Court Opinion

ID: 9717515
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:04:58.206005+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:53.369964
License: Public Domain

Dissenting opinion by
Chief Justice LAMBERT.
Respectfully, I must dissent from the majority’s opinion.
I. Appellant Haydon
A. Appellant Haydon made at least three clear and unequivocal requests for a lawyer. A review of the exchange between Haydon and the investigators reveals that each and every time the investí-*312gators mentioned Haydon’s right to have an attorney present, he invoked such right. Nonetheless, the investigators claimed that, in context, the requests were ambiguous. This Court’s majority has accepted this view despite the mandate of Smith v. Illinois that “an accused’s postrequest responses to further interrogation may not be used to cast retrospective doubt on the clarity of the initial request itself.”1
The instant case is virtually identical to Smith. If there is any distinction, it is that Haydon’s request was even clearer and more unequivocal than Smith’s. In Smith the investigator stated:
You have a right to consult with a lawyer and to have a lawyer present with you when you’re being questioned. Do you understand that?
Smith answered:
Uh, yeah. I’d like to do that.
In the instant case, the investigator advised Haydon as follows:
Okay. You have the right to talk to a lawyer prior to any questioning, or making any statements, and to have him present with you while you’re being questioned.
Haydon responded:
Yes, sir. Could I get a phone in here so I can talk to a lawyer?
In Smith, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the investigators were required to cease asking questions after Smith’s above-quoted response even though he subsequently gave an equivocal response regarding counsel when the investigators pressed him on the issue. Likewise, the investigators in the instant case should have ceased asking questions following Haydon’s above-quoted response and his statements thereafter should have been suppressed.
The majority attempts to avoid the bright line rule of Smith by relying on the Court’s qualifying remark that “We do not decide the circumstances in which an accused’s request for counsel may be characterized as ambiguous or equivocal as a result of events preceding the request or of nuances inherent in the request itself ....”2 Its reason for not deciding was the clarity of Smith’s request:
Neither the State nor the courts below, for example, have pointed to anything Smith previously had said that might have cast doubt on the meaning of his statement “I’d like to do that” upon learning that he had the right to his counsel’s presence. Nor have they pointed to anything inherent in the nature of Smith’s actual request for counsel that reasonably would have suggested equivocation.3
The same is true here. Nothing in Hay-don’s conversation with the detectives pri- or to his request for counsel casts doubt on that request. Nor is there anything inherent in the nature of Haydon’s request that would have suggested equivocation. He said, “Yes, sir. Could I get a phone in here so I can talk to a lawyer?” One must wonder where the nuance, ambiguity, or equivocation is in Haydon’s statement.
B. I would not reach the issue of the voluntariness of Haydon’s statement because he had already requested legal counsel. Nor would I remand Haydon’s case to the trial court for a determination of whether the interrogation was in violation of Missouri v. Seibert,4 wherein the “question first” technique of interrogation was *313denounced. I observe, however, that this unconstitutional interrogation technique appears to have been fully utilized here. Thus, even if one believes that there was no request for counsel, a constitutional violation occurred by use of the “question first” technique.
II. Appellant Jackson
At the time Jackson was approached by the police he was in the Jefferson District Court to appear on a traffic charge. In the Hall of Justice, three armed police detectives approached Jackson and informed him that his name had arisen in the course of an investigation. Jackson was escorted by the three detectives across the street to the police station for interrogation. Jackson was led to an interrogation room and left alone for ten to fifteen minutes before one of the detectives returned and began questioning him. Jackson was never told that he was not under arrest, that he did not have to speak, or that he could leave at anytime. In other words, no explanation of rights was given. Despite these facts, the majority has affirmed the trial court’s conclusion that Jackson was not in custody at the time of his interrogation. The majority contends that he was free to leave at any time and was not entitled to Miranda warnings.
In my judgment, this flies in the face of rationality. Even a sophisticated, well-educated, mature adult would find such circumstances deeply intimidating and would perceive a restriction on his liberty. But to suggest that a twenty-year-old ninth-grade dropout, who was a veteran of juvenile camp where he obtained a GED, would imagine that he had a right to leave or refuse questioning is pure sophistry. If the Fifth Amendment and the rights acknowledged in Miranda v. Arizona5 mean anything, at a minimum, they should apply in this case.
Our decision in Commonwealth v. Whit-more 6 binds appellate courts to trial court findings of fact on suppression issues, but we are not so bound by the legal conclusions drawn therefrom. I have no quarrel with the facts as found by the trial court, but the trial court’s conclusion and the conclusion of the majority herein are not reasonable under the facts. We should take this opportunity to denounce unconstitutional police interrogation practices and reaffirm that the spirit of Miranda will be applied in Kentucky courts.
COOPER, J., joins this dissenting opinion.
ROACH, J., joins part I.A. of this dissenting opinion.

. Smith v. Illinois, 469 U.S. 91, 100, 105 S.Ct. 490, 495, 83 L.Ed.2d 488 (1984).

. Id. at 99-100, 105 S.Ct. 490.

. Id. at 96-97, 105 S.Ct. 490.

. 542 U.S. 600, 124 S.Ct. 2601, 159 L.Ed.2d 643 (2004).

. 92 S.W.3d 76 (Ky.2002).

. 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966).