Court Opinion

ID: 9861368
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 23:55:43.260466+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:28:15.482004
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HUTCHINSON, dissenting: I do not agree with the majority that defendant’s question about why his car was towed signaled his desire to initiate further conversation with the police after his right to counsel had been invoked. The majority understands that the law to be taken from Oregon v. Bradshaw, 462 U.S. 1039, 77 L. Ed. 2d 405, 103 S. Ct. 2830 (1983), is “the Supreme Court’s use of the word ‘general’ in this context to mark a distinction between questions not pertaining to the investigation (such as questions limited to the incidents of the custodial relationship) and those pertaining to the investigation, specific or not.” 393 Ill. App. 3d at 1067.1 do not disagree with that understanding. I do, however, disagree that defendant’s concern about his car, especially when he was apparently speaking with his father on the phone from the jail, was a question pertaining to the investigation. A question about personal property involved in an arrest and incarceration is just that. Here, defendant found himself in custody, his car was apparently towed upon his arrest, and his father wanted to know what happened to the car and why it was towed. In fact, the pivotal question in this case appears to be a question posed by defendant’s father rather than defendant himself. To my knowledge, there is no applicable law that would allow questioning after a defendant invokes his right to counsel when the question is instigated by a third party. The conversation between defendant and the officer that follows complicates this situation. The officer testified that he told defendant that he could not answer any questions for defendant unless he read defendant his Miranda rights. Defendant then asked, “[D]o I have to answer everything?” This question certainly evinces equivocation and reluctance on behalf of defendant. Defendant was truly “between a rock and a hard place.” His father wanted to know what happened to defendant’s car, and the officer said he could not answer any questions until the Miranda warnings were again presented. I acknowledge that the officer was placed in a difficult position when defendant asked the question, but if the question was properly interpreted as one from a person or persons concerned about some valuable personal property, the answer was simple: it is part of the investigation. If defendant persisted at that point with questions about why, where, or what, such questions would be viewed more akin to an attempt to initiate conversation about the ultimate investigation. Finally, to make this case most difficult, the officer involved in the phone-question exchange testified he was unsure whether the inculpatory statement “it wasn’t a hate crime” occurred before or after the Miranda rights were reread and acknowledged by defendant. If the two initial questions posed by defendant to the officer are appropriately interpreted as general inquiries about apparently confiscated personal property, defendant is still under the protection of his invocation of counsel. The blurted statement is not admissible. If the Miranda warnings had already been read, the waters become more murky, but that proposition is not before this court at this time. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.