Federal Judiciary

Circuit Split: Ambiguous Waivers of Miranda Rights

By Robert Loblaw

U.S. v. Rodriguez, 07-10217 (9^th Cir., Mar. 10, 2008)

I?ve written a couple of times about a crazy California state court decision which held that “I plead the Fifth” is not a clear invocation of a suspect?s Fifth Amendment right to silence. Even more remarkably, a panel of the Ninth Circuit denied habeas relief to the suspect, who eventually confessed to murder and was convicted. But last month the en banc Ninth corrected this clear error, which undermined the protections of Miranda v. Arizona.

Is the Ninth Circuit over-correcting now? A panel of the Ninth has just tossed out a confession that police obtained from a suspect who told police, “I?m good for tonight.” Defendant Jose Rodriguez was driving erratically through the Lake Mead area near Las Vegas. Park police pulled him over and found that he was carrying a gun with a silencer. Rodriguez had a felony record, so police arrested him and gave him Miranda warnings. The officer then asked Rodriguez if he wanted to talk, and he said, “I?m good for tonight.” The police viewed this statement as a waiver and proceeded to question Rodriguez, leading to a confession that Rodriguez owned the gun.

The district court denied Rodriguez?s motion to suppress the confession, and he pleaded guilty while reserving his right to appeal. On appeal, the Ninth reverses. The Court explains that the phrase “I?m good for tonight” is ambiguous: it could mean that Rodriguez was ready to talk without a lawyer, or it could mean that Rodriguez did not want to talk.

This is where it gets trickier: prior to 1994, the Ninth and most other circuits handled these kinds of ambiguous statements by requiring police to clarify whether the suspect was waiving his rights before continuing questioning. But that precedent was called into doubt by Davis v. U.S., in which the Supreme Court held that police have no duty to stop questioning in the face of an ambiguous waiver.

In this case, the government argued that Davis authorized the police to continue questioning Rodriguez. The Ninth rejects this argument, limiting the holding of Davis to post-waiver cases where the suspect has already unequivocally waived his rights, but then makes an ambiguous request for a lawyer during questioning. In contrast, this case involves a suspect who did not unambiguously waive his rights at the outset. Because Rodriguez?s initial waiver was ambiguous, the Ninth holds that officers were required to obtain an unequivocal waiver before proceeding with questioning. Because they did not do so, the confession must be suppressed.

Today?s decision creates a circuit split, as the Tenth and the Seventh Circuits have applied Davis to initial waivers. It will be interesting to see whether the 2008 Supreme Court is willing to stand by the Ninth?s narrow interpretation of Davis.

Full post as published by Decision of the Day on March 10, 2008 (boomark / email).