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Drew Jacobs Module 20 Case1 Florida v

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Drew Jacobs Module 20 Case1

Florida v. Powell, 130 S. Ct. 1195, (2010)

 

Justice GINSBURG delivered the opinion of the Court.

Facts:

LEO’s arrested Powell in connection with a robbery investigation, they entered an apartment rented by Powell's girlfriend. After spotting Powell coming from a bedroom, the officers searched the room and discovered a loaded nine-millimeter handgun under the bed.

Before asking Powell any questions, the officers read Powell the standard Tampa Police Department Consent and Release Form. The form states:

“You have the right to remain silent. If you give up the right to remain silent, anything you say can be used against you in court. You have the right to talk to a lawyer before answering any of our questions. If you cannot afford to hire a lawyer, one will be appointed for you without cost and before any questioning. You have the right to use any of these rights at any time you want during this interview.”

Acknowledging that he had been informed and understood his rights and that he was willing to talk to the officers, he signed the form. He then admitted that he owned the handgun found. Powell knew he was prohibited from possessing a gun because he was a convicted felon, but said he had nevertheless purchased and carried the firearm for his protection.

Contending that the Miranda warnings were deficient because they did not adequately convey his right to the presence of an attorney during questioning, he moved to suppress his inculpatory statements. The trial court denied the motion.

On appeal, the Florida Second District Court of Appeal held that the trial court should have suppressed Powell's statements. They said the Miranda warnings, did not “adequately inform him of his right to have an attorney present throughout the interrogation. Considering the issue to be “one of great public importance,” the court certified the following question to the Florida Supreme Court: “Does the failure to provide express advice of the right to the presence of counsel during questioning vitiate Miranda warnings which advise of both (A) the right to talk to a lawyer ‘before questioning’ and (B) the ‘right to use’ the right to consult a lawyer ‘at any time’ during questioning?”

The Florida Supreme Court answered the certified question in the affirmative.

Issue:

Whether advice that a suspect has “the right to talk to a lawyer before answering any of the law enforcement officers' questions,” and that he can invoke this right “at any time during the interview,” satisfies Miranda?

Holding:

Yes. The officers did not entirely omit any information Miranda required them to impart. They informed Powell that he had “the right to talk to a lawyer before answering any of their questions” and “the right to use any of his rights at any time he wanted during the interview.” The first statement communicated that Powell could consult with a lawyer before answering any particular question, and the second statement confirmed that he could exercise that right while the interrogation was underway. In combination, the two warnings reasonably conveyed Powell's right to have an attorney present, not only at the outset of interrogation, but at all times.

Rationale:

Certain procedural safeguards require police to advise criminal suspects of their rights under the 5th and 14th Amendments before commencing custodial interrogation.” Intent on giving concrete constitutional guidelines for law enforcement agencies and courts to follow, Miranda prescribed the following 4 now-familiar warnings:

“A suspect must be warned prior to any questioning [1] that he has the right to remain silent, [2] that anything he says can be used against him in a court of law, [3] that he has the right to the presence of an attorney, and [4] that if he cannot afford an attorney one will be appointed for him prior to any questioning if he so desires.”

Miranda's 3rd warning at issue here addresses the concern that the circumstances surrounding in-custody interrogation can operate very quickly to overbear the will of one merely made aware of his privilege to remain silent by his interrogators. An absolute prerequisite to interrogation, is” that an individual held for questioning “must be clearly informed that he has the right to consult with a lawyer and to have the lawyer with him during interrogation.

The four warnings Miranda requires are rigid, but this Court has not dictated the words in which the essential information must be conveyed. In determining whether police officers adequately conveyed the four warnings, we have said, reviewing courts are not required to examine the words employed “as if construing a will or defining the terms of an easement. The inquiry is simply whether the warnings reasonably ‘convey to a suspect his rights as required by Miranda.

To reach the opposite conclusion, the suspect would have to imagine an unlikely scenario: To consult counsel, he would be obliged to exit and reenter the interrogation room between each query. A reasonable suspect in a custodial setting who has just been read his rights, we believe, would not come to the counterintuitive conclusion that he is obligated, or allowed, to hop in and out of the holding area to seek his attorney's advice. Instead, the suspect would likely assume that he must stay put in the interrogation room and that his lawyer would be there with him the entire time.

The Florida Supreme Court found the warning misleading because it believed the temporal language that Powell could “talk to a lawyer before answering any of the officers' questions” suggested Powell could consult with an attorney only before the interrogation started. In context, however, the term “before” merely conveyed when Powell's right to an attorney became effective namely, before he answered any questions at all. Nothing in the words used indicated that counsel's presence would be restricted after the questioning commenced. Instead, the warning communicated that the right to counsel carried forward to and through the interrogation: Powell could seek his attorney's advice before responding to “any of the officers' questions” and “at any time during the interview.

Other Opinion:

Justice STEVENS, with whom Justice BREYER joins as to Part II, dissenting.

The warning did not say anything about the right to have counsel present during interrogation.

The more natural reading of the warning Powell was given, which (1) contained a temporal limit and (2) failed to mention his right to the presence of counsel in the interrogation room, is that Powell only had the right to consult with an attorney before the interrogation began, not that he had the right to have an attorney with him during questioning.

When the relevant clause of the warning in this case is given its most natural reading, the catchall clause does not meaningfully clarify Powell's rights. It communicated that Powell could exercise the previously listed rights at any time. Yet the only previously listed right was the “right to talk to a lawyer before answering any of the officers' questions.”

The warning entirely failed to inform him of the separate and distinct right “to have counsel present during any questioning.