Opinion ID: 1609293
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Analysis of Hattaway and Sixth Amendment Jurisprudence:

Text: Because the conclusions in Hattaway were based in large part on a misapprehension of United States Supreme Court jurisprudence, we begin our analysis by reviewing the applicable federal jurisprudence concerning when the Sixth Amendment right to counsel attaches, at what subsequent stages it applies, and whether it can be waived. Thereafter, we will address whether the right to counsel protected under La. Const. Art. I, Sec. 13 differs from the Sixth Amendment right to counsel on these issues and, if so, consequently warrants a different result in this case.
As correctly noted in Hattaway, the Sixth Amendment right to counsel attaches only after the commencement of adverse judicial criminal proceedings. In the plurality opinion of Kirby v. Illinois, 406 U.S. 682, 689, 92 S.Ct. 1877, 1882, 32 L.Ed.2d 411 (1972), the Supreme Court held the right to counsel does not attach prior to the initiation of adversary judicial criminal proceedings whether by way of formal charge, preliminary hearing, indictment, information, or arraignment. In an oft-quoted passage, the Court explained why the Sixth Amendment right to counsel does not attach until this point in the proceedings. The initiation of judicial criminal proceedings is far from a mere formalism. It is the starting point of our whole system of adversary criminal justice. For it is only then that the government has committed itself to prosecute, and only then that the adverse positions of government and defendant have solidified. It is then that a defendant finds himself faced with the prosecutorial forces of organized society, and immersed in the intricacies of substantive and procedural criminal law. It is this point, therefore, that marks the commencement of the criminal prosecutions to which alone the explicit guarantees of the Sixth Amendment are applicable. Kirby, Id. at 689-90, 92 S.Ct. at 1882. The Court has never waivered from this holding, and it has been reiterated time and again in subsequent jurisprudence. [3] Even though the Sixth Amendment right to counsel may have attached, however, it does not exist to protect the defendant at all post-attachment proceedings. The right exists only during those post-attachment, pre-trial confrontations which can be considered critical stages. In United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 224, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 1931, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149 (1967), the Court described a critical stage as a critical pretrial confrontation[] where the results might well settle the accused's fate and reduce the trial to a mere formality. See also United States v. Gouveia, 467 U.S. 180, 189, 104 S.Ct. 2292, 2298, 81 L.Ed.2d 146 (1984) (A critical stage is a pretrial proceeding where the accused [is] confronted, just as at trial, by the procedural system, or by his expert adversary, or by both.) (quoting United States v. Ash, 413 U.S. 300, 310, 93 S.Ct. 2568, 2574, 37 L.Ed.2d 619 (1973)). Interrogation of the defendant, when occurring after the attachment of the right to counsel, is a critical stage of the proceedings entitling a defendant whose Sixth Amendment right has attached to the assistance of counsel during the interrogation. Michigan v. Jackson, 475 U.S. 625, 629-30, 106 S.Ct. 1404, 1407-08, 89 L.Ed.2d 631 (1986) (citations omitted) (The arraignment [under Michigan law] signals `the initiation of adversary judicial proceedings' and thus the attachment of the Sixth Amendment, thereafter, government efforts to elicit information from the accused, including interrogation, represent `critical stages' at which the Sixth Amendment applies.); Brewer v. Williams, 430 U.S. 387, 400-01, 97 S.Ct. 1232, 1240, 51 L.Ed.2d 424 (1977); Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201, 84 S.Ct. 1199, 12 L.Ed.2d 246 (1964). In sum, a defendant has a Sixth Amendment right to counsel only after adversary criminal proceedings have been initiated against him, and then, only at specific, critical stages of the proceedings. Consequently, the Sixth Amendment right to counsel is only an issue where adversary judicial criminal proceedings have begun against defendant and where defendant lacks assistance of counsel at a critical stage of the proceedings. [4] Turning to the right to counsel protected under La. Const. Art. I, Sec. 13, the Hattaway court held the right to counsel under this constitutional provision attaches no later than a defendant's initial court appearance or first judicial hearing and thereafter applies to those pre-trial proceedings which would be considered critical stages under the jurisprudence interpreting the Sixth Amendment. It is clear interrogation of the defendant, when occurring after the attachment of the right to counsel, is a critical stage of the proceedings, or under Louisiana law, a stage of the proceedings entitling defendant to the presence of an attorney. We need not decide today however, whether we were correct in Hattaway that an initial appearance under La.C.Cr.P. Art. 230.1 marks the initiation of adversary judicial criminal proceedings. Even if defendant's right to counsel under the Sixth Amendment or La. Const. Art. I, Sec. 13 attached at his initial appearance, we find defendant made a valid waiver of his right to counsel prior to making the statement at issue herein.
