Opinion ID: 4487026
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: analysis

Text: The defendant's challenge to the denial of his motion to suppress rests on a claim that the troopers procured his confession in derogation of his Miranda rights. Miranda and its progeny 1 At the same time, the defendant moved to suppress statements made during his roadside detention. The district court refused to suppress those statements, and the defendant does not challenge that ruling on appeal. - 10 - require that law enforcement officers provide warnings concerning certain Fifth Amendment rights — including the right to remain silent and the right to consult an attorney — before interrogating a suspect in a custodial setting. See United States v. Hughes, 640 F.3d 428, 434 (1st Cir. 2011); United States v. Conley, 156 F.3d 78, 82 (1st Cir. 1998). Absent such warnings, most statements that officers obtain during a custodial interrogation are inadmissible at trial. See Conley, 156 F.3d at 82. Once a suspect is advised of his Miranda rights, though, he may waive those rights and consent to an interrogation. See Edwards, 451 U.S. at 484. If the suspect invokes his right to counsel at any point during the interrogation, all questioning must cease either until an attorney is present or until the suspect initiates further communication with the officers. See id. at 484-85; Johnston v. Mitchell, 871 F.3d 52, 57-58 (1st Cir. 2017); Conley, 156 F.3d at 82-83. In the case at hand, both parties agree that the interview at the barracks constituted custodial interrogation and, thus, that compliance with the imperatives of Miranda and its progeny serves as a condition precedent to the admissibility of the confession. Similarly, there is no dispute that the defendant invoked his right to counsel during the first phase of the custodial interview and that the troopers, as required, immediately ended the interview. - 11 - The crux of the matter, then, is the second phase of the interview — and the defendant's asseverational array focuses on that phase. He challenges each of the three subsidiary findings upon which the district court rested its denial of his motion to suppress. Specifically, he contends that he did not initiate a generalized discussion of the investigation with the troopers; that he reinvoked his right to counsel; and that he did not knowingly and voluntarily waive his Miranda rights before confessing. Our standard of review is familiar. We assay a district court's findings of fact on a motion to suppress for clear error. See Hughes, 640 F.3d at 434. Within this rubric, we are bound to accept all reasonable inferences drawn by the district court from those facts. See Coombs, 857 F.3d at 445-46. Questions of law engender de novo review. See Hughes, 640 F.3d at 434. Against this backdrop, we address the defendant's three assignments of error sequentially.
To begin, the defendant argues that the court below erred in concluding that he initiated communication with the troopers about the investigation after he had terminated the first phase of the interview. Even so, the defendant does not deny that he initiated what would become the second phase of the interview by waving from his cell at a camera and requesting to speak to the - 12 - troopers. He says, though, that he sought to speak with the troopers for the sole purpose of inquiring about the promised telephone call to his lawyer. Because he did not initiate a conversation about the substance of the investigation, his thesis runs, his invocation of the right to counsel during the first phase of the interview remained velivolant and barred the troopers from seeking a renewed Miranda waiver and resuming their interrogation. The relevant facts are not in dispute and, thus, we review de novo the district court's conclusion that the defendant initiated investigation-related communication with the troopers. See, e.g., United States v. Thongsophaporn, 503 F.3d 51, 56-57 (1st Cir. 2007); United States v. Fontana, 948 F.2d 796, 806 (1st Cir. 1991); see also United States v. Straker, 800 F.3d 570, 621