Posted on 05/26/2009 9:15:52 AM PDT by freedomwarrior998
Syllabus
At a preliminary hearing required by Louisiana law, petitioner Montejo was charged with first-degree murder, and the court ordered the appointment of counsel. Later that day, the police read Montejo his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, and he agreed to go along on a trip to locate the murder weapon. During the excursion,he wrote an inculpatory letter of apology to the victim’s widow. Upon returning, he finally met his court-appointed attorney. At trial, his letter was admitted over defense objection, and he was convicted and sentenced to death. Affirming, the State Supreme Court rejected his claim that the letter should have been suppressed under the rule of Michigan v. Jackson, 475 U. S. 625, which forbids police to initiateinterrogation of a criminal defendant once he has invoked his right tocounsel at an arraignment or similar proceeding. The court reasoned that Jackson’s prophylactic protection is not triggered unless the defendant has actually requested a lawyer or has otherwise assertedhis Sixth Amendment right to counsel; and that, since Montejo stoodmute at his hearing while the judge ordered the appointment ofcounsel, he had made no such request or assertion.
Held: 1. Michigan v. Jackson should be and now is overruled. Pp. 3–18.
(a) The State Supreme Court’s interpretation of Jackson would lead to practical problems. Requiring an initial “invocation” of theright to counsel in order to trigger the Jackson presumption, as thecourt below did, might work in States that require an indigent defendant formally to request counsel before an appointment is made, butnot in more than half the States, which appoint counsel without request from the defendant. Pp. 3–6.
(b) On the other hand, Montejo’s solution is untenable as a theoretical and doctrinal matter. Eliminating the invocation requirement entirely would depart fundamentally from the rationale of Jackson, whose presumption was created by analogy to a similar prophylacticrule established in Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U. S. 477, to protect the Fifth Amendment-based Miranda right. Both Edwards and Jackson are meant to prevent police from badgering defendants into changing their minds about the right to counsel once they have invoked it, buta defendant who never asked for counsel has not yet made up his mind in the first instance. Pp. 6–13.
(c) Stare decisis does not require the Court to expand significantly the holding of a prior decision in order to cure its practical deficiencies. To the contrary, the fact that a decision has proved “unworkable” is a traditional ground for overruling it. Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U. S. 808, 827. Beyond workability, the relevant factors include the precedent’s antiquity, the reliance interests at stake,and whether the decision was well reasoned. Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U. S. ___, ___. The first two cut in favor of jettisoning Jackson: the opinion is only two decades old, and eliminating it would not upset expectations, since any criminal defendant learned enough to order his affairs based on Jackson’s rule would also be perfectly capableof interacting with the police on his own. As for the strength of Jackson’s reasoning, when this Court creates a prophylactic rule to protect a constitutional right, the relevant “reasoning” is the weighing of the rule’s benefits against its costs. Jackson’s marginal benefits are dwarfed by its substantial costs. Even without Jackson, few badgering-induced waivers, if any, would be admitted at trial because theCourt has taken substantial other, overlapping measures to exclude them. Under Miranda, any suspect subject to custodial interrogation must be advised of his right to have a lawyer present. 384 U. S., at 474. Under Edwards, once such a defendant “has invoked his [Miranda] right,” interrogation must stop. 451 U. S., at 484. And under Minnick v. Mississippi, 498 U. S. 146, no subsequent interrogation may take place until counsel is present. Id., at 153. These three layers of prophylaxis are sufficient. On the other side of the equation, the principal cost of applying Jackson’s rule is that crimes can go unsolved and criminals unpunished when uncoerced confessions are excluded and when officers are deterred from even trying to obtain confessions. The Court concludes that the Jackson rule does not “pay its way,” United States v. Leon, 468 U. S. 897, 907–908, n. 6, and thus the case should be overruled. Pp. 13–18.
2. Montejo should nonetheless be given an opportunity to contend that his letter of apology should have been suppressed under the Edwards rule. He understandably did not pursue an Edwards objection, because Jackson offered broader protections, but the decision here changes the legal landscape.
06–1807 (La.), 974 So. 2d 1238, vacated and remanded. SCALIA, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and KENNEDY, THOMAS, and ALITO, JJ., joined. ALITO, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which KENNEDY, J., joined. STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SOUTER and GINSBURG, JJ., joined, and in which BREYER, J., joined, except for n. 5. BREYER, J., filed a dissenting opinion.
Does this mean that the police can continue interrogation after you request legal councel?
Why is it that those four seem to always be wrong about everything?
I’m not positive that I’d call this a good one. I’m typically not in favor of expanding police powers at the expense of individual liberty, and this, at first glance, appears to do so.
Correct!!!!
Was he prevented from doing so or did he just not meet with his attorney? It doesn't state what happened in the summary.
Under Edwards, once such a defendant “has invoked his [Miranda] right,” interrogation must stop. 451 U. S., at 484<\blockquote>.
I’m OK with the State court’s holding. He didn’t ask for a lawyer, so he doesn’t get the protection.
I’m not cool, however, with overruling a rule that prohibits interrogation after a suspect has requested a lawyer. I’ll withhold final judgment until I read Edwards.
And how would the new appointment fall??????
No. In this case, the defendant never requested counsel. He was appointed a public defender automatically. When informed of his Miranda rights, he still opted to cooperate in the search for the weapon and wrote the letter.
That was the argument made by the state, the ruling was that made no difference!!
How is this a federal issue anyway? The original law was federal, so it’s been overturned at the federal level. OK.
But that shouldn’t and doesn’t imply that this issue has been fixed at the federal level. They overturned their own law. Nothing’s stopping each state from having a law that has this same effect.
Should never have been a federal issue, quite possibly, and that seems to be the basis on which they overturned it: “some states do this, some states do that”.
As if there is any doubt. The new appointee is probably further to the left than Ginsburg.
Looks OK to me. I don’t think this expands police power. It appears to just throw out one of three precedents that made the matter more confusing than workable. Under other precedents they still have to stop an interrogation once counsel is requested. Looks like now, they could still use a freely given and uncoerced confession that was not a product of interrogation.
I think.
The reversal states that the police knew he had been appointed an attorney and for them to question further without attorney permission was a violation. It did not make any difference if he requested one are not. The police knew they were breaking the law.
I haven’t read over the whole thing, but I think that Stevens’s dissent raises some fair points, although I’m not sure that I would agree with Stevens’s contention that the Jackson rule should be automatically triggered once a suspect is arraigned.
On the other hand, Stevens rightly points out that once a suspect has been arraigned—and becomes a defendant—the stakes have been raised and the importance of counsel is paramount, and perhaps too important to be left to the decision of a confused, stressed, and, perhaps, stupid defendant.
The article clearly states he had not taken the opportunity to request counsel...that’s why this matter was overruled.
Rush just announced the Sumpreme Court just reversed all four opinions before them of Judge Sotomayor.
Not under today's decision, I don't believe that they were. After all, what now seems to be clear is that if you don't ask for a lawyer, the police can interrogate you, regardless of whether you have an attorney.
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