Opinion ID: 2334546
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Lindsey's Right to Counsel Argument

Text: Lindsey's third argument as to why his confession was improperly admitted at trial is that he had a Sixth Amendment right to counsel at the time that Heara and Brigidini interviewed him, and that because this right was infringed, it was error for the trial court to admit his confession at trial. We conclude that this argument is contrary to the clear preponderance of legal authority that has addressed the issue. In Maine v. Moulton, 474 U.S. 159, 106 S.Ct. 477, 88 L.Ed.2d 481 (1985), the Supreme Court recognized that [t]he Sixth Amendment guarantees the accused, at least after the initiation of formal charges, the right to rely on counsel as a `medium' between him and the State. Id. at 176, 106 S.Ct. 477. The Court later held that the constitutional right to counsel is triggered at or after the time that judicial proceedings have been initiated . . . whether by way of formal charge, preliminary hearing, indictment, information, or arraignment. Fellers v. United States, 540 U.S. 519, 523, 124 S.Ct. 1019, 157 L.Ed.2d 1016 (2004) (quoting Brewer v. Williams, 430 U.S. 387, 398, 97 S.Ct. 1232, 51 L.Ed.2d 424 (1977)) (internal quotation marks omitted). In McNeil v. Wisconsin, 501 U.S. 171, 111 S.Ct. 2204, 115 L.Ed.2d 158 (1991), the Court determined that this right is offense specific, and cannot be invoked once for all future prosecutions, for it does not attach until a prosecution is commenced. Id. at 175, 111 S.Ct. 2204; see Sweet v. United States, 756 A.2d 366, 377-78 (D.C.2000). Judicial proceedings were not pending against Lindsey for the Johnson murder when Heara and Brigidini questioned him at the Maryland facility. Nonetheless, Lindsey argues that his right to counsel had previously attached in this case in 1992 when he was first arrested for the Johnson murder, and his right to counsel was still in effect when he was questioned again in connection with the same crime five years later. Whether a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to counsel survives the dismissal of a previous prosecution for the same criminal activity is another issue of first impression raised by this appeal, and we once again look to other jurisdictions for guidance. An often cited case that addresses this issue is United States v. Martinez, 972 F.2d 1100 (9th Cir.1992), where a defendant had first been charged with a particular crime in state court, thus triggering his right to counsel, those state charges were later dismissed, but federal authorities then questioned the defendant about the same crime outside of the presence of counsel. The Ninth Circuit held that the defendant's Sixth Amendment right was not re-triggered when he was questioned by the federal investigators: We are reluctant . . . to extend [the application of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel] indefinitely into the future after the initial charge is dismissed. . . . Such a broad prophylactic application of the Sixth Amendment runs counter to the reasoning of Moulton and McNeil, which stressed both the narrow application of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel and the importance of allowing police to initiate and pursue investigations. Id. at 1104-05. Martinez recognized, however, that this principle is not without its limits and that an appellant might well be entitled to suppression of his statements if the government breached its affirmative obligation not to act in a manner that circumvents and thereby dilutes the protection afforded by the right to counsel. Id. at 1105 (quoting United States v. Hines, 963 F.2d 255, 258 (9th Cir.1992)) (internal quotation marks omitted). Similarly, in United States v. Mapp, 170 F.3d 328, 334 (2d Cir.1999), cert. denied, 528 U.S. 901, 120 S.Ct. 239, 145 L.Ed.2d 200 (1999), the Second Circuit upheld the denial of a motion to suppress a statement under circumstances that are somewhat parallel to those here. Mapp had been charged with murder in state court, but the charge was dismissed. Four months later, federal prosecutors arranged for an informant, who was wired with a recorder, to speak with Mapp about the murder dismissed by the state. A few months thereafter, Mapp was indicted by the grand jury on the murder charge, and the tape of his conversation with the informant was introduced at this trial. Mapp claimed that the federal authorities had created a seamless web of incarceration and prosecution to avoid the attachment of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel. The court held there was no evidence that state and federal authorities