Court Opinion

ID: 9854999
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:18:05.832356+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:23:38.412593
License: Public Domain

SHIRLEY S. ABRAHAMSON, CHIEF JUSTICE
¶ 45. (dissenting). Relying on a five-justice opinion in Davis v. United States, 512 U.S. 452 (1994), this court's majority opinion disregards Wisconsin jurisprudence dating back to 1859,1 and overrules two Wisconsin cases.2
¶ 46. The majority opinion holds that when a suspect makes an equivocal request for an attorney during custodial questioning, law enforcement officers can continue the questioning as if the suspect had said nothing about an attorney.
¶ 47. I dissent for three reasons: The majority opinion contravenes concepts of federalism and state sovereignty; Wisconsin's rule requiring law enforcement officers to clarify a suspect's equivocal request for an attorney is the prudent rule; and Wisconsin constitutional jurisprudence supports interpreting the Wisconsin Constitution as requiring law enforcement officers to clarify a suspect's equivocal request for an attorney. I cannot join an opinion that undermines the interests of law enforcement to safeguard confessions from suppression by a court. I cannot join an opinion that jeopardizes the right of a suspect to an attorney and a full and fair trial. And I cannot join an opinion that ignores more than 140 years of Wisconsin law.
HH
¶ 48. The U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear that the Miranda safeguards were not intended to *252create a constitutional straitjacket hindering state efforts at reform. Rather, the Court encouraged states to "continue their laudable search for increasingly effective ways of protecting the rights of the individual while promoting efficient enforcement of our criminal laws."3
¶ 49. Under our system of federalism and state sovereignty, the U.S. Supreme Court has tossed the ball back to each state court to determine whether the state should require, as a matter of state constitutional law or as a matter of a state supreme court's superintending authority, that law enforcement officers clarify a suspect's equivocal request for an attorney. This court has, in my opinion, now fumbled that ball.
II
¶ 50. The Wisconsin rule requiring law enforcement officers to clarify a suspect's equivocal request for an attorney is generally accepted as the prudent rule to protect suspects who do not have a confident command of the English language or do not assert themselves.4
¶ 51. In Davis, during custodial interrogation the suspect said "Maybe I should talk to a lawyer." The federal officers in Davis questioned the suspect to clarify whether he wanted an attorney. The suspect then unequivocally stated that he was not asking for an attorney. The questioning continued. The suspect argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that questioning should have stopped at his equivocal request for an attorney. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the suspect's argument and held that questioning did not have to cease at the equivocal request.
*253¶ 52. The five-justice majority in Davis declared, in what would probably ordinarily be labeled dicta, that they were not willing to impose a federal constitutional requirement that a law enforcement officer must clarify a suspect's equivocal request for an attorney before continuing the questioning. The four-justice opinion concurring in the judgment concluded that to ensure constitutional rights clarification by a law enforcement officer should be required.5
¶ 53. In further dicta, the five-justice majority strongly advocated that law enforcement officers clarify a suspect's equivocal request for an attorney, stating that "it will often be good police practice for the interviewing officers to clarify whether or not [a suspect] actually wants an attorney."6 The majority opinion in the present case similarly opines. See majority opinion at ¶ 42.
¶ 54. The majority opinion cites no authority for the proposition that it is unwise for law enforcement officers to ask clarifying questions. Indeed, the authors of the seminal work on law enforcement interrogation procedure stated that in light of Davis, the "prudent course" for an interrogator to follow after receiving a suspect's equivocal request for an attorney is to clarify the suspect's desires by simply asking whether the suspect wants an attorney.7
*254¶ 55. I conclude that it is prudent, as a matter of our superintending authority,8 for this court to require this good practice for the admission of evidence obtained at the custodial interrogation. As the U.S. Supreme Court explained in Davis, the practice of clarifying the suspect's equivocal request for an attorney protects the suspect's constitutional rights encompassed in a full and fair trial, assists law enforcement, and ensures the fair administration of justice.
¶ 56. The practice of clarifying the suspect's equivocal request for an attorney will "help protect the rights of the suspect by ensuring that he gets an attorney if he wants one," declared the Davis court.9
¶ 57. Clarifying the suspect's equivocal request for an attorney, declared the Davis court, also "will minimize the chance of a confession being suppressed due to subsequent judicial second-guessing as to the meaning of the suspect's statement regarding coun*255sel."10 Abandoning the rule regarding clarification simply increases the chances that a court will later suppress a confession.11
¶ 58. Thus the rule adopted by the majority opinion today puts law enforcement officers at their peril when a suspect has made what might appear to be an equivocal request for an attorney. Continuing questioning without clarifying the suspect's request jeopardizes the admission of a confession or other evidence.
¶ 59. Because the Davis rule places law enforcement officers in this predicament and endangers a suspect's constitutional rights, courts have greeted the Davis decision "with less than total enthusiasm," according to a leading text in criminal procedure that is often cited by this court.12 Indeed some state courts, including the supreme court of our neighboring state of Minnesota, have rejected the Davis rule.13
*256¶ 60. Since 1994, Wisconsin law has required that law enforcement officers clarify an equivocal request for an attorney if questioning is to continue.14 This rule of law has apparently worked well in Wisconsin. The State does not claim that the rule has created any problems for law enforcement officers or that the rule has interfered with criminal investigations. We ought not to abandon our prudent rule in favor of a problematic rule such as the one adopted by the majority opinion.
Ill
