Facts
In September 1980, the police were investigating the death of Lowell Reynolds in Tillamook County, Oregon. It appeared that Reynolds had been killed in a traffic accident, when the truck in which he was a passenger careened off the road and into a creek. Defendant Bradshaw was taken into custody as the suspected driver at the time of the accident. At the station, Bradshaw was read the Miranda warnings, and then admitted furnishing alcohol to Reynolds for a party at Reynolds's house but denied being involved in the traffic accident. The police then arrested Bradshaw for furnishing liquor to Reynolds, a minor, and then the police officer who was questioning Bradshaw explained his theory of how Reynolds was killed. The officer said that he believed Bradshaw was driving the truck in which Reynolds was killed. Bradshaw again denied involvement in Reynolds's death. Then he said, "I do want an attorney before it goes very much further." The officer ended the questioning.
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region on the West Coast of the United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idaho. The parallel 42° north delineates the southern boundary with California and Nevada. Oregon is one of only three states of the contiguous United States to have a coastline on the Pacific Ocean.
Bradshaw was then taken from the police station to the county jail. Either before they left the station, or en route to the jail, Bradshaw asked, "Well, what is going to happen to me now?" The officer replied, "You do not have to talk to me. You have requested an attorney and I don't want you talking to me unless you so desire because anything you say—because—since you have requested an attorney, you know, it has to be at your own free will." A conversation then followed in which the officer suggested his theory of how Bradshaw had caused Reynolds' death and then suggested that Bradshaw take a lie detector test to clear things up. Bradshaw agreed and the next day, after he was read his Miranda rights, Bradshaw took the lie detector test. At the end, the polygraph examiner informed Bradshaw that the results of the test indicated that he had not been truthful in his responses, it was at this point that Bradshaw admitted to being the driver of the truck at the time of the accident. Oregon v. Bradshaw, 462 U.S. 1039, 1039 (1983).
Plurality opinion
To decide this case, the Court had to determine whether the Oregon Court of Appeals had correctly applied Edwards v. Arizona , 451 U.S. 477 (1981). In Edwards, the Court had held that "an accused, having expressed his desire to deal with the police only through counsel, is not subject to further interrogation by the authorities until counsel has been made available to him, unless the accused himself initiates further communication, exchanges, or conversations with the police." The question presented in this case was the effect of Bradshaw's query, "Well, what is going to happen to me now?"
The Oregon Court of Appeals had concluded that Bradshaw had waived his right to counsel when he asked what would happen to him. This, the Court concluded, was not how the Edwards rule should be applied. Edwards was meant to protect an accused from being badgered by the police. Hence, if the accused himself approaches the police, this suggests that the accused may not be being badgered, so that when the police respond to the accused's queries with questions of their own, a reviewing court can decide, based on the totality of the circumstances, whether the accused had waived his Fifth Amendment rights during interrogation. In other words, an accused does not waive his right to counsel during interrogation merely because, after invoking that right, he approaches the police with questions of his own.
In the law, the totality of the circumstances test refers to a method of analysis where decisions are based on all available information rather than bright-line rules. Under the totality of the circumstances test, courts focus "on all the circumstances of a particular case, rather than any one factor". In the United States, totality tests are used as a method of analysis in several different areas of the law. For example, in United States criminal law, a determination about reasonable suspicion or probable cause is based on a consideration of the totality of the circumstances.
Bradshaw's question here, "Well, what is going to happen to me now?", "initiated" conversation with the police "in the ordinary dictionary sense of the word." It "evinced a willingness and a desire for a generalized discussion about the investigation; it was not merely a necessary inquiry arising out of the incidents of the custodial relationship." Thus, a suspect detained during an investigation may, after invoking his right to have counsel present during an interrogation, may ask for a drink of water or to use the telephone without retreating from his prior request for counsel. He may not, however, ask more generalized and open-ended questions. Accordingly, the Court held that the Edwards rule had not been violated. The police did not otherwise make any threats, promises, or inducements to Bradshaw in order to persuade him to talk; in fact they confirmed that he had the right to counsel before resuming their questioning. Under these circumstances, Bradshaw had voluntarily waived his right to counsel during interrogation.
