Court Opinion

ID: 9754577
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:04:48.341904+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:54.811821
License: Public Domain

Justice COATS,
dissenting.
122 Because I believe the majority misstates the controlling federal law with regard to both the meaning and effect of an unambiguous request for counsel, and is led by this misunderstanding of the appropriate federal standards to a result I believe would not be condoned by the Supreme Court, I respectfully dissent.
123 Although it has been criticized for doing so in the past, see, e.g., People v. Bradshaw, 156 P.3d 452, 460 n. 1 (Colo.2007) (Coats, J., dissenting), the majority onee again unselfconsciously conflates the "seru-pulously honor" test, which applies only to the invocation of a defendant's right to remain silent during custodial interrogation, with the "Edwards bright line" rule, see Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 68 L.Ed.2d 378 (1981), which applies, by contrast, to a defendant's invocation of his right to counsel. While the latter standard provides an even stricter prohibition against further interrogation than the former, the distinction is not without significance for the majority's, holding in light of the role played by that very distinction in the Supreme Court's choice to risk denying an inarticulate defendant the benefits of the bright line rule rather than risk a loss of clarity and ease of application by forcing officers to make difficult judgment calls about what a suspect really wants. See Davis v. United States, 512 U.S. 452, 114 S.Ct. 2350, 129 L.Ed.2d 362 (1994). Largely because of the " 'rigid' prophylactic rule" of Edwards, the Davis Court expressly held it to be applicable only where *371an accused actually does invoke his right to counsel-not whenever he might be (or his request could be understood as) invoking that right. Id. at 458-59, 114 S.Ct. 2350. Precisely because of the less forgiving effect of the Edwards bright line rule, a number of jurisdictions have declined to extend the holding of Davis to invocation of the right to remain silent as well. See 2 Wayne R. LaFave et al., Criminal Procedure § 6.9(g) 3d ed.2007 and Supp.2011).
1 24 In addition to muddying the distinction between the Miranda guarantees of a right to counsel and a right to remain silent, I believe the majority flatly misstates the holding of Davis, and by relying on our own prior holdings, some actually pre-dating Davis's resolution of the question how to handle less than unambiguous requests, see, e.g., People v. Harris, 191 Colo. 234, 552 P.2d 10 (1976), literally stands that holding on its head. In Davis, the Supreme Court expressly reconsidered its statement in McNeil v. Wisconsin, 501 U.S. 171, 111 S.Ct. 2204, 115 L.Ed.2d 158 (1991), to the effect that "invocation of the Mirando right to counsel 'requires at a minimum, some statement that can reasonably be construed to be an expression of a desire for the assistance of an attorney, " 512 U.S. at 459, 114 S.Ct. 2350, explaining that its precedents never intended to require the cessation of questioning whenever a reasonable officer would understand only that the suspect "might" be invoking his right to counsel. Id. Far from concluding, as does the majority, that what matters is whether a defendant's question "'could reasonably be construed as a request for counsel," maj. op. at ¶ 14 (quoting from People v. Adkins, 113 P.3d 788 (Colo.2005) and People v. Romero, 953 P.2d 550 (Colo.1998)), the Supreme Court held instead that for a request to be counted as unambiguous, a defendant "must articulate his desire to have counsel present sufficiently clearly that a reasonable police officer in the circumstances would understand the statement to be a request for an attorney." Id. (emphasis added). Rather than "create a third level of prophylaxis to prevent police questioning when the suspect might want a lawyer," the Court expressly declined to assign any consequence at all to an ambiguous or equivocal request for counsel. Id. at 462, 114 S.Ct. 2350.
1 25 By simply changing the word "would" to "could," the majority changes the meaning of "unambiguous request" from a request with a single reasonable interpretation to a request with at least one reasonable interpretation among other reasonable interpretations of which it may also be susceeptible-the very definition of ambiguity and precisely the opposite of the Supreme Court's usage in Davis. Even if the majority's statement of the law were not incorrect, however, I could not agree with its application to the specific request in this case. Whatever the majority may surmise about the defendant's actual intent, his question was clearly couched in terms of timing rather than the immediate provision of counsel. As has been noted elsewhere, see Adkins, 113 P.3d at 796 (Coats, J., dissenting), Miranda never required that an attorney be provided immediately but only that questioning cease upon a request for the assistance of counsel. As a practical matter, police departments do not keep defense counsel on retainer at the sta-tionhouse, and therefore the question when one will be provided, onee requested, may be vital to a defendant's rational assessment of his options. Not only would it therefore be reasonable to take the defendant's question at face value, but to instead impute to it an immediate demand for counsel, in light of the "rigid" prophylactic effect of such a demand, requiring as it would the immediate cessation of all further conversation with the defendant, would, as a practical matter, have deprived the defendant of the very information he sought.
126 Finally, the majority's pre-occupation with the breadth of the investigator's followup questions, in conjunction with its assertion that police may respond to ambiguous statements concerning the right to counsel by engaging in a limited inquiry with the accused for the sole purpose of determining whether the accused has requested an attorney, maj. op. at 18, could not more clearly demonstrate that the majority completely fails to grasp the import of Davis. In Davis, the United States Supreme Court took head-on the question whether limited clarifying *372questions would sometimes be required, or even permitted, to determine whether a suspect actually intended to request the intercession of counsel. 512 U.S. at 461-462, 114 S.Ct. 2350. It emphatically answered the question by holding, with four justices in dissent, that in the event of an unambiguous request for counsel, no further questioning of any kind would be permitted; and in the event of anything less than an unambiguous request, no duty of clarification would arise at all. Id. While it may be considered good practice to clarify, for the benefit of an inarticulate suspect, an ambiguous request, an officer has no duty to do so or to limit in any way his further questioning. And in the case of an unambiguous request, his duty is to cease further questioning altogether.
1 27 I am aware that today's holding is not the first time this court has misapplied, or virtually ignored, Davis, in favor of its own pre-Davis case law. Because the Miranda doctrine is clearly a matter of federal law, as to which this court has never suggested any state constitutional related corollary, however, I continue to view the majority approach to be error. I therefore respectfully dissent.
I am authorized to state that Justice EID joins in the dissent.