Miranda rights question...

Kalash

Kalash

Bluelighter
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After being arrested and read my rights (literally... then signing the paper they were read from. The feds are NASTY.)
I was taken to a police station for questioning.

While people were rushing around we bsed for a bit...
And then the questions started coming at me.

The first thing I did was ask if I got a phone call.
"No... this is federal. You don't get a phone call."

My next question was,
"Not even to get an attorney?"
The response - "No."



Was that requesting an attorney?
Is that arguable?
 
It's arguable, but you'd lose.

You have to explicitly demand an attorney. Your wishy-washy statement would not suffice.
 
See Davis v. United States--> which stands for the proposition that a person must unequivocally and clearly invoke her right to counsel.
 
The way I'm reading Davis - the suspect didn't request council - the lawyer showed up and was denied access to the suspect.

This wasn't the case...
To me, it seems more like this;
In Escobedo v. Illinois, supra, whose sense of dilemma was heightened by his interrogators' denial of his requests to talk to a lawyer. When a suspect understands his (expressed) wishes to have been ignored (and by hypothesis, he has said something that an objective listener could "reasonably," although not necessarily, take to be a request), in contravention of the "rights" just read to him by his interrogator, he may well see further objection as futile and confession (true or not) as the only way to end his interrogation.


I think it might still be arguable.
I asked to contact an attorney and was told I could not - and (hopefully there is video of the interrogation) my body language plainly showed defeat at that point.
I can see it going both ways - I need to see what the actual evidence is, and if there's tapes backing up my request or not...
 
He said, "Maybe I should talk to a lawyer." And then BY LAW they had to clarify if he was ASKING for an attorney or not.

I was told, "No." There was no clarification process. In my mind, I had requested council and been told, "This is a federal case, your typical rights do not apply."

I see what you're saying, but the precedent states that they must clarify if my "ambiguous wording" is indeed asking for an attorney - they did not.

Thanks again :D
 
I think it's worth arguing.

Keep in mind though, even if a judge agrees that it's a violation, the remedy is that whatever you said afterwards is suppressed (as well as the fruits of it).

It isn't as if the charges get thrown out (unless there's no other evidence that could support a conviction).
 
There's enough other evidence to convict me...

There were things said that could be incriminating to others though - and I want those thrown out.

Again... details I can't really get into, but if I can have EVERYTHING that happened after I requested council thrown out....
It'll punch a few big holes in the case.
 
Kalash said:
The way I'm reading Davis - the suspect didn't request council - the lawyer showed up and was denied access to the suspect.
Click to expand...

In Davis v. United States, 512 U.S. 452 (1994), the suspect said, "Maybe I should talk to a lawyer." The Court found that statement too ambiguous.
 
The court found it too ambiguous after clarification that where the defendant stated he did not indeed require an attorney to continue questioning, they re-read him his rights, then continued questioning.

There was no clarification in my case - hopefully that will be enough to shove it over the Davis ruling.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/92-1949.ZC1.html

The last paragraph...
If it's on the tapes, I've got a good chance of having it dismissed. If it isn't... I have no hope.

(Posner - it won't let me send you a pm - thanks though :D)
 
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