Court Opinion

ID: 9714429
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:37:17.397812+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:26.025062
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE SIMON, dissenting: Because I find the defendant’s statement indicating a desire to speak through counsel to be unambiguous and at the same time find no evidence of a voluntary renunciation of his right to do so, I would remand the cause for a new trial. The Supreme Court has emphasized that when a suspect in custody invokes his fifth amendment right to counsel and does not knowingly and voluntarily initiate communication at a later time, the police are not permitted to continue to interrogate him until counsel is provided. (Oregon v. Bradshaw (1983), 462 U.S. 1039, 77 L. Ed. 2d 405, 103 S. Ct. 2830; Edwards v. Arizona (1981), 451 U.S. 477, 68 L. Ed. 2d 378, 101 S. Ct. 1880; see Miranda v. Arizona (1966), 384 U.S. 436, 16 L. Ed. 2d 694, 86 S. Ct. 1602.) The majority’s reliance on “Smith's statements, considered in total” (102 Ill. 2d at 373), confuses the two distinct questions that must be asked: whether the defendant asserted his right to counsel in the first place and whether, assuming that he did so, he later validly waived that right. The statements which the majority claims rendered the request for counsel ambiguous were not part of the request and did not precede it but came later, following continued recitation of the Miranda warnings and a paraphrasing of the meaning of those warnings by the interrogator. As the Edwards and Bradshaw opinions illustrate, statements made by a defendant after he invokes his right to counsel are relevant in determining whether he waived the right following the invocation. However, they are valueless in deciding whether an earlier statement made by the defendant amounts to an assertion of the right to counsel. A statement either is such an assertion or it is not, and in the event that it is, the interrogating officer must react immediately to it, either by ceasing all questioning (see, e.g., Miranda v. Arizona (1966), 384 U.S. 436, 444-45, 16 L. Ed. 2d 694, 707, 86 S. Ct. 1602, 1612; People v. Superior Court (1975), 15 Cal. 3d 729, 736, 542 P.2d 1390, 1394, 125 Cal. Rptr. 798, 802, cert. denied (1976), 429 U.S. 816, 50 L. Ed. 2d 76, 97 S. Ct. 58; Singleton v. State (Fla. App. 1977), 344 So. 2d 911, 912-13; State v. Nash (1979), 119 N.H. 728, 731, 407 A.2d 365, 367) or by limiting further questioning strictly to an attempt to clarify any bona fide doubt the officer may still have as to whether the defendant desires counsel (State v. Moulds (1983), 105 Idaho 880, 889, 673 P.2d 1074, 1083; see People v. Krueger (1980), 82 Ill. 2d 305, 311, cert. denied (1981), 451 U.S. 1019, 69 L. Ed. 2d 390, 101 S. Ct. 3009). No authority, and no logic, permits the interrogator to proceed with his Miranda warnings and his questioning, on his own terms and as if the defendant had requested nothing, in the hope that the defendant might be induced to say something casting retrospective doubt on his initial statement that he wished to speak through an attorney or not at all. That, however, is what the majority opinion permits the State to do. The focus of a reviewing court should be on whether the defendant’s alleged assertion of his right to counsel, standing alone or in conjunction with his earlier statements or actions insofar as they shed light on his desires, were sufficient to be understood as such an invocation by a reasonable man in the interrogating officer’s position. The Supreme Court in Miranda said that if a suspect “indicates in any manner and at any stage of the process that he wishes to consult with an attorney before speaking there can be no [further] questioning.” (384 U.S. 436, 444-45, 16 L. Ed. 2d 694, 707, 86 S. Ct. 1602, 1612.) Although many jurisdictions have interpreted this to mean that any indication by a defendant that he might wish to consult an attorney is sufficient to trigger the right to counsel (see, e.g., People v. Superior Court (1975), 15 Cal. 3d 729, 735-36, 542 P.2d 1390, 1394-95, 125 Cal. Rptr. 798, 802-03, cert. denied (1976), 429 U.S. 816, 50 L. Ed. 2d 76, 97 S. Ct. 58; Singleton v. State (Fla. App. 1977), 344 So. 2d 911, 912; State v. Nash (1979), 119 N.H. 728, 731, 407 A.2d 365, 367; Ochoa v. State (Tex. Crim. App. 1978), 573 S.W.2d 796, 800), this court has required, as the majority has noted, that a statement invoking the right be at least sufficiently free of indecision or double meaning to reasonably inform the authorities that he wishes to speak to counsel (see People v. Krueger (1980), 82 Ill. 2d 305, 311, cert. denied (1981), 451 U.S. 1019, 69 L. Ed. 2d 390, 101 S. Ct. 3009). The Krueger opinion stressed, however, that “assertion of the right to counsel need not be explicit, unequivocal, or made with unmistakable clarity.” 82 Ill. 2d 305, 311. The facts presented by Krueger are distinguishable, for with the possible exception of the word “uh” the defendant’s statement in this case was neither indecisive nor ambiguous: “Uh, yeah, I’d like to do that.” The statement came in answer to the warning that Smith had the right to have an attorney present while being questioned, and Smith had volunteered nothing previously which might have cast doubt on his response that he wished “to do that” rather than face the interrogator on his own. His only previous statement to the officer which is of any significance in this regard is an assertion that “she” warned him that the police would “railroad” him and advised him to get a lawyer before submitting to interrogation. I fail to understand how the officer could have mistaken the defendant’s meaning, and no justification is given or is apparent for his proceeding through to the end of the Miranda warnings and in the course of doing so misrepresenting to Smith the meaning of those warnings by the following admonition: “You either have to talk to me this time without a lawyer being present and if you do agree to talk with me without a lawyer being present you can stop at any time you want to.” This communication, even if inadvertent, clearly imparted to the defendant the warning that he had to talk to the interrogator and was seriously misleading. This court has noted that, “[i]n the intimidating atmosphere of an interrogation room, many otherwise hardy individuals, except those with exposure to and experience with the procedure, may succumb, even after assertions of their right to remain silent and right to have counsel, to the implication that ‘silence in the face of accusation is itself damning.’ ” (People v. Medina (1978), 71 Ill. 2d 254, 260.) In this regard, I find it particularly significant that Smith, who was apparently in police custody for the first time in his life and admitted that he did not “know what’s what,” agreed to talk to the police only after he was told, ostensibly by way of explaining the Miranda warnings, that he had no other choice. Miranda warnings are designed to assist defendants in understanding and asserting their fifth amendment rights, not to provide another source of pressure on them to surrender those rights. Smith was entitled to receive his Miranda warnings without having them turn into an endurance contest at his expense (People v. Hammock (1984), 121 Ill. App. 3d 874, 879-80) or a means of eliciting a confession from him against his will. When he indicated his desire to have counsel he should have been taken at his word, and further representations or warnings to him or discussion with him should have ceased. GOLDENHERSH and MORAN, JJ., join in this dissent.