¶ 61. Finally, more than 140 years of Wisconsin constitutional jurisprudence supports interpreting the Wisconsin constitutional privilege against self-incrimination, Article I, Section 8, to require law enforcement officers to clarify a suspect's equivocal request for an attorney during custodial interrogation. Bounded only by the federal Supremacy Clause, the Wisconsin Constitution stands as our state's primary source of law. This court is the final interpreter of the Wisconsin Constitution. We perform this role with an understanding of the unique experience of Wisconsin law.
¶ 62. The majority opinion ignores Wisconsin jurisprudence by ignoring the state constitutional rights to a full and fair trial which rest, according to the Carpenter case, on the right to an attorney and the interaction of that right with the constitutional privilege against self-incrimination.
*257¶ 63. The majority opinion reaches its conclusion by reasoning as follows:
1. The majority opinion states, that the privilege against compulsory self-incrimination is almost identical in the texts of the federal and Wisconsin constitutions. I agree.
2. The majority opinion states that the Wisconsin Supreme Court has ordinarily, but not always, construed the Wisconsin Constitution consistent with the U.S. Supreme Court's construction of the U.S. Constitution. I agree.
3. The majority opinion states that no basis exists to interpret the language of the Wisconsin Constitution on the privilege against self-incrimination as creating guarantees beyond the guarantees under the U.S. Constitution. I disagree.
¶ 64. The majority opinion errs because it ignores our own state's constitutional history that provides a basis to interpret the Wisconsin constitutional provision on the privilege against self-incrimination beyond the scope of the U.S. Constitution. The majority opinion fails to examine Wisconsin's history of protecting the state constitutional right to an attorney as the means of ensuring a full and fair trial and the nexus between the right to an attorney at trial and the state constitutional privilege against self-incrimination. The majority opinion has forgotten the admonition of Justice Smith in 1855 urging this court to construe its own state constitution to ascertain its true intent and meaning. "The people then made this constitution, and adopted it as their primary law. The people of other states made for themselves respectively, constitutions which are con*258strued by their own appropriate functionaries. Let them construe theirs — let us construe, and stand by ours."15
¶ 65. Wisconsin has a long and cherished history of protecting an accused's right to an attorney under the Wisconsin Constitution. In 1859, eleven years after statehood, this court declared in Carpenter v. Dane County16 that an accused has a fundamental right to an attorney under the Wisconsin Constitution and required counties to appoint an attorney for indigent felons at government expense. Our court reached this conclusion one hundred and four years before the U.S. Supreme Court recognized a similar federal constitutional right to an attorney in Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963).
¶ 66. Our court in Carpenter reasoned that Wisconsin constitutional rights to a full and fair trial such as "to demand the nature and cause of the accusation against him; to meet the witnesses face to face; to have compulsory process to compel the attendance of witnesses in his behalf, etc." were meaningless when an accused did not have the ability to exercise those rights by employing an attorney. The court stated:
And would it not be a little like mockery to secure to a pauper these solemn constitutional guaranties for a fair and full trial of the matters with which he was charged, and yet say to him when on trial, that he must employ his own counsel, who could alone render these guaranties of any real permanent value to him.
*259But surely the citizens of a county are vitally more interested in saving an innocent man from unmerited punishment than in conviction of a guilty one.
Why this great solicitude to secure him a fair trial if he cannot have the benefit of counsel?17
¶ 67. Similar reasoning applies in the present case. According to Carpenter, to protect an accused's state constitutional guarantees for a full and fair trial, a suspect is given an attorney at trial at government expense. Following the reasoning in Carpenter, the state constitutional guarantees for a fair and full trial and an attorney at trial would be hollow rights if a conviction at trial is already assured because the suspect incriminates himself or herself during custodial questioning.18 Thus a suspect is given the right to an attorney during custodial questioning to help ensure that an accused gets the benefit of the constitutional guarantee against self-incrimination.19 A suspect's right to an attorney at custodial questioning to protect the privilege against self-incrimination is thus intricately intertwined with an accused's state constitutional right to a full and fair trial and a meaningful state constitutional right to an attorney at trial.
¶ 68. The state constitutional history protecting a full and fair trial by granting a meaningful right to an attorney is over 140 years old. In keeping with this history, the Wisconsin Constitution guarantee against *260self-incrimination should therefore be interpreted to require a clarifying question when a suspect makes an equivocal request for an attorney during custodial questioning. A clarifying question ensures that a suspect who wants an attorney gets an attorney at custodial questioning and thus protects a meaningful right to an attorney at trial and a meaningful fair and full trial. In interpreting the Wisconsin Constitution in this way, this court would appropriately heed Wisconsin's longstanding state constitutional history of guaranteeing an accused the constitutional rights guaranteed by the Wisconsin Constitution.
¶ 69. The gamesmanship of ignoring a suspect's statements regarding an attorney during custodial questioning merely invites the public to view the behavior of law enforcement officers as marked by trickery and deceit and to view Wisconsin constitutional guarantees to the criminally accused with cynicism. The result is a loss of public trust and confidence in law enforcement, the rule of law, and the courts, thereby undermining the credibility of the legal system itself.
¶ 70. In order for law enforcement and the courts to be successful in carrying out their responsibilities, they must have the cooperation, trust, and confidence of the public. The majority opinion undermines that trust and confidence, ignores Wisconsin jurisprudence, and betrays Wisconsin's constitutional guarantees. Therefore, I dissent.
¶ 71. I am authorized to state that Justices WILLIAM A. BABLITCH and ANN WALSH BRADLEY join this opinion.