We turn now to whether a defendant under the circumstances described above can waive his right to counsel under either the United States Constitution or the Louisiana Constitution of 1974. As stated earlier, in Hattaway we held that such a right could not be waived once defendant had retained or accepted by appointment an attorney to represent him. This conclusion was based on a review of United States Supreme Court jurisprudence which dealt only with covert interrogation of a defendant and the assumption that the framers of the 1974 Constitution intended to adopt this jurisprudence as the meaning of our right to counsel for all types of interrogation under La. Const. Art. I, Sec. 13. However, our analysis of this issue in Hattaway improperly failed to additionally consider the United States Supreme Court jurisprudence on waiver of the right to counsel during overt interrogation of a defendant. As such, to the extent that the broad language used in the Hattaway opinion dealing with waiver also applies to overt interrogation, that opinion is hereby overruled. Contrary to the findings of the Hattaway court, the United States Supreme Court has not erected a per se barrier to a represented defendant's waiving the right to counsel on his own with respect to incriminating statements deliberately elicited by the state after the commencement of accusatory or adverse judicial criminal proceedings. Hattaway, 621 So.2d at 803. The court's error can be explained by its focus only on cases dealing with covert interrogation of a defendant. By their very nature, covert interrogations involve situations where a defendant does not realize his statements are falling into the hands of the police to be used against him. Consequently, as will be explained more fully infra, waiver of the right to counsel is not even an issue because defendant is not given an opportunity to waive his right to counsel, is not aware he has a right to counsel at the time he makes the statements, and does not realize he is actually undergoing a form of interrogation by the police. [5] The United States Supreme Court noted the difference between the two forms of interrogation in U.S. v. Henry, 447 U.S. 264, 273, 100 S.Ct. 2183, 2188, 65 L.Ed.2d 115 (1980), a covert interrogation case. An accused speaking to a known Government agent is typically aware that his statements may be used against him. The adversary positions at that stage are well established; the parties are then arms' length adversaries. When the accused is in the company of a fellow inmate who is acting by prearrangement as a Government agent, the same cannot be said. Conversation stimulated in such circumstances may elicit information that an accused would not intentionally reveal to persons known to be Government agents. Indeed the Massiah Court noted that if the Sixth Amendment is to have any efficacy it must apply to indirect and surreptitious interrogations as well as those conducted in the jailhouse..... Moreover, the concept of a knowing and voluntary waiver of Sixth Amendment rights does not apply in the context of communications with an undisclosed undercover informant acting for the government. See also Kuhlmann v. Wilson, 477 U.S. 436, 459, 106 S.Ct. 2616, 2630, 91 L.Ed.2d 364 (1986) (As our recent examination of the Sixth Amendment issue in Moulton makes clear, the primary concern of the Massiah line of decisions is secret interrogation by investigatory techniques that are the equivalent of direct police interrogation.) and Miller v. California, 392 U.S. 616, 626, 88 S.Ct. 2258, 2266, 20 L.Ed.2d 1332 (1968) (a covert interrogation case) (At all events, Fisk was not put in the cell to discuss the weather, or console petitioner, or merely to provide her with companionship. Her presence itself was an inducement to speak, and an inducement by a police agent. While petitioner's statements to her were not obtained by coercive means, they certainly were not given, in light of the deception, through a knowing and intelligent waiver of petitioner's rights.); Tinsley v. Purvis, 731 F.2d 791 (11th Cir. 1984) (In Massiah the incriminating statements were surreptitiously obtained from the defendant who was out on bail, therefore, there was no issue of whether the defendant had waived his right to counsel.); 1 LaFave & Israel, Criminal Procedure, Sec. 6.4, p. 473 (1984) (Waiver is a possibility only when the defendant makes a statement to one known to be in a position adverse to him.) (citing United States v. Henry, 447 U.S. 264, 100 S.Ct. 2183, 65 L.Ed.2d 115 (1980)).