his rights.... [H]aving expressed his desire to deal with the police only through counsel, [the accused] is not subject to further interrogation by the authorities until counsel has been made available to him, unless the accused himself initiates further communication, exchanges, or conversations with the police.[ [23] ] And, the Court also held, if the suspect chooses to re-initiate further communication with the police, any resumption of custodial interrogation requires that there then be a valid waiver of the right to counsel and the right to silence. [24] In conjunction with these holdings, the Edwards Court took pains to reemphasize Miranda's earlier holding that at the time the suspect asserts his right to counsel, the interrogation must cease. [25] The connection between that requirement and the Edwards initiation-and-waiver requirements for any recommencement of the interrogation is clear. The fundamental purpose of the Edwards rule is to preserve the integrity of an accused's choice to communicate with police only through counsel, by preventing police from badgering a defendant into waiving his previously asserted Miranda rights. [26] The premise of the rule is that, once a suspect asks for counsel, subsequent requests for interrogation pose a significantly greater risk of coercion stemming not only from the police's persistence in trying to get the suspect to talk, but also from the continued pressure that begins when the individual is taken into custody as a suspect and sought to be interrogatedpressure likely to increase as custody is prolonged. [27] The Edwards presumption of involuntariness ensures that police will not take advantage of the mounting coercive pressures of prolonged police custody, by repeatedly attempting to question a suspect who previously requested counsel until the suspect is badgered into submission. [28] In other words, the suspect must understand that he has a genuine, unconstrained choice whether to permit further interrogation or not; he must know[ ] from his earlier experience that he need only demand counsel to bring the interrogation to a halt. [29] Otherwise Edwards's suspect-initiation-and-waiver requirement cannot serve its intended purpose; it would be meaningless or illusory. Consequently, where the police have disregarded a suspect's assertion of his Fifth Amendment right to counsel by continuing his custodial interrogation in counsel's absence and persisting in repeated efforts to wear down his resistance and make him change his mind, [30] and thereby have conveyed to the suspect that he has no real choice whether he will be interrogated further, Edwards's preconditions for the resumption of the interrogation cannot be met (unless adequate curative measures are taken). As the Eleventh Circuit has explained, Although Edwards permits further interrogation if the accused initiates the conversation, the validity of this waiver logically depends on the accused being free from further interrogation. In other words, the initiation must come prior to the further interrogation; initiation only becomes an issue if the agents follow Edwards and cease interrogation upon a request for counsel.... Edwards would be rendered meaningless if agents were permitted to continue interrogation after the request for counsel, and then claim that the consequent response by the accused represented initiation and permitted a waiver of the asserted counsel right.[ [31] ]