N.C. Court of Appeals Rules That Defendant Did Not Make An Unambiguous Assertion of Right to Counsel Under Miranda to Bar Officer's Custodial Interrogation

The United States Supreme Court and North Carolina appellate courts have ruled that a defendant must make an unambiguous request for counsel under Miranda to bar an officer’s custodial interrogation. A week ago, the North Carolina Court of Appeals in State v. Taylor (April 19, 2016), ruled that the defendant did not make an unambiguous request for counsel under Miranda. This post provides the background to this issue and discusses the Taylor ruling. Background. The United States Supreme Court ruled in Smith v. Illinois, 469 U.S. 91 (1984), that when a defendant makes an unequivocal (clear) request for counsel, questioning must stop, and a defendant’s responses to additional interrogation conducted after the defendant made a clear request may not be used to cast doubt on the initial request for counsel. The Court ruled in Smith that when a defendant said, “Uh, yeah. I’d like to do that,” after being told of the right to counsel, that statement was a clear request for counsel—particularly because the defendant had mentioned earlier to the officers that a woman had told him to get a lawyer because they would railroad him. On the other hand, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Davis v. United States, 512 U.S. 452 (1994), that if a defendant makes an equivocal reference to an attorney, an officer is not required to stop the interrogation if a reasonable officer under the circumstances only would have understood that the defendant might be invoking the right to counsel. An officer must stop [...]