Miranda: Invoking the Right to Counsel

Defendant Hall was arrested on suspicion of assaulting a woman with a gun earlier that day in a parking lot. Hall was taken into custody and advised of his Miranda rights, then driven to the police station where he was interrogated.

The interrogation initially focused on the assault of the woman that day and a similar incident that occurred a previous day. After about 15 minutes, the appellant stated, "I guess I'm going to have to see a lawyer sometime." When the officer asker whether he wanted to see a lawyer now, the defendant replied, " No, not now, just sometime." Thirty minutes later, the police shifted the focus of the interrogation to a murder that occurred 7 days earlier. Defendant Hall denied responsibility for the murder, and asked as officer, "When do you think I'll get to see a lawyer?" There was no response by the officers, the questioning ceased, and the defendant was transported to jail.

Two days later, defendant was interrogated a second time about the murder for 3 hours. Prior to his interrogation defendant was advised of his Miranda rights. During this questioning, defendant admitted that he committed the murder.

Hall contends:

1. He invoked his right to counsel at the first interrogation.
2. In the alternative, he contends that at least the final statement at the first interrogation was ambiguous; therefore, police should have foregone further interrogation, except to clarify the meaning.

Mike Boorman

Emory Law

Answer

1- The first is whether Hall's question, "when do you think I'll get to see a lawyer," constituted a clear and unequivocal request for the presence of counsel and, if not, whether it was an arguably ambiguous or inartful request for counsel.Hall's utterance at the end of the December 28 interrogation was not a definite request for assistance of legal counsel before further interrogation; for example, appellant may have been perfectly willing to continue answering questions without an attorney, while at the same time have been merely curious about the possibility of being provided the assistance of counsel at later stages of the criminal process, or perhaps, affirmatively have been requesting counsel for those later stages.

2- We therefore make explicit our approval of the Fifth Circuit rule, and adopt it as the rule to govern the evaluation of custodial interrogations in the courts of this state. Having done so, we apply that rule to the instant case, and find that at the point that Hall said, "when do you think I'll get to see a lawyer," the scope of any subsequent interrogation should have been narrowed to an attempt to clarify the nature of Hall's question.   The re-mirandizing of the defendant on the 30th was sufficient clarification.  The statements were properly admitted.

See Hall v. State, 255 Ga. 267 (1996).