Concurring opinion
Justice Powell agreed that, in this particular case, Bradshaw had voluntarily waived his right to have counsel present during interrogation because, after Bradshaw had asked what would happen to him, the police confirmed that he understood his Miranda rights before having Bradshaw sign a written waiver form. In these circumstances, Powell concluded that Bradshaw had voluntarily waived his right to counsel.
Powell had expressly not joined the opinion in Edwards because he was "not sure what it meant." Powell felt that what it meant to "initiate" conversation with the police was far from clear, and the fact that two plausible meanings each garnered the votes of four Justices in this case. Powell was uncomfortable with the two-part test the plurality had adopted, under which a reviewing court first asked whether the suspect had initiated conversation with the police before asking whether, under the totality of the circumstances, the suspect had waived his right to counsel. Powell pointed out that only the totality-of-the-circumstances test had historically been the only test the Court had employed in the past, and he saw no reason to depart from it.
Dissenting opinion
Justice Marshall argued that the plurality had misapplied Edwards. "When this Court in Edwards spoke of 'initiat[ing] further communication' with the police and 'reopen[ing] the dialogue with the authorities,' it obviously had in mind communication or dialogue about the subject matter of the criminal investigation." If a suspect is not inviting further questioning about the criminal case at hand, he is not acceding to further "interrogation" as Edwards and Miranda contemplated. If "interrogation" had any broader meaning, then the protections of Edwards and Miranda would be diluted.
Under the facts of this case, Marshall could not understand how Bradshaw's question was meant to express a desire to speak about the criminal case at hand. "If [Bradshaw's] question had been posed by Jean-Paul Sartre before a class of philosophy students, it might well have evinced a desire for a 'generalized' discussion. But under the circumstances of this case, it is plain that [Bradshaw's] only 'desire' was to find out where the police were going to take him." For Marshall, Bradshaw's question was nothing more than a response to custodial surroundings. "The very essence of custody is the loss of control over one's freedom of movement." If the police could exploit such questions as the one Bradshaw asked to ask further questions of an accused in the face of an express desire to have a lawyer present, the protections of Miranda would dissipate.
In the United States, the Miranda warning is a type of notification customarily given by police to criminal suspects in police custody advising them of their right to silence; that is, their right to refuse to answer questions or provide information to law enforcement or other officials. These rights are often referred to as Miranda rights. The purpose of such notification is to preserve the admissibility of their statements made during custodial interrogation in later criminal proceedings.
The right to silence is a legal principle which guarantees any individual the right to refuse to answer questions from law enforcement officers or court officials. It is a legal right recognized, explicitly or by convention, in many of the world's legal systems.
Ernesto Arturo Miranda was a laborer whose conviction on kidnapping, rape, and armed robbery charges based on his confession under police interrogation was set aside in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Miranda v. Arizona, which ruled that criminal suspects must be informed of their right against self-incrimination and their right to consult with an attorney before being questioned by police. This warning is known as a Miranda warning.
Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478 (1964), was a United States Supreme Court case holding that criminal suspects have a right to counsel during police interrogations under the Sixth Amendment. The case was decided a year after the court held in Gideon v. Wainwright that indigent criminal defendants had a right to be provided counsel at trial.
Danny Escobedo was a Chicago petitioner in the Supreme Court case of Escobedo v. Illinois, which established a criminal suspect's right to remain silent and have an attorney present during questioning. This case was an important precedent to the famous Miranda v. Arizona decision.
Self-incrimination is the act of exposing oneself generally, by making a statement, "to an accusation or charge of crime; to involve oneself or another [person] in a criminal prosecution or the danger thereof". Self-incrimination can occur either directly or indirectly: directly, by means of interrogation where information of a self-incriminatory nature is disclosed; or indirectly, when information of a self-incriminatory nature is disclosed voluntarily without pressure from another person.
