Court Opinion

ID: 9737037
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:13:37.727211+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:23:56.098810
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE STAMOS, also dissenting: I concur in Justice Clark’s dissent but write separately to emphasize the significance of (1) the State’s own express limitation on the interrogation’s intended scope when questioning defendant about one crime and (2) the State’s failure, prior to a separate interrogation about another crime, to give defendant any new warning pursuant to Miranda v. Arizona (1966), 384 U.S. 436,16 L. Ed. 2d 694, 86 S. Ct. 1602. This case involves two crimes: the Fayette Service Co-op burglary and the Fayco Enterprises burglary. When the deputy sheriff first interviewed defendant and gave him a Miranda warning, the deputy said that he intended to question defendant about the first crime. Even if defendant’s eventual voluntary statements about the first crime, which were made during a conversation two days after the initial interrogation and one day after defendant’s arraignment, could be considered a waiver of defendant’s previously invoked fifth or sixth amendment right to counsel regarding that crime, they could not logically constitute a waiver of either of those rights as to the second crime. The reason is that defendant had never been given the required Miranda warning of his fifth amendment right as to the second crime. Defendant was never questioned about the second crime until a conversation took place that was completely separate from and subsequent to his interrogation and arraignment for the first crime. The deputy told defendant during the later conversation that he could not talk to defendant “about the case,” meaning the first crime, because defendant had an attorney, who was representing him after arraignment for the first crime. The deputy obviously gave defendant no admonition concerning the second crime. Defendant cannot be deemed to have waived a fifth amendment right of which he was never apprised as to that separately investigated second crime. And, of course, neither had defendant yet accrued a waivable sixth amendment right to counsel or, much less, obtained counsel as to the second crime, because adversary judicial proceedings regarding that crime had not yet begun. See Michigan v. Jackson (1986), 475 U.S. 625, 629-30, 89 L. Ed. 2d 631, 638, 106 S. Ct. 1404, 1407-08; Moran v. Burbine (1986), 475 U.S. 412, 428, 89 L. Ed. 2d 410, 425, 106 S. Ct. 1135,1144. Thus, any waiver regarding the first crime could not fairly be extended to the second; to do so would strip defendant of his rights as to the second before he had ever been given a chance to claim them. As Justice Clark’s dissent notes (132 Ill. 2d at 498-99) in citing Miranda, the purpose of requiring admonitions to defendants is to redress in some degree the imbalance of free wills between interrogator and arrestee in a custodial setting. As Justice Clark also points out (132 Ill. 2d at 499-500), the mere fact that defendant arguably waived a right to counsel about which he had been admonished regarding the first crime hardly compels a conclusion that he was simultaneously waiving a right about which he had not been admonished regarding the second crime. This is particularly true because the police-initiated questioning regarding the second crime was temporally separate, came unexpectedly and after two days of continuing incarceration, and ran contrary to the deputy’s earlier strong implication that questioning would be limited to the first crime. Furthermore, defendant’s confession to the second crime resulted from a direct question by the deputy rather than being volunteered. (The majority’s opinion states that no issue has been raised under the sixth amendment and merely treats defendant’s request for counsel at his arraignment as having constituted invocation of his fifth amendment right. (132 Ill. 2d at 492; cf. 179 Ill. App. 3d 468, 469, 471 (Harrison, J., dissenting).) Despite defendant’s failure to raise a question under the sixth amendment, case law teaches that providing counsel at defendant’s arraignment represented recognition of a right under the sixth amendment, not merely the fifth. (See, e.g., Michigan v. Jackson, 475 U.S. at 629-35, 89 L. Ed. 2d at 638-41, 106 S. Ct. at 1407-10; United States ex rel. Espinoza v. Fairman (7th Cir. 1987), 813 F.2d 117, 123; see also Brewer v. Williams (1977), 430 U.S. 387, 51 L. Ed. 2d 424, 97 S. Ct. 1232 (sixth amendment right operated after arraignment to bar continued custodial interrogation as to a second, related crime).) In any event, whether it was defendant’s fifth or sixth amendment right, or both, that he invoked at arraignment and then arguably waived as to the first crime, he was never given an opportunity to invoke or waive either right in relation to the second crime.) The cases cited by the majority do not weaken these conclusions. Shriner v. Wainwright (11th Cir. 1983), 715 F.2d 1452, involved a defendant who was found not to have requested counsel and was found to have exercised his fifth amendment Miranda right, of which he had been fully admonished three times, to end an interrogation session in relation to a robbery but not as to a murder. He was being questioned from the start of the session about both the murder and the robbery. (See Shriner, 715 F.2d at 1454; Shriner v. State (Fla. 1980), 386 So. 2d 525, 528.) The defendant offered no testimony to rebut the prosecution’s contention that his request to discontinue questioning had applied only to the robbery. Accordingly, the State was held to have scrupulously honored the only right he exercised: the right to discontinue questioning about the robbery. Shriner differs markedly from the present cause. In Shriner, a confession to the second crime (murder) came during a prearraignment interrogation session that involved both crimes and at the inception of