State v. Alston
| Decision Date | 20 January 2011 |
| Citation | 204 N.J. 614,10 A.3d 880 |
| Parties | STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Damu ALSTON, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | New Jersey Supreme Court |
John J. McMahon, Chief Trial Attorney, argued the cause for appellant (Yvonne Smith Segars, Public Defender, attorney).
Debra G. Simms, Special Deputy Attorney General, Acting Assistant Prosecutor, argued the cause for respondent (Robert D. Laurino, Acting Essex County Prosecutor, attorney; Ms. Simms and Hilary L. Brunell, Executive Assistant Prosecutor, on the letter briefs).
Daniel I. Bornstein, Deputy Attorney General, argued the cause for amicus curiae Attorney General of New Jersey (Paula T. Dow, Attorney General, attorney).
Defendant Damu Alston was arrested as part of a murder investigation and taken to police headquarters for questioning. He was advised of his rights, which he acknowledged both orally and in writing that he understood, and he then waived all of his rights, again both orally and in writing. Immediately after he signed the waiver, but before he was asked any questions by the police detectives, however, defendant made statements and asked questions that led to a brief discussion with one of the detectives relating to his right to counsel. Following that exchange, he confessed.
The trial court found that defendant's statements were an equivocal assertion of his right to counsel and that the police both had failed to honor that request and had misinformed defendant when responding to his questions. Based on those findings, the court concluded that there was insufficient proof that defendant's waiver of his rights was knowing, intelligent and voluntary, and granted his motion to suppress his confession.
Although the Appellate Division agreed that the statements made by defendant were ambiguous, the appellate panel concluded that the detective's questions in response to defendant's statements were permissible, because they were narrowly tailored and were only designed to clarify whether defendant was asserting his right to counsel. Based upon its review of the stipulated transcript, the Appellate Division further concluded that the verbal exchange between defendant and the detective clarified that defendant had not asserted any of his rights, and the court therefore reversed the suppression order.
This appeal requires this Court to consider whether the statements made by defendant immediately after he signed the waiver of his rights were an ambiguous assertion of his right to counsel and whether the detective's questions in response constituted a permissible clarification. Because we conclude that the officer's questions did not exceed the scope of permissible clarification and because defendant's statements, when clarified, were not an assertionof his right to counsel, we affirm the judgment of the Appellate Division.
As a result of their investigation into the September 2, 2007 murder of Dana Grimsley, Newark police officers obtained a warrant for defendant's arrest. That warrant was executed in the early morning hours of January 8, 2008, when defendant was arrested at his home. He was transported to the Newark Police Station, arriving around 8:00 a.m., and he was left in an interview room for about two hours while detectives filled out paperwork and prepared to interview him.
The entire interview, which was conducted by Essex County Detective Christopher Smith and Newark Police Department Detective Murad Muhammad, was tape recorded.A transcript of that interview was prepared for use by the parties and the court in connection with defendant's motion to suppress, but the parties later agreed that it was not entirely accurate. A corrected transcript, to which the parties stipulated for purposes of appellate review, reveals that defendant was fully informed of all of his Miranda1 rights, and that he repeatedly responded that he understood each of those rights. A Miranda waiver form, reiterating defendant's rights, was then read to him. It included standard language advising him that he could withdraw his waiver and assert any of his rights at any time during the interrogation. Defendant then waived his rights and signed the waiver in the presence of the two detectives.
The transcript of the interview reveals that immediately after acknowledging that he understood and was waiving his rights, the following conversation took place:
Defendant then confessed that he shot the victim to "get away from him and get him off me." The entire interview, including the recitation of rights, the above-quoted discussion, and defendant's confession, took twenty-four minutes and forty-one seconds.
After he was indicted for first-degree murder, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3a(1)(2), second-degree possession of weapons for an unlawful purpose, N.J.S.A. 2C:39-4a, and third-degree unlawful possession of weapons, N.J.S.A. 2C:39-5b, defendant moved to suppress his confession. The motion court focused its analysis on defendant's question, "if I did want a lawyer in here with me how would I be able to get one in here with me?" and the detective's response, "that's on you." Finding that defendant's question was an equivocal assertion of his right to counsel, the motion court concluded that the detective's response might have been misunderstood to mean that it was defendant's obligation to secure counsel on his own. The court further reasoned that, under the circumstances,the detective was required to clarify what he meant or to reiteratethat defendant had the right to have an attorney appointed if he could not afford one. Finding that the detective's responses to defendant amounted to inconsistent and inaccurate information about his rights, the court concluded that it could not find that defendant had knowingly waived his right to counsel and granted his motion to suppress.
The Appellate Division granted the State's application for leave to appeal, and reversed the motion court's suppression order. In an unpublished opinion, the appellate panel acknowledged that when a defendant makes an unambiguous request for counsel, the police are obligated to honor it scrupulously. However, the panel also recognized that if the words used by a suspect are ambiguous, the police may ask questions to clarify whether or not the suspect is indeed asserting one of his or her rights. Applying those principles to the statements and responses in the exchange between defendant and the detective, the panel concluded that defendant's statements were ambiguous, and that the detective narrowly tailored his responses in an effort to elicit whether defendant wanted the interview to cease or continue. The Appellate Division concluded that defendant's responses constituted a waiver of his rights, and reversed the order suppressing his confession.
We granted defendant's motion for leave to appeal the judgment of the Appellate Division order, 201 N.J. 151, 988 A.2d 1175 (2010), and we thereafter granted leave to the Attorney General to participate in the appeal as an amicus curiae.
We begin with a recitation of the well-settled principles of law that govern this appeal. The United States Supreme Court set forth the framework for our analysis in Miranda, establishing the now-familiar warnings designed to safeguard the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of the privilege against self-incrimination. See Miranda, supra, 384 U.S. at 444, 468-72, 86 S.Ct. at 1612, 1624-26, 16 L.Ed.2d at 706-07, 720-22. As the Court made clear, if theaccused "indicates in any manner and at any stage of the process that he wishes to consult with an attorney before speaking there can be no questioning." Id. at 444-45, 86 S.Ct. at 1612, 16 L.Ed.2d at 707. The Court subsequently refined this aspect of its analysis, holding that once a request for counsel has been made, an interrogation may not continue until either counsel is made available or the suspect initiates further communication sufficient to waive the right to counsel. See Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 484-85, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 1884-85, 68 L.Ed.2d 378, 386 (1981).
The United States Supreme Court has drawn a strict line to identify what will qualify as a request for counsel. The Court initially recognized that courts had used three different methods to analyze ambiguous requests for counsel, but declined to endorse any of them explicitly. See Smith v. Illinois, 469 U.S. 91, 95-96 & n. 3, 105 S.Ct. 490, 493 & n. 3, 83 L.Ed.2d 488, 494 & n. 3 (1984). In 1994, however, the Court made its choice, adopting the "threshold standard of clarity" approach, pursuant to which the Fifth Amendment only requires police to stop questioning if the suspect makes a request for counsel that is unambiguous or unequivocal. See Davis v. United States, 512 U.S. 452, 459-62, 114 S.Ct. 2350, 2355-57, 129 L.Ed.2d 362, 371-73 (1994). Using that approach, if a suspect...
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