colluded to manipulate the timing of the dismissal and filing of charges in a manner calculated to deprive an individual of his right to counsel, id. at 334, and that the right to counsel that had attached when he was charged with murder by the state authorities did not survive the dismissal of those charges. In United States v. Montgomery, 262 F.3d 233, 246-47 (4th Cir.2001), cert. denied, 534 U.S. 1034, 122 S.Ct. 576, 151 L.Ed.2d 448 (2001), the Fourth Circuit, confronted with a similar argument, wrote: Adoption of [the appellant's] argument would provide a once-indicted defendant with a permanent constitutional shield. Neither the Sixth Amendment nor the Supreme Court's explication of the rights guaranteed by it countenance such a result. . . . [M]ost courts to consider the question have refused to hold that once a defendant has been charged, even after those charges are dismissed, the police and their agents are barred from questioning him about the subject matter of those charges unless his counsel is present. Id. (quoting Mapp, supra, 170 F.3d at 334); see also United States v. Skipworth, 697 F.2d 281, 283-84 (10th Cir.1983) (rejecting defendant's theory that when [the] right to counsel attaches in a state prosecution it carries over to a subsequent federal investigation made after the dismissal of the state charges). Several courts have also addressed this issue in the same context we have here, that is, where charges have been dismissed and re-brought by the same prosecutorial authority. State ex rel. Sims v. Perry, 204 W.Va. 625, 515 S.E.2d 582, 584 (1999), involved a defendant whose arson charges had been dismissed following a preliminary hearing for lack of sufficient evidence to support the charges. Law enforcement officers obtained new information two years later, however, and recorded the defendant making incriminating statements. Based on this new evidence, the state prosecutor re-charged the defendant on the arson charges and used the recorded statements at trial against him. The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia affirmed the defendant's convictions, concluding: [W]e hold that unless a criminal defendant can show that the government has obtained a dismissal of adversarial judicial criminal proceedings against him or her in order to circumvent his or her constitutional rights, once such criminal proceedings have been dismissed, the right to the assistance of counsel granted by the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution no longer applies, regardless of whether the defendant is represented by counsel. Id. at 635, 515 S.E.2d 582. In Riggs v. Yukins, 2001 WL 558241, at , 2001 U.S. Dist. Lexis 6760, at  (E.D.Mich. Mar. 13, 2001), the defendant's first-degree murder charge was dismissed after her preliminary hearing, where she was represented by counsel, due to the judge's finding that there was insufficient evidence to sustain the charge. Several months later, however, the defendant was videotaped implicating herself in the murder to undercover officers, outside of the presence of counsel. State prosecutors then recharged the defendant with first-degree murder and introduced the videotaped statement at trial. Id. at , 2001 U.S. Dist. Lexis 6760 at . After her appeal was concluded, the defendant filed a writ of habeas corpus challenging her conviction. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan concluded that her Sixth Amendment right to counsel did not attach when she made her statement: [T]he right to counsel does not survive the dismissal of formal charges against an accused, at least when there is no deliberate attempt on the part of the prosecuting authorities to circumvent the Sixth Amendment right to counsel through the purposeful dismissal of pending charges and/or collusion between different sovereigns. Id. at , 2001 U.S. Dist. Lexis 6760 at -34. [5] We conclude that the analysis set forth in these cases is persuasive and therefore hold that after criminal charges have been dismissed, a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to counsel no longer adheres and must be reasserted in the absence of bad faith by the government. We are also satisfied that, as in Martinez, Mapp and Perry, there is no indication that the government was attempting to circumvent and dilute Lindsey's right to counsel, particularly given the five year time gap between the dismissal of the murder charge and its reinstatement. For these reasons, we reject Lindsey's claim that his right to counsel was infringed when he confessed to the murder and affirm the trial court's denial of Lindsey's motion to suppress his confession to the Johnson murder.