 Carpenter v. Dane County, 9 Wis. 249 (1859).

 Wentala v. State, 95 Wis. 2d 283, 290 N.W.2d 313 (1980); State v. Walkowiak, 183 Wis. 2d 478, 515 N.W.2d 863 (1994).

 Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 467 (1966).

 Davis v. United States, 512 U.S. 452, 469-470, 470 n.4 (1994) (Souter, J., concurring in the judgment).

 Davis v. United States, 512 U.S. 452, 466 (1994) (Souter, Blackmun, Stevens and Ginsburg, J.J., concurring in the judgment).

 Davis v. United States, 512 U.S. 452, 461 (1994).

 Fred E. Imbau, John E. Reid, Joseph E Buckley, and Brian C. Jayne, Criminal Interrogation and Confessions 499 (4th ed. 2001).
*254This text has been described as "written for the purpose of explaining to law enforcement officers the strategies of interrogation and the applicable law." Grace F. Ashikawa, R. v. Brydges: The Inadequacy of Miranda and A Proposal to Adopt Canada's Rule Calling for the Right for Immediate Free Counsel, 3 Sw. J.L. & Trade Am. 245 (1996).

 See Wis.Const. art. VII, § 3(1); State v. Anderson, 2002 WI 7, ¶ 29, n.12, 249 Wis. 2d 586, 638 N.W.2d 301 (discussing superintending authority).

 Davis v. United States, 512 U.S. 452, 461 (1994). Clarifying questions are not difficult to administer. See State v. Walkowiak, 183 Wis. 2d 478, 494-495, 515 N.W.2d 863 (1994) (Abrahamson, J., concurring and dissenting).

 Davis v. United States, 512 U.S. 452, 461 (1994).

 Davis v. United States, 512 U.S. 452, 461 (1994).

 Wayne R. LaFave, Jerold H. Israel, & Nancy J. King, Criminal Procedure § 6.9(g) at 615, n.170 (2d ed. 1999).
Another commentator stated that "[a]lready several states' highest courts have chosen to circumvent Davis and retain their old rules. The confusion and the split among lower courts that existed before Davis has returned, albeit to a somewhat lesser degree." Susan L. Ross, Davis v. United States: The Ambiguous Request for Counsel, 30 New Eng. L. Rev. 941, 990 (1996).

 See, e.g., State v. Hannon, 636 N.W.2d 796, 804 (Minn. 2001) (holding Minnesota constitution requires that when an accused makes an ambiguous or equivocal statement that can reasonably be interpreted as a request for an attorney, questioning must stop except for narrow questions to clarify the suspect’s intentions); State v. Risk, 598 N.W.2d 642, 649 (Minn. 1999) (same); Hawaii v. Hoey, 881 P.2d 504 (Haw. 1994) (adopting Justice Souter's reasoning in the concurring opinion in *256Davis; Hawaii's constitution requires that law enforcement officers either cease all questioning or seek non-substantive clarification when a suspect makes an equivocal request for an attorney during custodial interrogation).

 State v. Walkowiak, 183 Wis. 2d 478, 486-87, 515 N.W.2d 863 (1994).

 Attorney General ex rel. Bashford v. Barstow, 4 Wis. 567, 785 (1855).

 9 Wis. 249 (1859).

 Carpenter v. Dane County, 9 Wis. 249, 251-52 (1859).

 Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478, 487 (1964).

 Fare v. Michael C., 442 U.S. 707, 719 (1979); Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 466 (1966); Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478, 487-88 (1964).