Florida v. Powell, No. 08–1175.

• Citation: 130 S.Ct. 1195,559 U.S. 50,175 L.Ed.2d 1009
• Decision Date: 23 February 2010
• Docket Number: No. 08–1175.
• Parties: FLORIDA, Petitioner, v. Kevin Dewayne POWELL.
• Court: United States Supreme Court

559 U.S. 50

130 S.Ct. 1195

175 L.Ed.2d 1009

FLORIDA, Petitioner,

v.Kevin Dewayne POWELL.

No. 08–1175.

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued Dec. 7, 2009.

Decided Feb. 23, 2010.

Joseph W. Jacquot, Tampa, FL, for petitioner.

David O'Neil

, Tampa, FL, for the United States as amicus curiae, by special leave of the Court, supporting the petitioner.

Deborah K. Brueckheimer, Bartow, FL, for respondent.

Bill McCollum

, Attorney General of Florida, Joseph W. Jacquot, Deputy Attorney General, Ronald A. Lathan, Deputy Solicitor General, Scott D. Makar, Solicitor General, Robert J. Krauss, Chief–Assistant Attorney General, Counsel of Record, Susan M. Shanahan, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, FL, for the State of Florida.

Mara V.J. Senn

, Anthony J. Franze, R. Stanton Jones, Benjamin H. Wallfisch, Arnold & Porter LLP, Washington, DC, Craig A. Stewart, Arnold & Porter LLP, New York, NY, James Marion Moorman, Public Defender, Tenth Judicial Circuit, Cynthia J. Dodge, Counsel of Record, Assistant Public Defender, Deborah Kucer Brueckheimer, Assistant Public Defender, Bartow, FL, for respondent.Opinion

Justice GINSBURG

delivered the opinion of the Court.

In a pathmarking decision, Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 471, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966)

, the Court held that an individual must be “clearly informed,” prior to custodial questioning, that he has, among other rights, “the right to consult with a lawyer and to have the lawyer with him during interrogation.” The question presented in this case is 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 th[e] interview,” satisfies Miranda.

We hold that it does.

I

On August 10, 2004, law enforcement officers in Tampa, Florida, seeking to apprehend respondent Kevin Dewayne Powell in connection with a robbery investigation, entered an apartment rented by Powell's girlfriend. 969 So.2d 1060, 1063 (Fla.App.2007)

. After spotting Powell coming from a bedroom, the officers searched the room and discovered a loaded nine-millimeter handgun under the bed. Ibid.

The officers arrested Powell and transported him to the Tampa Police headquarters. Ibid.

Once there, and before asking Powell any questions, the officers read Powell the standard Tampa Police Department Consent and Release Form 310. Id., at 1063–1064. 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.” App. 3. See also 969 So.2d, at 1064

.

Acknowledging that he had been informed of his rights, that he “underst[oo]d them,” and that he was “willing to talk” to the officers, Powell signed the form. App. 3. He then admitted that he owned the handgun found in the apartment. Powell knew he was prohibited from possessing a gun because he had previously been convicted of a felony, but said he had nevertheless purchased and carried the firearm for his protection. See 969 So.2d, at 1064;

App. 29.

Powell was charged in state court with possession of a weapon by a prohibited possessor, in violation of Fla. Stat. Ann. § 790.23(1)

(West 2007). 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, concluding that the officers had properly notified Powell of his right to counsel. 969 So.2d, at 1064; App. 28. A jury convicted Powell of the gun-possession charge. 969 So.2d, at 1064.

On appeal, the Florida Second District Court of Appeal held that the trial court should have suppressed Powell's statements. Id., at 1067.

The Miranda warnings, the appellate court concluded, did not “adequately inform [Powell] of his ... right to have an attorney present throughout [the] interrogation.” 969 So.2d, at 1063. 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?” Id., at 1067–1068 (some capitalization omitted).

Surveying decisions of this Court as well as Florida precedent, the Florida Supreme Court answered the certified question in the affirmative. 998 So.2d 531, 532 (2008)

. “Both Miranda and article I, section 9 of the Florida Constitution,”¹ the Florida High Court noted, “require that a suspect be clearly informed of the right to have a lawyer present during questioning.” Id., at 542.

