Opinion ID: 3194696
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Heading: Constitutionality of the Admission of the

Text: Statement Pursuant to Established Sixth Amendment Precedent The Sixth Amendment, made applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, provides in relevant part that “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right . . . to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.” U.S. Const. amend VI. Dellavecchia relies on the progeny of Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201, 84 S.Ct. 1199 (1964), to contend that the trial court’s admission of his hospital statement 20 to Willoughby was an “unreasonable application of” Supreme Court precedent. The Sixth Amendment “serves to safeguard the adversarial process by ensuring that once the right to counsel has attached the accused ‘need not stand alone against the State’ at any ‘critical stage’ of the aggregate proceedings against him.”6 Bey v. Morton, 124 F.3d 524, 528 (3d Cir. 1997) (quoting Estelle v. Smith, 451 U.S. 454, 470, 101 S.Ct. 1866, 1876-77 (1981)). The Supreme Court long has held that “an individual who stands indicted of a crime is denied his right to counsel when agents of the state circumvent that right by ‘deliberately eliciting’ inculpatory statements from him in the absence of his counsel, absent a voluntary and knowing waiver.” Id. (alteration omitted) (quoting Michigan v. Harvey, 494 U.S. 344, 348-49, 110 S.Ct. 1176, 1179 (1990)). The “deliberate elicitation” doctrine is derived from Massiah, a case in which the Court concluded that the Sixth Amendment protections extend to “indirect and surreptitious interrogations as well as those conducted in the jailhouse.” Massiah, 377 U.S. at 206, 84 S.Ct. at 1203. The Supreme Court applied this doctrine in the wellknown case of Brewer v. Williams, 430 U.S. 387, 97 S.Ct. 1232 (1977), which involved a Christmas Eve murder of a ten-yearold girl in Des Moines, Iowa. Id. at 390, 97 S.Ct. at 1235. Two days after the girl disappeared while her whereabouts still were unknown, an individual who became the defendant in the case, Robert Williams, on advice of a Des Moines attorney, Henry 6 The Commonwealth does not dispute that Dellavecchia’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel had attached at the time that he made his post-arraignment hospital statement. 21 McKnight, turned himself in to the police in Davenport, Iowa, 160 miles from Des Moines. Id. In Davenport, a second attorney represented Williams at his arraignment and advised Williams not to make any statements until he consulted with McKnight. Id. at 391, 97 S.Ct. at 1236. Moreover, the police advised Williams of his Miranda rights while he was in Davenport. After Williams surrendered, two officers from the Des Moines police department traveled to Davenport to take custody of him to transport him to Des Moines. Id. Before the trip, McKnight, who was waiting in Des Moines, advised Williams on the telephone not to speak to the officers while they were taking him to Des Moines. Id. at 391, 97 S.Ct. at 1235. Moreover, McKnight told the officers not to interrogate him. Id. at 391, 97 S.Ct. at 1236. The Supreme Court indicated that “[a]t no time during the trip did Williams express a willingness to be interrogated in the absence of an attorney. Instead, he stated several times that ‘[w]hen I get to Des Moines and see [my attorney], I am going to tell you the whole story.’” Id. at 392, 97 S.Ct. at 1236. During the transport, a Des Moines detective delivered what has since been called the “Christian burial speech.” Id. The detective, who knew that Williams was an escaped mental patient and a deeply religious man, id. at 403, 97 S.Ct. at 1241, asked Williams to think about the fact that the weather conditions were poor and a delay in identifying the location of the girl’s body could prevent her eventual discovery, thus denying her parents the ability to give her a “Christian burial.” Id. at 392-93, 97 S.Ct. at 1236-37. Following this speech, Williams informed the officers that he would show them the location of the body, and ultimately he did so. Id. at 393, 97 22 S.Ct. at 1237. The critical point in the Supreme Court’s opinion holding that there was a Sixth Amendment violation was that a detective transporting him to Des Moines “deliberately and designedly set out to elicit information from Williams just as surely as—and perhaps more effectively than—if he had formally interrogated him.” Id. at 399, 97 S.Ct. at 1240. The Court expressly noted that “he purposely sought during Williams’ isolation from his lawyers to obtain as much incriminating information as possible.” Id. In the Court’s view, this approach amounted to an interrogation so that its occurrence in the absence of counsel constituted a violation of Williams’s Sixth Amendment rights. Id. at 401, 97 S.Ct. 1240-41. The Supreme Court’s development of Sixth Amendment law continued in United States v. Henry, 447 U.S. 264, 100 S.Ct. 2183 (1980). In Henry, the government obtained the assistance of a confidential informant inmate housed in the same cellblock with Henry who was then awaiting trial for bank robbery. Id. at 266, 100 S.Ct. at 2184. The FBI agent in charge of the investigation instructed the confidential informant “to be alert to any statements” but “not to initiate any conversation with or question Henry regarding the bank robbery.” Id. at 266, 100 S.Ct. at 2184-85. Ultimately, the informant testified at trial that he had “an opportunity to have some conversations with Mr. Henry while he was in jail” and Henry had “described to him the details of the robbery[.]” Id. at 267, 100 S.Ct. at 2185 (internal