McNeil v. Wisconsin, 501 U.S. 171 (1991), held that the right to counsel secured by the Sixth Amendment and the right to counsel protected by Miranda v. Arizona are separate and distinct, such that invoking one does not implicitly invoke the other.
Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201 (1964), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the government from eliciting statements from the defendant about themselves after the point that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel attaches.
Spano v. New York, 360 U.S. 315 (1959), represented the Supreme Court's movement away from the amorphous voluntariness standard for determining whether police violated due process standards when eliciting confessions and towards the modern rule in Miranda v. Arizona. In Spano, the Court focused less on factors such as meals provided to the accused and more on whether the accused had access to legal counsel.
Texas v. Cobb, 532 U.S. 162 (2001), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel is offense-specific and does not always extend to offenses that are closely related to those where the right has been attached. This decision reaffirmed the Court's holding in McNeil v. Wisconsin (1991) by concluding that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel attaches at the onset of adversarial proceedings.
Fellers v. United States, 540 U.S. 519 (2004), is a United States Supreme Court case regarding the Sixth Amendment's right to counsel.
Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420 (1984), is a decision of the United States Supreme Court which ruled that, in the case of a person stopped for a misdemeanor traffic offense, once they are in custody, the protections of the Fifth Amendment apply to them pursuant to the decision in Miranda v. Arizona 384 U.S. 436 (1966). Previously, some courts had been applying Miranda only to serious offenses.
Michigan v. Jackson, 475 U.S. 625 (1986), was a case decided by the United States Supreme Court regarding the Sixth Amendment's right to counsel in a police interrogation. In a decision written by Justice Stevens, the Court held that once an accused individual has claimed a right to counsel at a plea hearing or other court proceeding, a waiver of that right during later police questioning would be invalid unless the accused individual initiated the communication.
Maryland v. Shatzer, 559 U.S. 98 (2010), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that police may re-open questioning of a suspect who has asked for counsel if there has been a 14-day or more break in Miranda custody. The ruling distinguished Edwards, which had not specified a limit.
Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U.S. 291 (1980), is a decision by the United States Supreme Court that clarifies what constitutes "interrogation" for the purposes of Miranda warnings. Under Miranda v. Arizona, police are forbidden from interrogating a suspect once he has asserted his right to counsel under the Sixth Amendment. In Innis, the court held that interrogation is not just direct questioning but also its "functional equivalent"; namely, "any words or actions on the part of the police ... that the police should know are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response."
Berghuis v. Thompkins, 560 U.S. 370 (2010), is a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court in which the Court considered the position of a suspect who understands their right to remain silent under Miranda v. Arizona and is aware that they have the right to remain silent, but does not explicitly invoke or waive the right.
Brewer v. Williams, 430 U.S. 387 (1977), is a decision by the United States Supreme Court that clarifies what constitutes "waiver" of the right to counsel for the purposes of the Sixth Amendment. Under Miranda v. Arizona, evidence obtained by police during interrogation of a suspect before he has been read his Miranda rights is inadmissible. Here, however, the defendant had been indicted in court and had asserted his desire to have counsel, thus his Sixth Amendment right to counsel had attached. At issue was whether a voluntary admission of incriminating facts in response to police statements made while the defendant was in custody and outside the presence of his lawyer constituted a waiver of this right to counsel.
J. D. B. v. North Carolina, 564 U.S. 261 (2011), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that age is relevant when determining police custody for Miranda purposes. J. D. B. was a 13-year-old student enrolled in special education classes whom police had suspected of committing two robberies. A police investigator visited J. D. B. at school, where he was interrogated by the investigator, a uniformed police officer, and school officials. J. D. B. subsequently confessed to his crimes and was convicted. J. D. B. was not given a Miranda warning during the interrogation, nor an opportunity to contact his legal guardian.
