Court Opinion

ID: 9843057
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 02:25:28.82412+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:14:27.139514
License: Public Domain

KOZINSKI, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
There is much in both of the principal opinions with which I agree. The dissent clearly has the better of the argument on the purely factual question whether Colla-zo’s confession was coerced. Were we deciding only that issue, I would have no difficulty concluding that Collazo knew exactly what he was doing when he asked to talk to the police the second time.
I come down on the side of the majority, however, because the Supreme Court has told us that voluntariness is not merely a fact-bound question whether this particular suspect’s confession is the product of coercion, but also a legal question about whether the techniques the police used were tolerable. As the Court noted in Miller v. Fenton, 474 U.S. 104, 116, 106 S.Ct. 445, 452, 88 L.Ed.2d 405 (1985), “the admissibility of a confession turns as much on whether the techniques for extracting the statement, as applied to this suspect, are compatible with a system that presumes innocence and assures that a conviction will not be secured by inquisitorial means as on whether the defendant’s will was in fact overborne.” The question before us, then, is whether the technique used here risks overcoming the will of the run-of-the-mill suspect, even if it did not overcome the will of this particular suspect.
So phrased, the question is capable of only one answer. As the Supreme Court said in Edwards, the police may not undercut the prophylactic rule of Miranda by refusing to accept a suspect’s assertion of the right to counsel. See Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 484, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 1884, 68 L.Ed.2d 378 (1981); see also Minnick v. Mississippi, — U.S. -, 111 S.Ct. *427486, 490-91, 112 L.Ed.2d 489 (1991). The Edwards-Minnick line of cases “is ‘designed to prevent police from badgering a defendant into waiving his previously asserted Miranda rights.’ ” McNeil v. Wisconsin, — U.S. -, -, 111 S.Ct. 2204, 2208, 115 L.Ed.2d 158 (1991) (quoting Michigan v. Harvey, 494 U.S. 344, 350, 110 S.Ct. 1176, 1180, 108 L.Ed.2d 293 (1990)); see also Oregon v. Bradshaw, 462 U.S. 1039, 1044, 103. S.Ct. 2830, 2834, 77 L.Ed.2d 405 (1983). We cannot allow police to advise suspects that they will pay dearly for taking advantage of their right to counsel precisely because some suspects will succumb to the pressure, even if this suspect did not.
This case is difficult only because Edwards allows an exception where the second round of questioning is initiated by the suspect. See Edwards, 451 U.S. at 484-85, 101 S.Ct. at 1884-85. The dissent does a masterful job of showing that the Edwards exception might apply to Collazo because he initiated the second interrogation. In my view, however, the police forfeit the benefit of the Edwards exception once they use the type of pressure tactics demonstrated in this record. Because Edwards is designed to prevent police from badgering suspects into giving up their right to counsel, the narrow exception to Edwards cannot apply in a case where the police actually engaged in badgering. If police want to keep the Edwards escape hatch open, they must cease their interrogation as soon as the suspect asserts his right to counsel, and then hope he changes his mind on his own. Any other rule would invite police misconduct and enmesh the courts in the type of metaphysical unscrambling of which this case is a perfect example.