quotation marks omitted). The Supreme Court concluded that the above interaction was impermissible. Id. at 274, 100 S.Ct. at 2189. The Court highlighted the fact that, according to the testimony of the 23 informant, he was “not a passive listener; rather, he had some conversations with Mr. Henry while he was in jail and Henry’s incriminatory statements were the product of this conversation.” Id. at 271, 100 S.Ct. at 2187 (internal quotation marks omitted). The Court likewise emphasized that Henry was unaware of the inmate’s role as a government informant. Id. at 272, 100 S.Ct. at 2188. In light of these factors, the Court held that “[b]y intentionally creating a situation likely to induce Henry to make incriminating statements without the assistance of counsel, the Government violated Henry’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel.” Id. at 274, 100 S.Ct. at 2189. In contrast to what happened in Henry, the Supreme Court found that the facts in Kuhlmann did not constitute a Sixth Amendment violation. Kuhlmann, like Henry, involved a jailhouse informant, but in Kuhlmann the trial court expressly noted that the defendant’s statements to the informant were “unsolicited” and “spontaneous.” Kuhlmann, 477 U.S. at 440, 106 S.Ct. at 2620 (internal quotation marks omitted). Specifically, the trial court found that the informant “at no time asked any questions with respect to the crime” and that he “only listened to [the defendant] and made notes regarding what [the defendant] had to say.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). The Supreme Court made clear that “the Sixth Amendment is not violated whenever—by luck or happenstance—the State obtains incriminating statements from the accused after the right to counsel has attached[.]” Id. at 459, 106 S.Ct. at 2630 (quoting Maine v. Moulton, 474 U.S. 159, 176, 106 S.Ct. 477, 487 (1985)). Rather, to show a violation, “the defendant must demonstrate that the police and their informant took some action, beyond merely listening, that was designed deliberately to elicit incriminating remarks.” Id. 24 Applying the Supreme Court’s Sixth Amendment precedent to the facts here, we conclude that Willoughby by his conduct did not deliberately elicit a statement from Dellavecchia.7 As was true of the informant in Kuhlmann, Willoughby did nothing more than listen to a defendant’s spontaneous and unsolicited statement that was both unprompted and willingly provided. In contrast to what happened in Brewer where the Court found “no serious doubt” that the police officer “deliberately and designedly set out to elicit information,” here the state courts concluded that Willoughby did not go to the hospital with the intent to question Dellavecchia. Brewer, 430 U.S. at 499, 97 S.Ct. at 1240. We have no basis on which to reject that finding. Moreover, Dellavecchia asked whether—and was advised by Willoughby that—anything he said could be used against him. Thus, Willoughby rather than eliciting a statement from Dellavecchia in effect encouraged him to remain silent. After all, a police 7 Although our analysis turns, as it must, on “clearly established federal law[] as determined by the Supreme Court,” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1), our conclusion also comports with our own precedent. In Bey v. Morton, we analyzed the Supreme Court’s Sixth Amendment line of cases to determine if “there are any circumstances under which the state can deliberately undertake to secure incriminating information from a represented defendant in the absence of counsel and can thereafter use in court the incriminating information it obtains.” 124 F.3d at 530. We concluded that the “answer that has evolved is that it can, only if there is not ‘elicitation’—only if the government does no more than listen.” Id. “It cannot if the police or their informants question or otherwise encourage or facilitate the defendant’s discussion of the crime, and this is true even if the defendant initiates the discussion of the criminal conduct.” Id. 25 officer seeking to induce a defendant to make a statement would recognize that he would not be doing so by warning the defendant that if he made a statement, his statement could be used against him. In light of the unassailable state-court findings on the motion to suppress, the Superior Court, in affirming the common pleas court’s decision denying the motion with respect to Dellavecchia’s spontaneous statement, did not come to a conclusion that unreasonably applied clearly established Federal law as determined by the Supreme Court and did not make an unreasonable determination of the facts.8 In short, there is nothing in the Massiah line of cases requiring a police officer to reject or ignore a defendant’s voluntary statements. To the contrary, when a defendant provides an uninterrupted narrative about his offenses, a state has no obligation to hinder him in making that statement and is not required to persuade an otherwise willing individual to remain silent. Even though the Supreme Court has said “that the clear rule of Massiah is that once adversary proceedings have commenced against an individual, he has a right to legal representation when the government interrogates him,” Brewer, 430 U.S. at 401, 97 S.Ct. at 1240, spontaneous and unprompted statements voluntarily provided to the police may be used at trial when there has not been an interrogation of the type the Court described in Brewer. Here there was no such interrogation so Dellavecchia’s statement could be used at the trial. 8 While we review the Superior Court decision, we would reach the same result if we directly were reviewing the common pleas court’s decision. 26