Hall v. State

• Decision Date: 05 December 1985
• Docket Number: No. 42273,42273
• Citation: 336 S.E.2d 812,255 Ga. 267
• Parties: HALL v. The STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

Page 812

336 S.E.2d 812

255 Ga. 267

HALL v. The STATE.

No. 42273.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Dec. 5, 1985.

Timothy W. Floyd, University of Georgia School of Law, Legal Aid and Defender Soc., Athens, for Warren Reid Hall.

Harry N. Gordon, Dist. Atty., Gerald W. Brown, Asst. Dist. Atty., Athens, Michael J. Bowers, Atty. Gen., Atlanta, J. Michael Davis, Staff Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

BELL, Justice.

Donna Lynn Allen, a student at the University of Georgia, was stabbed to death on the University's Athens campus. Warren Reid Hall was convicted of her murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. He appeals, enumerating four errors; we affirm. ¹

1. In his first enumeration, appellant contends that the trial court erred in admitting a custodial statement made by appellant after he had invoked his right to counsel. The facts pertinent to this enumeration are as follow.

The victim was murdered on December 21, 1983. Appellant was arrested by Athens police on the afternoon of December 28, 1983, on suspicion of having used a gun to assault a woman earlier that day in a local shopping center parking lot. Appellant was taken into custody and advised of his Miranda rights by an arresting officer, Athens Police Corporal Bobby Tribble. Thereafter, he was driven to an Athens police station and was interrogated by Tribble and two other police officers, Detective Jeff Ingram of the Athens Police and Major Chuck Horton of the University of Georgia Police, for about forty to forty-five minutes. The interrogation initially focused on the December 28 aggravated assault and a similar incident which had occurred the previous day, in which a woman had been attacked with a knife. ²

About fifteen or twenty minutes into the questioning session, appellant stated, "I guess I'm going to have to see a lawyer sometime." He was asked by Horton whether he wanted to see a lawyer at that time, to which he replied, "no, not now, just sometime." The interrogation continued. About twenty-five or thirty minutes later, the subject matter of the interrogation changed from the shopping center incidents to the Allen murder. Appellant denied responsibility for the murder, and asked one of his interrogators, "when do you think I'll get to see a lawyer." ³ There was no response to appellant's question. At that point, the questioning ceased, and appellant was transported to the Clarke County Jail.

Two days later, on December 30, 1983, appellant was interrogated a second time, by Maj. Horton and Det. Ingram. This interrogation, which lasted for about three and one-half hours, concentrated on the Allen murder. Before this second interrogation, appellant was again advised of his Miranda rights. Appellant asked Ingram and Horton whether, if he signed the Miranda form, "did that mean he would have to talk to us every time we come [sic] to talk to him?" They "told him no; that this was concerning this time we were there. And if we asked him anything that he didn't want to answer he didn't have to answer it. And if he decided he wanted to stop and he wanted us to leave, we would do that." ⁴ Horton asked appellant whether he would talk with the officers without an attorney present; Hall said he would, and signed the Miranda waiver form. During this questioning session appellant admitted that he killed the victim. Both the December 28 and 30 statements were admitted into evidence at appellant's trial following a hearing pursuant to Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 12 L.Ed.2d 908 (1964).

On appeal, Hall does not challenge the admissibility of his December 28 statement. However, he contends that he invoked his Miranda rights at the end of the December 28 interrogation, thus rendering his December 30 statement inadmissible because it was derived in violation of his Fifth Amendment right to counsel. More specifically, appellant contends that his question at the end of the December 28 interview clearly invoked his right to counsel. In the alternative, he contends that even if the question was not a clear invocation of the right to counsel, it was at least ambiguous, and the police therefore should have foregone further interrogation, except to clarify his meaning.

Appellant's contentions raise several distinct issues, which we will consider seriatim. The first is whether Hall's question, "when do you think I'll get to see a lawyer," constituted a clear and unequivocal request for the presence of counsel and, if not, whether it was an arguably ambiguous or inartful request for counsel.

