Court Opinion

ID: 2965858
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2015-09-21 21:45:39.556024+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:43:07.865664
License: Public Domain

USCA1 Opinion

	

                 United States Court of Appeals
                     For the First Circuit

                                                       
No. 98-1560

                          UNITED STATES,

                            Appellee,

                                v.

                          ANIBAL ORTIZ,

                      Defendant-Appellant.
                     _____________________
No. 98-1685

                          UNITED STATES,

                            Appellant,

                                v.

                          ANIBAL ORTIZ,

                       Defendant-Appellee.
                                 

         ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
               FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
          [Hon. William J. Young, U.S. District Judge]
                                
                                
                                
                             Before
                                
                     Boudin, Circuit Judge,
                 Bownes, Senior Circuit Judge,
                   and Stahl, Circuit Judge.
                                
                                
                                
     Robert D. Dimler, by appointment of the Court, for defendant.
     Jennifer Zacks, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom
Donald K. Stern, United States Attorney, was on brief, for the
United States.

June 2, 1999

  STAHL, Circuit Judge.  Defendant-appellant Anibal Ortiz
challenges his money laundering convictions entered pursuant to a
jury verdict, contending that the district court erred in denying
his motion to suppress certain post-arrest statements.  Because we
find that the statements were admitted in violation of Ortiz's
Fifth Amendment rights, we vacate the convictions and remand for
further proceedings.
  "[W]e recite the facts as found by the district court to
the extent they derive support from the record and are not clearly
erroneous."  United States v. McCarthy, 77 F.3d 522, 525 (1st Cir.
1996).  On November 14, 1997, Ortiz was arrested at his place of
employment on charges of money laundering.  At the time of the
arrest, the arresting officer, Special Agent Doo, read Ortiz his
Miranda rights in English.  See Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436
(1966).  When asked if he wanted an attorney, Ortiz stated that he
did.  Agent Doo immediately ceased questioning Ortiz, seated him on
a couch, handcuffed him, and left the room.  Shortly thereafter,
two other officers, Agents O'Neil and Navarro, approached Ortiz and
re-read him his Miranda rights a second and third time, first in
Spanish and then in English.
  According to the district court, Ortiz then initiated
conversation with the officers by inquiring about the charges
against him.  Agent Navarro responded that Ortiz was being charged
with money laundering and asked whether he wanted to cooperate. 
Ortiz stated that he did.  A close reading of the record, however,
reveals a different sequence of events.  The uncontroverted
testimony of Agent Navarro and Ortiz shows that immediately after
reading Ortiz his Miranda rights, Agent Navarro asked Ortiz whether
he wanted to cooperate.  Ortiz stated that he did, and only then
inquired about the charges against him.  Ortiz ultimately signed
two forms waiving his Miranda rights and made a number of self-
incriminating statements.  To the extent that the district court's
findings are inconsistent with this uncontroverted testimony, they
are clearly erroneous.
  Miranda and Edwards v. Arizona, together, provide that
when a suspect asserts his right to counsel, interrogation must
cease and the police may not reinterrogate the suspect until
counsel is present, unless the suspect himself initiates further
conversation.  See 384 U.S. at 473-74; 451 U.S. 477, 484-85 (1981). 
Because the facts of this case parallel those of Edwards, we recite
the facts of that Supreme Court case in some detail.  
  The defendant in Edwards was arrested at his home and
taken to a police station where an officer informed him of his
Miranda rights.  Like Ortiz, Edwards asserted his right to counsel,
at which point police questioning ceased and he was taken to a
county jail.  The next day, before counsel had been made available
to Edwards, two different officers approached Edwards in jail, told
him that they wanted to talk to him, and again advised him of his
Miranda rights.  Edwards stated that he was willing to cooperate
and implicated himself in the crime.  Prior to trial, Edwards moved
to suppress his confession on the ground that his Miranda rights
had been violated when the officers returned to question him after
he had invoked his right to counsel.  The trial court denied the
motion and the Arizona Supreme Court affirmed, concluding that
Edwards had waived his right to counsel when he voluntarily gave
his statements to the police.  The Supreme Court, however,
reversed, holding that "when an accused has invoked his right to
have counsel present during custodial interrogation, a valid waiver
of that right cannot be established by showing only that he
responded to further police-initiated custodial interrogation even
if he has been advised of his rights."  Edwards, 451 U.S. at 484.
  The government's attempt to distinguish Edwards hinges
entirely on its argument that Ortiz, after receiving Miranda
warnings, asked about the charges against him and thereby
"initiated" conversation.  According to the government, the
officers' prior recitation of two additional sets of Miranda
warnings was not, strictly speaking, "interrogation."  Cf. Rhode
Island v. Innis, 446 U.S. 291, 301 (1980) (defining "interrogation"
as "express questioning . . . [or] any words or actions on the part
of the police (other than those normally attendant to arrest and
custody) that the police should know are reasonably likely to
elicit an incriminating response from the suspect").
  Here, the uncontroverted evidence shows that after Ortiz
had asserted his right to counsel to the first officer, the other
officers not only delivered a second and third set of Miranda
warnings, but then immediately proceeded to ask Ortiz whether he
wanted to cooperate.  The officers thus reinitiated interrogation
in violation of Edwards.   See Minnick v. Mississippi, 498 U.S.
146, 147 (1990) (stating that "once the accused requests counsel,
officials may not reinitiate questioning 'until counsel has been
made available' to him") (citing Edwards, 451 U.S. at 484-485)
(emphasis added).
  It is quite true that in Oregon v. Bradshaw, 462 U.S.
1039 (1983), a closely divided Supreme Court held that the police
could reinterrogate, assuming a waiver after new Miranda warnings,
where a defendant "initiated" the conversation, see Edwards, 451
U.S. at 484-85; and the plurality opinion in Bradshaw treated as
initiation a defendant's innocuous inquiry ("Well, what's going to
happen to me now?"), Bradshaw, 462 U.S. at 1045.  But while
Bradshaw obviously qualifies Edwards, eight of the Justices still
required that the defendant initiate a new conversation, and that
did not occur in this case.  If Edwards is to be further modified,
cf. Bradshaw, 462 U.S. at 1047-51 (Powell, J., concurring), it is
for the Supreme Court to do it.
  Ortiz's self-incriminating statements, elicited in
violation of Miranda and Edwards, were introduced into evidence at
his trial.  There has been no suggestion that the introduction of
this evidence was harmless, and our independent review of the
record convinces us that the error was not harmless.  We therefore
vacate Ortiz's convictions and remand for further proceedings
consistent with this opinion.