Court Opinion

ID: 9637767
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:19:17.200126+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:59.457149
License: Public Domain

McKUSICK, Chief Justice,
with whom ROBERTS, Justice, joins, dissenting in part.
Although I concur in Part I of the court’s opinion finding no violation of the speedy trial provisions of the Interstate Compact on Detainers, I dissent from Part II. I would affirm defendant Rose’s convictions in all respects. In Part II of its opinion, the court misapplies two federal prophylactic rules, by using those rules in ways not supported by the controlling federal case law. Furthermore, in each instance the court ignores Maine’s own well-established rule of appellate procedure that requires unpreserved error to be reviewed only for obvious error.
A.
Contrary to the court’s holding (Maj. at 27-28), it appears clear to me that the federal prophylactic rule of Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 68 L.Ed.2d 378 (1981), was never intended by its creator, the United States Supreme Court, to be triggered on the facts of the present case. It is apparent from the very language of the Edwards opinion that the Edwards prophylactic rule (created to support the Fifth Amendment right to counsel during custodial interrogation protected by the rule of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966)) bars only the reinterrogation of a defendant who has during a prior interrogation expressed his desire to have counsel present during interrogation:
[W]hen 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. ... [A]n accused, ... having expressed his desire to deal with the police only through counsel, is not subject to further interrogation by the authorities until counsel has been made available to him, unless the accused himself initiates further communication, exchanges, or conversations with the police.
Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. at 484-85, 101 S.Ct. at 1884-85 (emphasis added) (quoted in the court’s opinion at p. 27).
Edwards applies only to the later interrogation of a defendant when that defendant has requested counsel during prior custodial interrogation.1 Whatever may be said of *29defendant Rose’s circling of statement “B” on his ICD Form II, thereby indicating his desire that counsel be appointed for him, that circling was not made during or in connection with custodial interrogation. Thus, that action cannot under Edwards require the suppression of statements made by Rose during the plane trip back to Maine. The interrogation on that plane trip was the first and only interrogation of Rose and was certainly not the “further interrogation” referred to in Edwards,2
Not only do I disagree with the court that Edwards is triggered on these facts, I also stress that the court in any event cannot discuss the Edwards issue outside the realm of obvious error. Defendant Rose never argued to the Superior Court that his circling of statement “B” on his ICD Form II triggered the Edwards prophylactic bar against reinterrogation.3 When as here defendant’s belated argument was never brought to the attention of the trial court, we may review only for obvious error the trial court’s failure on its own initiative to apply the prophylactic rule of Edwards. See State v. True, 438 A.2d 460, 467-69 (Me.1981); see also State v. Thornton, 485 A.2d 952, 953 (Me.1984). Maine’s long-standing obvious error rule should prevent us from vacating defendant Rose’s convictions on an issue he never brought to the trial court’s attention.
B.
The court also determines that defendant Rose’s waiver of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel, even though it was voluntary, knowing and intelligent, is invalidated by another federal prophylactic rule, that of Michigan v. Jackson, 475 U.S. 625, 636, 106 S.Ct. 1404, 1411, 89 L.Ed.2d 631 (1986). (See op. at 25-27). Thus, the court concludes, the statements he made to Officer Boston en route to Maine are not admissible in evidence. That determination misapplies Michigan v. Jackson, a case that was decided in 1986 by a closely divided Supreme Court and that because of factual differences constitutes doubtful precedent for the case at bar. The difference between a defendant’s demanding counsel at a formal arraignment proceeding and his merely checking off the counsel question on a detainer form makes it far from likely that the Supreme Court would extend Michigan v. Jackson to apply to facts like those now before us. It is a quantum leap to say that the form check-off is “an arraignment or similar proceeding.” 475 U.S. at 636, 106 S.Ct. at 1411. Significantly, the Court has since 1986 refused to apply extensions of the Edwards-type Fifth Amendment prophylactic rule to the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. Compare Arizona v. Roberson, 486 U.S. 675, 108 S.Ct. 2093, 100 L.Ed.2d 704 (1988) {Edwards Fifth Amendment rule applied to interrogation about a different offense), with McNeil v. Wisconsin, — U.S.—, 111 S.Ct. 2204, 115 L.Ed.2d 158 (1991) {Michigan v. Jackson not extended to bar interrogation about a different offense).
It is equally true as with the Edwards analysis that any error on the part of the Superior Court in failing on its own initiative to extend the prophylactic rule of Michigan v. Jackson to the present facts must be reviewed only for obvious error; *30the very first time defendant made the argument that my colleagues now find persuasive was when he filed his reply brief on appeal to this court. The True test of “obvious error” involves a weighing of both the nature of the error and the magnitude of its adverse consequences. See State v. True, 438 A.2d at 468-69. The test is a “demanding one”4 and reflects “the great reluctance with which an appellate court will reverse a trial court judgment on the basis of an error that was not called to the attention of the judge at the time it occurred.” Id. at 469. It requires us to make a two-pronged analysis:
The particular circumstances, weighed with careful judgment, will determine whether the obviousness of the error and the seriousness of the injustice done to the defendant thereby are so great the Law Court cannot in good conscience let the conviction stand.
Id. In the case at bar, the Superior Court’s failure on its own initiative to extend the prophylactic rule of Michigan v. Jackson5 (where counsel was demanded by the defendant at his arraignment) to defendant’s check-off of the counsel box on his ICD Form II neither constituted so obvious an error nor worked so serious an infringement of defendant’s substantive right to counsel that we cannot in good conscience let defendant’s conviction stand.
First, the alleged error is by no means obvious. As already discussed, the Michigan v. Jackson prophylactic rule is a federal rule crafted by the United States Supreme Court. It is not at all clear that the Court would stretch that rule to apply to facts like those of the present case. That uncertainty, even if resolved in favor of defendant, shows that the trial court’s admission of defendant’s statements was not an obvious violation of Michigan v. Jackson. Second, any injustice actually worked on defendant and his substantive Sixth Amendment right to counsel is difficult, if not impossible, to perceive. Before any questioning, defendant was fully informed of his right to counsel and, as found by the trial court, he voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently waived that right. Again I emphasize that the Michigan v. Jackson prophylactic rule is not a constitutional right but rather is merely a procedural mechanism for protecting the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. The denial of the benefit of that prophylactic rule does not by itself constitute the kind of substantive injustice at trial that the obvious error rule is designed to recognize and correct. The Sixth Amendment standing by itself does not prevent a defendant from knowingly and intelligently waiving his right to counsel in the course of a police interrogation, even after his right to counsel has attached by virtue of an indictment and his arrest. See Michigan v. Harvey, 494 U.S. 344, 349, 110 S.Ct. 1176, 1180, 108 L.Ed.2d 293, 303 (1990) (citing Patterson v. Illinois, 487 U.S. 285, 108 S.Ct. 2389, 101 L.Ed.2d 261 (1988)). Defendant Rose signed exactly such a waiver of counsel before being questioned on the trip back from Arizona. On appeal defendant shows no actual prejudice to him beyond the admission in evidence of his own voluntary, knowing, and intelligent statements made after being fully informed of his right to have counsel present during questioning. The substance of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel has been fully respected.
The court’s simultaneous misapplication of two federal prophylactic rules and its disregard of Maine’s long-standing obvious error rule of appellate review lead me to *31dissent. I would affirm defendant Rose’s convictions.

