Opinion ID: 590329
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Hendricks' Confessions

Text: 13 Hendricks claims that San Francisco police investigators obtained two statements from him in violation of the fifth and sixth amendments. Accordingly, Hendricks argues, it was error for the trial judge to admit these statements into evidence. 14 On March 23, 1981, FBI agents arrested Hendricks in Dallas on a charge of unlawful flight from homicide charges in California and arraigned him on that charge. Four days later, San Francisco police detectives arrived in Dallas, seeking to question Hendricks about the homicide charges. The detectives read Hendricks the Miranda warnings and Hendricks invoked his right to remain silent. The next day, March 28, the detectives brought Hendricks to San Francisco. Several times during the trip from Dallas to San Francisco, Hendricks attempted to initiate conversation about the homicides with the detectives but they told him to wait. 15 In the San Francisco interview room, the detectives asked Hendricks whether he had remembered the Miranda warnings from the day before. Hendricks responded that he did, and then made a first statement confessing to the Parmer and Haynes murders. Hendricks testified at the suppression hearing that he made the statement because he had wanted the police to know what had happened. 16 After making his first statement, Hendricks rode in a car with the detectives to the scenes of the two San Francisco homicides. In the car, Hendricks told the detectives that he knew about three other homicides which had taken place in Los Angeles and Oakland but would talk about them only if the detectives provided him with a fifth of whiskey and a Bible. After obtaining the requested items, the detectives returned Hendricks to the interrogation facility. Once there, the detectives read Hendricks the Miranda warnings and Hendricks made his second statement--a confession to the Carter, Burchell, and Hernandez murders--while drinking some of the whiskey. 17 At the suppression hearing concerning Hendricks' first statement, the trial judge found that the Miranda warnings given by the San Francisco police on March 27 were proper, that Hendricks had initiated the conversations with the detectives on the trip to San Francisco, and that Hendricks' statement was free and voluntary. 18 At the trial from which this appeal arises, Hendricks did not move to suppress his second statement. However, at the subsequent trial in Los Angeles for the murders covered by the second statement, Hendricks did move to suppress it. At that hearing, Hendricks conceded that the alcohol had not affected his ability to understand and give answers to the detectives' questions. The Los Angeles trial judge found that [Hendricks] was properly Mirandized and it was a free and voluntary statement. It appears from hearing the tapes [of the confession] that there was no effect of the alcohol and he was really anxious to make all the statements to them. 19 Hendricks' sixth amendment argument concerning the two statements is unavailing. The sixth amendment right to counsel attaches after a defendant has been arraigned. Michigan v. Jackson, 475 U.S. 625, 629, 106 S.Ct. 1404, 1407, 89 L.Ed.2d 631 (1986). However, the sixth amendment is offense-specific. McNeil v. Wisconsin, --- U.S. ----, ----, 111 S.Ct. 2204, 2207, 115 L.Ed.2d 158 (1991). In other words, if a defendant is arraigned on one charge, then the sixth amendment right to counsel attaches to that charge but not to a different charge for which the defendant has not yet been arraigned. We have recognized a limited exception to that rule, however, when the two charges are so inextricably intertwined ... that the right to counsel for the pending charge cannot constitutionally be isolated from the right to counsel for the uncharged offense. United States v. Hines, 963 F.2d 255, 257 (9th Cir.1992). In addition, where state and federal authorities act in collusion to circumvent a defendant's right to counsel, the sixth amendment right may extend from a state charge to a federal one when the two charges arise from the same incident. United States v. Martinez, 972 F.2d 1100, 1101, 1102, 1105 (9th Cir.1992) (state and federal charges identical: felon in possession of firearm). 20 Hendricks fits into neither the Hines dictum nor the Martinez exception. Hendricks was arraigned in Dallas on a charge of interstate flight to avoid prosecution (for murder), but was interrogated by San Francisco police on a charge of murder. Although not wholly unrelated, the two crimes have totally independent elements. The murders were separate incidents from the flight; they were neither inextricably intertwined with the flight charge nor did they arise from the same conduct. As uncharged and distinct additional crimes, they were not subject to the sixth amendment right to counsel that attached when Hendricks was arraigned on his flight charge. McNeil, --- U.S. at ---- - ----, 111 S.Ct. at 2207-08 (quoting Maine v. Moulton, 474 U.S. 159, 179-180, 106 S.Ct. 477, 488-89, 88 L.Ed.2d 481 (1985)). 21 Hendricks' fifth amendment challenge to the admission of his two statements is similarly unavailing. Hendricks' first statement was a product of proper Miranda procedure and not of coercion. Once a suspect who is in custody and is being interrogated asserts his right to remain silent, the interrogation must cease. Michigan v. Mosley, 423 U.S. 96, 104, 96 S.Ct. 321, 326, 46 L.Ed.2d 313 (1975). However, the interrogators may recommence questioning if the suspect initiates the conversation. Cf Oregon v. Bradshaw, 462 U.S. 1039, 1044, 103 S.Ct. 2830, 2834, 77 L.Ed.2d 405 (1983). Initiation of conversation by the suspect after the suspect has been apprised of his Miranda rights and has invoked the right to remain silent, can be construed as a waiver of the Miranda rights. U.S. v. Montana, 958 F.2d 516, 519 (2nd Cir.1992). 22 In this case, the San Francisco detectives properly Mirandized Hendricks on the 27th and Hendricks invoked his right to remain silent. The next day, Hendricks initiated the conversation with the detectives. In doing so, Hendricks waived his Miranda rights. See Montana, 958 F.2d at 519. Moreover, the record shows that Hendricks made his first statement freely and voluntarily. Accordingly, Hendricks' fifth amendment argument concerning his first statement is without merit. 23 Concerning Hendricks' second statement, the detectives correctly followed all proper interrogation procedures. Hendricks' only claim of error concerning this statement is that he was drunk when he made the statement. This claim is contradicted by the findings of the trial judge in the Los Angeles case. Those findings are well supported by the record. Accordingly, Hendricks' fifth amendment claim concerning his second statement is without merit.