Opinion ID: 2545831
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: California law before June 8, 1982

Text: Citing People v. Burton (1971) 6 Cal.3d 375, 382, 99 Cal.Rptr. 1, 491 P.2d 793, and People v. Randall (1970) 1 Cal.3d 948, 955, 83 Cal.Rptr. 658, 464 P.2d 114, defendant contends that under California law as it existed before the June 8, 1982, enactment of article I, section 28 of the California Constitution (prohibiting the exclusion in criminal cases of relevant evidence not required to be excluded under the federal Constitution), an equivocal invocation of the right to counsel was sufficient to invoke the California Constitution's self-incrimination clause. Because the trial court suppressed defendant's statements to the detectives on April 25, 1986 based on his equivocal assertion maybe I should have an attorney, defendant argues here that his later confessions to the three murders should also have been suppressed as the tainted product of the detectives' unlawful interrogation of him on April 25. (See People v. Sims (1993) 5 Cal.4th 405, 445, 20 Cal.Rptr.2d 537, 853 P.2d 992 [applying a fruit of the poisonous tree analysis to a subsequent confession]; but see People v. Bradford, supra, 14 Cal.4th at p. 1041, fn. 3, 60 Cal.Rptr.2d 225, 929 P.2d 544 [rejecting that analysis].) We disagree. In addressing this argument, we assume that the trial court was correct in suppressing defendant's April 25 statements to the detectives as necessary to protect his California constitutional right against self-incrimination with respect to the murders of Abono and Duarte, both of which predated the enactment of article I, section 28. And we also assume that California law would require the suppression of a later confession that was the tainted product of statements made after an earlier equivocal assertion of the right to counsel. We conclude, however, that defendant's confessions to the three amurders on April 26, 27, and 28 were not the tainted product of his April 25 interrogation because an intervening independent act by defendant broke any possible causal link between the April 25 interrogation and his later confessions. (See People v. Rich (1988) 45 Cal.3d 1036, 1081, 248 Cal.Rptr. 510, 755 P.2d 960 [explaining that `an intervening independent act by defendant'  will purge[ ] any taint from the initial suppressed confession]; People v. Sesslin (1968) 68 Cal.2d 418, 428, 67 Cal. Rptr. 409, 439 P.2d 321.) As we have already discussed, during questioning by Detective Tye on the evening of April 25, defendant unequivocally said he wanted an attorney. Tye immediately stopped questioning and told defendant there could be no further questioning by any of the homicide investigators unless defendant initiated contact with them. The next evening, defendant did so. Defendant's confessions to the murders introduced against him at his capital trial were made after defendant's independent intervening act of summoning the homicide detectives.