State v. Sparklin

672 P.2d 1182, 296 Or. 85, 1983 Ore. LEXIS 1726
CourtOregon Supreme Court
DecidedNovember 29, 1983
DocketCA A21337; SC 29421
StatusPublished
Cited by120 cases

This text of 672 P.2d 1182 (State v. Sparklin) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Oregon Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Sparklin, 672 P.2d 1182, 296 Or. 85, 1983 Ore. LEXIS 1726 (Or. 1983).

Opinions

[87]*87ROBERTS, J.

The question is whether defendant’s request for an attorney at arraignment bars all police interrogation undertaken without the presence of counsel, unless defendant volunteers information on his own initiative and not in response to questioning, and statements are otherwise voluntarily obtained.

Defendant was arrested in Eugene after security personnel at a retail store notified police of their suspicion that defendant and his companion, Taylor, purchased merchandise with a stolen credit card. The credit card was issued to Steven Mansell. The next morning defendant was arraigned on a forgery charge. At the arraignment defendant requested and was provided with an attorney. Portland authorities had information which implicated defendant in an incident in which Steven Mansell had been beaten and his automobile and credit cards stolen. That evening, without notice to his attorney and without providing defendant an opportunity to consult with his attorney, two Portland detectives interrogated defendant about the assault on Mansell and a factually unrelated murder and robbery in Portland of a man named Davidson for which defendant was tried and convicted in this case. Miranda1 warnings preceded the questioning. Defendant signed a waiver of his rights. His confession to participation in the Davidson murder gained at this interrogation session was used against him at trial. It is from this conviction that defendant appeals.

Defendant seeks to suppress his confession as the product of compelled self incrimination, and as evidence obtained in the absence of an attorney at a time when he had the right to an attorney’s presence and advice.

Defendant suggests first that the Miranda warnings given him in advance of interrogation are inadequate to protect his article I, section 12 rights.2 He urges us to adopt more detailed warning unique to our own constitutional guarantee.

[88]*88As early as State v. Andrews, 35 Or 388, 391-92, 58 P 765 (1899) we were of the opinion that some form of advice of rights and warning was required before incriminating evidence derived from defendant’s preliminary examination before the justice of the peace could be used against defendant at his trial.3 The requirement does not surface again in our jurisprudence until State v. Neely, 239 Or 487, 395 P2d 557, 398 P2d 482 (1965) where we imposed a requirement for warnings prior to custodial interrogation. In Neely these warnings were perceived as a federal constitutional requirement in response to Massiah v. United States, 377 US 201, 84 S Ct 1199, 12 LEd 2d 246 (1964) and Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 US 478, 84 S Ct 1758, 12 LEd 2d 977 (1964) and we did not examine the state constitutional guarantee.4

Recently in State v. Mains, 295 Or 640, 669 P2d 1112 (1983), after examining the federal Miranda warnings, we stated:

“The Oregon Constitution similarily guarantees the right not to be compelled to testify against oneself in a criminal prosecution. Or Const, Art I, § 12. Like the United States Supreme Court, this court is called upon from time to time to specify the procedure by which a guarantee is to be effectuated. Such specifications are not the same as interpretations of the guarantee itself, that is to say, they may not always and in all settings be the only means towards its effectuation but may be adapted or replaced from time to time by decisions of this court or by legislation in the light of experience or changing circumstances.” 295 Or at 645.

In Mains we required the authorities to give additional warnings to a represented defendant who, at the state’s instance, submitted to a psychiatric examination and chose to proceed without the presence of his attorney.

[89]*89In this case, we decline the alternative warnings proposed by counsel on practical grounds. At least as long as the text of the federal Miranda warnings remains the law, we think that the convenience of a single text exceeds any gain from improving that text.

Defendant asserts that his request for an attorney at arraignment activated both his derivative right to the presence of an attorney to prevent compelled incriminating disclosures, rights found in article I, section 12 and the federal fifth amendment, and his substantive right to the presence of an attorney at all confrontations with the police after a formal charge is filed against him, the guarantee of article I, section 11 and the federal sixth amendment.

We begin with defendant’s state constitutional claims.5 Article I, section 12 forbids the state from compelling a person to testify against himself. It is compulsion which is proscribed, and we have recognized that any custodial setting, that is, one in which an individual is not free to leave, is, in the words of Justice Tanzer, “inherently coercive.” State v. Roberti, 293 Or 59, 65, 67, 644 P2d 1104, former opinion withdrawn, 293 Or 236, 646 P2d 1341 (1982). An attorney’s 'presence at custodial interrogations is one way to secure the right to be free from compelled self incrimination. For this reason we require the police to inform a detained person that he may terminate questioning at any time and that he may have an attorney to advise him before he speaks. When the police honor these rights if defendant chooses to assert them, the coercive atmosphere of police interrogation is to some degree dispelled.

We do not regard this defendant’s request for an attorney at arraignment as an assertion of his right to be free from compelled self incrimination. The need for an attorney’s presence at interrogation arises when the state may elicit from defendant admissions or confessions. At arraignment defendant is not confronted with an atmosphere of coercion, nor does anyone seek to gain admissions from him. The request for an attorney here is a matter of routine, and without some more explicit request by defendant we do not view it as a [90]*90request for an attorney’s presence at subsequent interrogations.

In this case the interrogating officers knew that defendant was represented by an attorney on the forgery charge. In New York interrogation with such knowledge is forbidden. The New York rule, grounded in the state’s constitutional and statutory guarantees of the privilege against self incrimination, the right to counsel and due process of law, prohibits interrogation of any person taken into custody, whether as an accused, a suspect or a witness, if the police know he has an attorney or if they know an attorney wishes to speak with him. See People v. Hobson, 39 NY2d 479, 348 NE2d 894, 384 NYS2d 419 (1976); People v. Arthur, 22 NY2d 325, 239 NE2d 537, 292 NYS2d 663 (1968). The only way a suspect can waive the right to an attorney at interrogation is in the presence of counsel.

We examined the New York rule in State v. Haynes, 288 Or 59, 602 P2d 272 (1979), cert den 446 US 945, 100 S Ct 2175, 64 LEd 2d 802 (1980). In Haynes, the police knew defendant’s attorney was attempting to contact him. They did not inform defendant of this and obstructed the attorney’s efforts to make contact with defendant. They obtained from defendant a waiver of his right to an attorney for interrogation. We held that no waiver could be adequate unless defendant knew his attorney wanted to see him.

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Bluebook (online)
672 P.2d 1182, 296 Or. 85, 1983 Ore. LEXIS 1726, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-sparklin-or-1983.