Opinion ID: 2088275
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Fifth Amendment Self-Incrimination

Text: Among the rights of an accused in criminal proceedings set out in the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is that [n]o person ... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.... This guarantee, applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1, 3, 84 S.Ct. 1489, 1490, 12 L.Ed.2d 653 (1964), was the basis of the Miranda decision. Burbine casts light upon a concept of the Fifth Amendment guarantee heretofore so in the shadows as to be generally unnoticed, not only by us, but by a clear majority of the courts in other jurisdictions addressing the issue. See Lodowski, 302 Md. at 719-722, 490 A.2d 1228; Burbine, 106 S.Ct. at 1144-1145 (majority opinion), 1151-1152, 1158-1160 (Stevens, J., dissenting). Burbine held that the conduct of the police with respect to counsel for the suspect, whether reckless or deliberate, did not render ineffective the waiver, otherwise proper, of the right to remain silent and to the presence of counsel. Burbine, 106 S.Ct. at 1141-1142. It found, in the face of the conduct of the police, that the waiver of the Miranda rights was voluntary in the sense that the waiver was the product of a free and deliberate choice rather than intimidation, coercion or deception. Id. at 1142. And, although the majority characterized the conduct of the police as distasteful, they refused to extend the Miranda decision to condemn that conduct as offensive to the Fifth Amendment. Id. at 1142-1143. Further, the Court was not prepared to adopt a rule requiring that the police inform a suspect of an attorney's efforts to reach him. Id. at 1143-1144. Even though we do not find the Court's reasoning in arriving at these conclusions to be persuasive, we are nevertheless bound by its interpretation of the Federal Constitution. See Constitution of the United States, Art. VI; Declaration of Rights, Art. 2. As we have noted, the conduct of the police in obtaining the statement from Lodowski is not so distinguishable from the conduct of the police in obtaining the confessions from Burbine as to warrant our departure from the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Fifth Amendment's self-incrimination provision announced in Burbine. Therefore, in light of Burbine, assuming, but not deciding, that Lodowski's waiver of his Miranda rights to remain silent and to the presence of counsel was otherwise proper, we now hold that the waiver of the rights was not rendered ineffective under the Fifth Amendment by the failure of the police to inform him that counsel had been employed to represent him and were attempting to consult with him. Compare In re Lucas F., 68 Md. App. 97, 510 A.2d 270 (1986).