. United States v. Kelsey, 951 F.2d 1196 (10th Cir.1991), cited by our court (op. at 28), involved facts very different from those of the case at bar. Kebey recognized that the Edwards prophylactic rule is triggered only when a defendant’s request for counsel has been made during custodial interrogation. Id. at 1199. Contrary to our court’s apparent reading of the Kebey opinion, the Tenth Circuit did not disregard the fact that the earlier request to have counsel during questioning must have come during interrogation of the defendant in custody. Rather, the Tenth Circuit construed the circumstances surrounding Kelsey’s request that he have counsel during questioning to be the equivalent of interrogation while he was in custody — and, for that reason only, said that "the fact that Kelsey invoked his right to counsel before the police were required to inform him of the right is irrelevant.” Id. at 1199. The Tenth Circuit went on to explain:
It is clear from the exchange between Kelsey and the police [at Kelsey’s home] that the police intended to question Kelsey ... at his home, and that the police understood Kebey to be invoking hb right to counsel during ques*29tioning. Recognizing the import of Kelsey’s request, the police stated that if they allowed him to see his lawyer they could not question him further. We thus conclude that Kelsey’s request for counsel was sufficient to bring this case within the ambit of Edwards.
Id. at 1199 (emphasis added).

. Our court seems to focus on the fact that defendant Rose was in custody “at all relevant times” as if custody alone were sufficient to trigger Edwards. Clearly that is not so. The court rather obliquely refers to defendant having been “in custody and subject to interrogation" at the time he filled out the ICD Form II. (Maj. at 27). The fact remains that however "subject to interrogation” defendant was at that time, he was not actually being interrogated, and hence Edwards is inapplicable to these facts.

. Rose’s only argument to the trial court was in essence that the statement made in the car on the way to the airport, that "he may want to talk with a lawyer first but he would think about it," triggered his right to counsel under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). There is sufficient evidence to support the trial court’s finding of fact that Rose’s statement in the car did not constitute a request for counsel.

. As the First Circuit has stated:
The ["plain error” or “obvious error”] doctrine focuses our attention only on blockbusters: those errors so shocking that they seriously affect the fundamental fairness and basic integrity of the proceedings conducted below.
United States v. Griffin, 818 F.2d 97, 100 (1st Cir.1987).

. In Michigan v. Harvey, 494 U.S. 344, 349, 110 S.Ct. 1176, 1180, 108 L.Ed.2d 293, 303 (1990), the Supreme Court referred to Michigan v. Jackson, 475 U.S. 625, 106 S.Ct. 1404, 89 L.Ed.2d 631 (1986), as laying down a "prophylactic rule” providing a procedural safeguard that is not itself a right protected by the Constitution, but is “instead [a measure] designed to ensure that constitutional rights are protected.”