"An accused in custody, '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 he validly waives his earlier request for the assistance of counsel. Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. , at 484-485, 101 S.Ct. [1880], at 1885 [68 L.Ed.2d 378 (1981) ]. [Fn. omitted.] This 'rigid' prophylactic rule, Fare v. Michael C., 442 U.S. 707, 719, 99 S.Ct. 2560, 2569, 61 L.Ed.2d 197 (1979), embodies two distinct inquiries. First, courts must determine whether the accused actually invoked his right to counsel. See, e.g., Edwards v. Arizona, supra, 451 U.S., at 484-485, 101 S.Ct., at 1884-1885 (whether accused 'expressed his desire' for, or 'clearly asserted' his right to, the assistance of counsel); Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. , at 444-445, 86 S.Ct. [1602], [255 Ga. 270] at 1612 [16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966) ] (whether accused 'indicate[d] in any manner and at any stage of the process that he wish[ed] to consult with an attorney before speaking'). Second, if the accused invoked his right to counsel, courts may admit his responses to further questioning only on finding that he (a) initiated further discussions with the police, and (b) knowingly and intelligently waived the right he had invoked. Edwards v. Arizona, supra, 451 U.S., at 485, 486, n. 9, 101 S.Ct., at 1885, n. 9." Smith v. Illinois, 469 U.S. 91, 105 S.Ct. 490 at 492-93, 83 L.Ed.2d 488 (1984). See Vaughn v. State, 248 Ga. 127 (1b), 281 S.E.2d 594 (1981); Berry v. State, 254 Ga. 101 (1), 326 S.E.2d 748 (1985).

With respect to the first inquiry embodied by the Supreme Court's prophylactic rule, it is, as the instant case demonstrates, not always easy to determine whether the accused actually invoked his right to counsel. The existence of this problem was recognized in Smith v. Illinois, supra, 105 S.Ct. wherein the Court stated, "[o]n occasion, an accused's asserted request for counsel may be ambiguous or equivocal[,]" 469 U.S. at ----, 105 S.Ct. at 493, 83 L.Ed.2d at 494, but declined to "decide the circumstances in which an accused's request for counsel may be characterized as ambiguous or equivocal as a result of events preceding the request or of nuances inherent in the request itself," id., at ----, 105 S.Ct. at 495, 83 L.Ed.2d at 496.

However, some guidance may be found in a decision emanating from the Court of Appeals of Washington. State v. Smith, 34 Wash.App. 405, 661 P.2d 1001 (1983). In that case the court observed that, "Webster's Third New International Dictionary (1971) defines 'equivocal' as 'of doubtful meaning ... uncertain as an indication or sign.' The essence of an 'equivocal request,' therefore, is that without further clarification it is impossible to determine whether a request has been made. In State v. Lewis, 32 Wash.App. 13, 645 P.2d 722 (1982), this court held that a suspect evincing both a desire for counsel and a desire to continue talking has made an equivocal request for counsel and clarification must be made. Similarly, where a suspect makes an ambiguous statement or an inartful statement with reference to his desire for an attorney, such as 'maybe I should call my attorney,' an equivocal request for counsel has been made and the request must be clarified before proceeding with the interrogation. [Cit.]" Smith, supra, 661 P.2d at 1002-1003. See also Nash v. Estelle, 597 F.2d 513 (5th Cir.1979) (en banc) (suspect expressed both a desire for counsel and a desire to continue the interview without counsel). We find the approach set out in Smith persuasive, and adopt it as our own.

Turning to the facts of this case, we conclude that Hall's utterance at the end of the December 28 interrogation was not a definite request for assistance of legal counsel before further interrogation; for example, appellant may have been perfectly willing to continue answering questions without an attorney, while at the same time have been merely curious about the possibility of being provided the assistance of counsel at later stages of the criminal process, or perhaps, affirmatively have been requesting counsel for those later stages, see Berry v. State, supra, 254 Ga. ⁵ Supporting this interpretation is the fact that, just twenty-five to thirty minutes previously, Hall had stated that he wished to see a lawyer "sometime," but not during the interrogation.

Yet, the very ambiguity of his second reference to an attorney was sufficient to alert the investigators to the possibility that he might have been requesting present legal aid, particularly in light of the fact that the police had recently changed the topic of questioning to the Allen murder--it is reasonable to infer that Hall, suddenly faced with the possibility that he was the target of a murder investigation, may have changed his mind and decided he did require the assistance of counsel during further questioning about the Allen case, whereas he may not have felt the need for assistance during interrogation about the less serious aggravated assaults. Thus, we find that Hall's question at the end of the December 28 interrogative session was not a clear invocation of his Fifth Amendment right to the presence of counsel, but it was at least an arguably ambiguous or inartful request of that type.

2. The focus of our inquiry then becomes what is the appropriate response of police officers under such circumstances. As with the...