Opinion ID: 854149
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The nature and constitutional footings of Ajabu's claim

Text: The Supreme Court of the United States has rejected nearly identical contentions under the Constitution of the United States. In Moran v. Burbine, 475 U.S. 412, 106 S.Ct. 1135, 89 L.Ed.2d 410 (1986), the Court squarely held that neither the Fifth Amendment nor the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of due process is violated by admission of a confession obtained after an attorney, unknown to the suspect, unsuccessfully seeks to intervene in an interrogation. Recognizing the insuperable hurdle Burbine presents as a matter of federal constitutional doctrine, Ajabu urges us to hold that the Indiana Constitution is violated where (1) police fail to inform a suspect prior to interrogation of a lawyer's unsolicited and unknown efforts to contact the suspect; or (2) police do not honor counsel's request to be present during any questioning. He argues that his waiver of his right to be free from self-incrimination was not knowing, voluntary, and intelligent under these circumstances. Stated another way, Ajabu's claim is that a confession that is voluntary in a volitional sense must nonetheless be excluded, because he was unaware of the lawyer's efforts to reach him, and this knowledge would have affected his decision to speak with authorities. Ajabu correctly observes that Burbine does not prevent Indiana from providing greater procedural guarantees for defendants on independent state grounds. Id. at 428, 106 S.Ct. at 1144-45. The State responds that the Indiana constitutional right is equivalent to the Fifth Amendment, and therefore reflects Burbine, or at least the Indiana right is not more protective than the Fifth Amendment. In assessing this claim, we first must be clear about the nature of the right at issue. The federal right to counsel as protected by the Sixth Amendment, so as to ensure a fair trial after charges are filed, cf. United States v. Gouveia, 467 U.S. 180, 104 S.Ct. 2292, 81 L.Ed.2d 146 (1984), is not implicated here because Ajabu had not been charged or arraigned at the time of the alleged constitutional deprivation. [3] Nor does Ajabu cite the state constitutional provision guaranteeing that [i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall have the right to ... be heard by himself and counsel... IND. CONST. art. I, § 13. Rather, in moving to suppress his statements at trial, Ajabu relied solely on his right to be free from self-incrimination under the Constitutions of Indiana (Article I, Section 14) and the United States (Fifth Amendment). Accordingly, we do not address the possible application of the Section 13 right to counsel to these facts. [4] Because it is rooted in the right to be free from self-incrimination, Ajabu's claim is grounded on his right to elect to have a lawyer present during pre-charge interrogation for prophylactic reasons established in Miranda. The issue presented, therefore, is whether that right was violated where Ajabu did not request an attorney during or before interrogation and did not know of the activities of the lawyer his father had contacted. [5]