The court found that the advice Powell received was misleading because it suggested that Powell could “only consult with an attorney before questioning” and did not convey Powell's entitlement to counsel's presence throughout the interrogation. Id., at 541. Nor, in the court's view, did the final catchall warning—“[y]ou have the right to use any of these rights at any time you want during this interview”—cure the defect the court perceived in the right-to-counsel advice: “The catch-all phrase did not supply the missing warning of the right to have counsel present during police questioning,” the court stated, for “a right that has never been expressed cannot be reiterated.” Ibid.

Justice Wells dissented. He considered it “unreasonable to conclude that the broad, unqualified language read to Powell would lead a person of ordinary intelligence to believe that he or she had a limited right to consult with an attorney that could only be exercised before answering the first question posed by law enforcement.” Id., at 544.

The final sentence of the warning, he stressed, “avoid[ed] the implication —unreasonable as it may [have] be [en]—that advice concerning the right of access to counsel before questioning conveys the message that access to counsel is foreclosed during questioning.” Ibid.

(internal quotation marks omitted). Criticizing the majority's “technical adherence to language ... that has no connection with whether the person who confessed understood his or her rights,” id., at 545, he concluded that “[t]he totality of the warning reasonably conveyed to Powell his continuing right of access to counsel,” id., at 544.

We granted certiorari, 557 U.S. 918, 129 S.Ct. 2827, 174 L.Ed.2d 551 (2009)

, and now reverse the judgment of the Florida Supreme Court.

II

We first address Powell's contention that this Court lacks jurisdiction to hear this case because the Florida Supreme Court, by relying not only on Miranda

but also on the Florida Constitution, rested its decision on an adequate and independent state ground. Brief for Petitioner 15–23. See Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 729, 111 S.Ct. 2546, 115 L.Ed.2d 640 (1991) (“This Court will not review a question of federal law decided by a state court if the decision ... rests on a state law ground that is independent of the federal question and adequate to support the judgment.”). “It is fundamental,” we have observed, “that state courts be left free and unfettered by us in interpreting their state constitutions.” Minnesota v. National Tea Co., 309 U.S. 551, 557, 60 S.Ct. 676, 84 L.Ed. 920 (1940). “But it is equally important that ambiguous or obscure adjudications by state courts do not stand as barriers to a determination by this Court of the validity under the federal constitution of state action.” Ibid.

To that end, we announced, in Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 1040–1041, 103 S.Ct. 3469, 77 L.Ed.2d 1201 (1983)

, the following presumption:

“[W]hen ... a state court decision fairly appears to rest primarily on federal law, or to be interwoven with the federal law, and when the adequacy and independence of any possible state law ground is not clear from the face of the opinion, we will accept as the most reasonable explanation that the state court decided the case the way it did because it believed that federal law required it to do so.”

At the same time, we adopted a plain-statement rule to avoid the presumption: “If the state court decision indicates clearly and expressly that it is alternatively based on bona fide separate, adequate, and independent grounds, we, of course, will not undertake to review the decision.” Id., at 1041, 103 S.Ct. 3469.²

Under the Long

presumption, we have jurisdiction to entertain this case. Although invoking Florida's Constitution and precedent in addition to this Court's decisions, the Florida Supreme Court treated state and federal law as interchangeable and interwoven; the court at no point expressly asserted that state-law sources gave Powell rights distinct from, or broader than, those delineated in Miranda. See Long, 463 U.S., at 1044, 103 S.Ct. 3469.

Beginning with the certified question—whether the advice the Tampa police gave to Powell “vitiate[d] Miranda,

” 998 So.2d, at 532 (some capitalization omitted)—and continuing throughout its opinion, the Florida Supreme Court trained on what Miranda demands, rather than on what Florida law independently requires. See, e.g., 998 So.2d, at 533

(“The issue before this Court is whether the failure to provide express advice of the right to the presence of counsel during custodial interrogation violates the principles espoused in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694.”); id., at 538 (“[T]he issue of [what] Miranda requires ... has been addressed by several of the Florida district courts of appeal.”); id., at 542 (Powell received a “narrower and less functional warning than...