Court Opinion

ID: 9664389
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:18:08.855553+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:05.993413
License: Public Domain

STUMBO, Justice,
dissenting.
I must dissent because I believe both statements made by Appellant should have been suppressed, as both were given after Appellant had clearly and unequivocally in*87voked her right to counsel. In its most recent statement on the issue, the United States Supreme Court, in Davis v. United States, 512 U.S. 452, 114 S.Ct. 2350, 129 L.Ed.2d 362 (1994), discussed the need for specificity in the request for counsel by the person held in custody. After describing several alternative approaches, the Court held the request “must articulate [the suspect’s] desire to have counsel present sufficiently clearly that a reasonable police officer in the circumstances would understand the statement to be a request for an attorney.” Davis, 512 U.S. at 459, 114 S.Ct. at 2355, 129 L.Ed.2d at 371.
Here, Appellant asked not just for counsel in general, but for not one, but two different, specific attorneys by name. She made those requests at the scene of the arrest and after she was placed in the jail. Her requests were denied by the officers on the grounds that she had not been booked at the jail, that she had not yet been arraigned, and that one of the attorneys had a conflict of interest because he was already representing Appellant’s husband in reference to the same crime. She was advised that the public defender could not be contacted until she appeared before a judge. Arrested on a Friday, she was told she could not be arraigned until court was back in session on the following Tuesday.
The majority opinion has held that the first statement made by Appellant on Friday, the day she was arrested, should have been suppressed, but that the failure to do so is not reversible error because the second statement was admissible. The second statement is admissible, the majority opinion concludes, because Appellant initiated the communication that led to the confession. What the majority opinion disregards is the circumstances in which Appellant found herself. She was being held in the local jail, had been told she had the right to counsel, had asserted that right repeatedly, and despite those assurances, was denied the ability to speak with counsel. She was faced with days of uncertainty in seeming isolation. The situation she was in was profoundly coercive and designed to intimidate her into waiving her right to counsel.
This Court has spoken clearly on this issue: “The failure to provide counsel when requested and the continued questioning of the accused is a serious deprivation of the rights of [a defendant]. We cannot countenance or approve of this failure. Once a defendant requests counsel all questioning must cease.” Baril v. Commonwealth, Ky., 612 S.W.2d 739, 743 (1981) (citations omitted). Whether a request is sufficient to trigger the need to cease questioning was addressed by this Court in Dean v. Commonwealth, Ky., 844 S.W.2d 417 (1993), cert. denied, 512 U.S. 1234, 114 S.Ct. 2737, 129 L.Ed.2d 858 (1994), wherein we examined the significance of the statement of “Should, should I, should I have somebody here? I don’t know,” in response to the Miranda warnings. We concluded that a suspect’s request for counsel must be “unambiguous and unequivocal” to trigger the need to cease questioning entirely until counsel is present. Id. at 420 (citing Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 68 L.Ed.2d 378 (1981)). How much more certain can a person be than to ask to speak with counsel whom she has specifically named? Although Yustas represented Appellant’s husband and may well have had a conflict of interest, it was he, the attorney, who should have made that decision, not the police officer. As for the refusal to contact the public defender for Appellant, again it is not the role of the police officer to determine whether a particular attorney is able to represent a client, but rather, the decision should be left to counsel involved.
The facts of this case are horrendous. Appellant is not a sympathetic figure, having apparently chosen to support her husband to nightmarish lengths. However, the right to counsel is a sacred one, guaranteed in the strongest of terms by the United States Constitution, as well as by the Kentucky Constitution. Even the guiltiest of defendants possesses that right. This case should be reversed and remanded for a new trial at which both statements given by Appellant should be suppressed.
LAMBERT, J., joins this dissenting opinion.