Opinion ID: 1934919
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: motion to suppressviolation of right to remain silent

Text: Owen next claims that the trial court should have suppressed his confession because the law enforcement officers questioning him violated his right to remain silent when they failed to terminate the interrogation after Owen replied to certain questions with the answers I don't want to talk about it and I'd rather not talk about it. [6] Owen maintains that his responses were unequivocal invocations of his right to remain silent, and therefore questioning should have ceased as a result of his answers. Because we have, on numerous occasions, deemed Owen's responses to be equivocal, the trial court properly rejected Owen's motion to suppress based upon this claim as well. As with the voluntariness issue, the trial judge could have simply relied upon the law of the case doctrine when deciding this issue. Instead, the record reflects that the judge elected to permit extensive arguments from both parties, and allowed the defendant to present any testimony and evidence he wished to support his claim that his statements were unequivocal. While the trial judge again properly considered the impact of our prior holdings on this issue, it is clear he made his own independent determination that Owen's statements were equivocal. This determination was proper and fully supported by competent, substantial evidence. In our original decision concerning the first direct appeal, we reversed Owen's conviction based upon the law enforcement officers' failure to stop questioning Owen after he provided the ambiguous responses. See Owen, 560 So.2d at 211. There, we held that the continued questioning violated Owen's Miranda right to terminate questioning. See id. Notably, however, we determined, The responses were, at the least, an equivocal invocation.... Id. Subsequently, following the United States Supreme Court's decision in Davis v. United States, 512 U.S. 452, 114 S.Ct. 2350, 129 L.Ed.2d 362 (1994), [7] we receded from our 1990 opinion, and in 1997, held that in Florida, law enforcement officers have no duty to terminate questioning, or limit themselves to asking only clarifying questions, when a suspect makes an equivocal invocation of a Miranda right. See Owen, 696 So.2d at 719. There, we specifically stated that Owen's responses were equivocal. Id. at 720. Further, we rejected Owen's argument that because we had originally referred to his statements as at the least equivocal they should be considered unequivocal. See id. at 720 n. 8. In addition to those two opinions, in which we characterized Owen's responses as equivocal, we have, in numerous other opinions, made reference to Owen's responses as exemplars of equivocal utterances. See, e.g., State v. Glatzmayer, 789 So.2d 297, 302 (Fla.2001); Almeida v. State, 737 So.2d 520, 523 (Fla.1999); Almeida v. State, 748 So.2d 922, 930 (Fla. 1999); Owen v. State, 596 So.2d 985, 987 n. 3 (Fla.1992). Clearly, we have concluded that Owen's statements were equivocal responses in context and under the circumstances presented. Owen did not, during the motion to suppress hearing below, offer any testimony or evidence to contradict our prior determinations. Therefore, under State v. Owen, 696 So.2d 715 (Fla. 1997), the law enforcement officers questioning Owen had no duty to further clarify his equivocal responses in the context presented or terminate the interrogation. The trial court properly denied Owen's motion to suppress.