Court Opinion

ID: 9480443
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:48:14.22758+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:41.722288
License: Public Domain

RYAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring separately.
I concur in the judgment affirming the defendant’s conviction and write separately to emphasize that Arizona v. Roberson, 486 U.S. 675, 108 S.Ct. 2093, 100 L.Ed.2d 704 (1988), and United States v. Wolf, 879 F.2d 1320 (6th Cir.1989), are totally distinguishable from this case and, consequently, *964the rules announced in those cases are inapplicable here.
I.
The rule of Roberson is that an accused under arrest and in police custody for a serious offense, who, after being warned under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), invokes a fifth amendment right to counsel by expressing a desire to deal with the police only through counsel, may not be interrogated further until counsel has been made available to him unless he initiates further communication with the police. If he is further interrogated before counsel has been made available to him, there is a presumption that “any subsequent waiver [of the Miranda right to remain silent] has come at the authorities’ behest, and not at the suspect’s own instigation, and is itself the product of the ‘inherently compelling pressures’ [of the custodial interrogation] and not the purely voluntary choice of the suspect.” Arizona v. Roberson, 486 U.S. 675, 681, 108 S.Ct. 2093, 2098, 100 L.Ed.2d 704 (1988).
The Roberson rule is an extension of Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 68 L.Ed.2d 378 (1981), and was fashioned by the Supreme Court in the context of facts so totally different from the facts of this case as to make it evident that Roberson’s rule was not intended to apply in a case of the kind before us.
The first important distinction between Roberson and this case is the differing circumstances in the two cases in which the right to counsel was invoked. The circumstances are important because they emphasize the constitutional significance of the difference between invoking a fifth amendment rather than a sixth amendment right to counsel — a distinction the Supreme Court emphasized in Roberson. Immediately after Roberson was arrested on suspicion of burglary, he was given Miranda warnings by the arresting officer. Roberson responded that he “wanted a lawyer before answering any questions”; thereby invoking a fifth amendment right to counsel. Counsel was not provided to Roberson before he was interrogated by the police on another matter three days later.
Hall, on the other hand, who was in court being arraigned on a state escape from custody charge, responded affirmatively to the court’s inquiry whether he wished to be represented by counsel for the escape from confinement prosecution; thereby invoking a sixth amendment right to counsel.
When Roberson invoked his fifth amendment right to counsel he was an arrestee who had been in police custody for only a few moments. When Hall invoked his sixth amendment right to counsel he was in court, and participating in a judicial proceeding. He had been in continuous custody as a sentenced prisoner in a Kentucky state penitentiary for years, was at liberty as an escapee for a month, and had been returned to prison approximately three months prior to his arraignment. Hall, unlike Roberson, did not, when invoking his sixth amendment right to counsel or at any other time, indicate any desire to deal with the police only through counsel.
Roberson was interrogated by state officials on an unrelated offense within three days after indicating, explicitly, a desire to deal with the police only through counsel. Hall was interrogated by federal authorities on an unrelated offense some three months after the appointment of counsel in the state court arraignment proceeding during which he said nothing about his willingness to speak to the police. Whereas Roberson’s fifth amendment right to consult an attorney had not been honored, counsel had been appointed for Hall and he had met with his counsel months prior to the challenged interrogation.
The factual differences between Roberson and this case are substantial; so substantial that it is evident that the rule fashioned for Roberson’s facts is inapplicable here.
II.
Neither is this case controlled by United States v. Wolf, 879 F.2d 1320 (6th Cir.1989). In Wolf the majority of a divided panel was unimpressed by the importance *965of the distinction between a fifth amendment and a sixth amendment right to counsel the Supreme Court emphasized in Roberson. The majority observed, simply, that although Wolfs counsel was appointed at an arraignment, since there was an absence of “evidence indicating that Wolf intended to limit her request to the invocation of the sixth amendment right to counsel, ... doubts as to her intent [would be resolved] in favor of protecting her constitutional claim_” 879 F.2d at 1323. Whatever the merits of the Wolf court’s treatment of the fifth and sixth amendment right to counsel distinction and its extension of the rule announced in Roberson, Wolfs rule is not controlling here because the facts of the two cases are significantly different.
Wolf had been arrested on May 27, 1986. She was held in jail overnight and the next morning appeared in court for arraignment on a failure to make restitution charge. Asked by the court whether she wished to have counsel appointed to represent her, she replied that she did. The court immediately appointed the public defender. Later that day, and before consulting with counsel, Wolf was visited by federal Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents who advised her of her rights under Miranda, supra. Wolf signed a form stating that she wished to waive her Miranda rights, and then confessed to participation in a scheme to kill her former boyfriend’s wife.
The court recognized that Roberson could be applicable to the case only if the facts in Wolf indicated that Wolf’s request for counsel amounted to an expressed desire “to deal with the police only through counsel.” U.S. v. Wolf, 879 F.2d at 1322 (quoting Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 484, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 1885, 68 L.Ed.2d 378 (1981)). The court found such an intent because of the ambiguity of the evidence about Wolf’s intent when she asked that counsel be appointed at arraignment and because she was reinterrogated by police authorities within twenty-four hours after invoking her right to counsel and before she had an opportunity to consult with an attorney.
In this case, there is no ambiguity about whether Hall expressed an intention “to deal with the police only through counsel.” There is no evidence whatever of such an intention. In addition, whereas Wolf was interrogated within twenty-four hours of being placed in custody and invoking her right to counsel, Hall was interrogated and waived his Miranda rights three months after counsel was appointed for him and while in the custody of state correctional authorities as a sentenced inmate. Hall was interviewed where he lived. Wolf had not consulted with counsel. Hall had consulted with his appointed counsel.
The rule announced in Roberson, derived from Edwards and applied in Wolf, and for which the defendant relies on here, is not applicable unless Hall’s sixth amendment request for counsel to represent him in the escape from confinement made three months before the challenged Miranda waiver, and for proceedings that had long since terminated, can reasonably be construed as an “expressed desire to deal with the police only through counsel.” Edwards, supra. The facts demonstrate clearly that it cannot. Therefore, the Roberson rule is inapplicable to this case.
Moreover, even if by some stretch of the imagination one might conclude that the rules of Roberson and Wolf are controlling here, the facts of this case demonstrate that when Hall expressly waived his Miranda rights when being interrogated by Officer Decicco on November 8, 1989, three months after consulting with appointed counsel in the state case, the presumption that his waiver was “itself the product of the ‘inherently compelling pressures’ ” of his custodial interrogation was rebutted.
I take the trouble to concur separately not only because I am firmly convinced that Roberson and Wolf are totally inapplicable to this case, but also because I am unable to say that if Roberson and Wolf were violated, the resultant error in admitting Hall’s incriminating statement was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. There was no such error however and, *966therefore, I concur in the court’s judgment of affirmance.