which the defendant’s third Miranda warning had been given. (Shriner, 715 F.2d at 1454-55.) Here, the second-crime confession came (1) in a separate session from the one in which a Miranda warning had been given, (2) after arraignment and appointment of counsel for the first crime had occurred (thus implicating the sixth, not merely the fifth, amendment), and (3) even though defendant had been given no separate Miranda warning at all as to the second crime. Despite Shriner’s observations (715 F.2d at 1455) that a limited invocation of Miranda allows continued interrogation except as limited, and that a single invocation of Miranda will not forever bar questioning by all police officers about all subjects, both observations must presuppose that a proper Miranda warning has been given in the first place. Such a warning was decidedly absent as far as questioning the present defendant about his second crime is concerned. Likewise, Colorado v. Spring (1987), 479 U.S. 564, 93 L. Ed. 2d 954, 107 S. Ct. 851, does not control the present cause. In Spring, the defendant had been arrested on weapons charges and was given a Miranda warning before an interrogation session, during which he was asked unexpectedly about a second crime (murder) and made an inculpatory statement. He was then given a second Miranda warning before a subsequent interrogation session pertaining to the murder; at the second session, he confessed to aiding the murder. On appeal, he argued that he had been tricked, in violation of Miranda (Miranda, 384 U.S. at 476, 16 L. Ed. 2d at 725, 86 S. Ct. at 1629), by the State’s failure at the initial interrogation session to inform him of the potential subjects of interrogation before he waived his Miranda right to refuse questions. The Supreme Court held that “mere silence” about the interrogation’s scope did not constitute trickery and that “a valid waiver does not require that an individual be informed of all information ‘useful’ in making his decision or all information that ‘might *** affec[t] his decision to confess.’ [Citation.]” (Spring, 479 U.S. at 576, 93 L. Ed. 2d at 967, 107 S. Ct. at 859, quoting Moran v. Burbine (1986), 475 U.S. 412, 422, 89 L. Ed. 2d 410, 421, 106 S. Ct. 1135, 1141.) Accordingly, in Spring, “the additional information could affect only the wisdom of a Miranda waiver, not its essentially voluntary and knowing nature.” Spring, 479 U.S. at 577, 93 L. Ed. 2d at 967,107 S. Ct. at 859. Unlike the Spring defendant, the present defendant never received a Miranda warning to waive when being questioned about the second crime. Such Miranda warning as he did receive, in a session pertaining to the first crime only, had come two days earlier. It is true that Spring has been interpreted by one court as meaning that police need not give a new Miranda warning each time they question a suspect in continuous custody about a different crime. (United States ex rel. Espinoza v. Fairman (7th Cir. 1987), 813 F.2d 117, 125-26.) However, that statement in Espinoza (which involved a waiver question, not a warning question) appears to be dictum. In any case, the defendants in both Espinoza and Spring received new Miranda warnings at the inceptions of the interrogation sessions during which they confessed to their second crimes. The present defendant did not. The mere fact that, under Espinoza, the present defendant’s initial Miranda invocation as to his first crime might be considered to have carried over to his second interrogation session and to have made another Miranda warning at that session unnecessary could not mean that his presumed Miranda waiver at that session as to the first crime also applied to a Miranda right that had not yet been either extended or invoked as to the second crime. Otherwise, one would have to contend simultaneously that the single presumed waiver was immediately effective to cut off the initial Miranda invocation as to the first crime, but that it was temporarily ineffective to cut off that same “invocation” as to the second. Such temporary ineffectiveness would allow an Espinoza-inspired carryover of the initial Miranda warning and invocation to occur with respect to the second crime, followed instantly by the supposed waiver’s Springing into effect so as to shield from challenge the deputy’s direct inquiry in that same instant regarding the second crime. The fallacy of such tortured reasoning-obvious in its very statement — helps to refute any contention that Spring or the dictum in Espinoza governs the present cause. Besides, as Justice Clark cogently argues, an act that appears to invoke a right to counsel should be construed much more broadly than an act that seems to waive it. Indeed, Spring supports rather than undermines the present defendant’s case: The Spring Court specified that it was “not confronted with an affirmative misrepresentation by law enforcement officials as to the scope of the interrogation” and therefore did not reach “the question whether a waiver of Miranda rights would be valid in such a circumstance.” (Spring, 479 U.S. at 576 n.8, 93 L. Ed. 2d at 967 n.8, 107 S. Ct. at 858 n.8.) In the present cause, when giving his only Miranda warning, the deputy did affirmatively tell defendant that the interrogation would involve the first crime. This may not have been an actual misrepresentation, but, especially given the Supreme Court’s limiting language in Spring, it is asking far too much to read into the present defendant’s presumed Miranda waiver regarding the first crime a similar waiver regarding the second. The fact is that defendant was never apprised of his Miranda rights at the time he was separately questioned about the second crime. Neither Shriner nor Spring warrants a holding that he waived or even could have waived those rights as to that crime freely and knowingly. For the foregoing reasons and those ably set forth by Justice Clark, I respectfully dissent. JUSTICE CLARK joins in this dissent.