Wallace v. State

MOYLAN, Judge. The appellant, Craigg Eric Wallace, was convicted by a Harford County jury of assault and battery. On this appeal, he raises the following three contentions: 1) that his confession should not have been admitted in evidence; 2) that the trial judge erroneously allowed improper impeachment evidence; and 3) that the sentence was imposed on the basis of an impermissible consideration. Because we find it necessary to reverse the conviction on the basis of the appellant’s first contention, it is unnecessary to address the other two contentions.

Factually, we agree with the State that the appellant’s pre Miranda request for an attorney was tentative and halfhearted. When he was led to believe that his request for a lawyer would prevent him from having his injuries photographed, he quickly backed down from that request. As he began to discuss his wounds, moreover, he did not hesitate to talk more broadly about his involvement in the crime and he did not renew his request for an attorney. If, therefore, the appellant’s request for an attorney under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 , 86 S.Ct. 1602 , 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), were subject to any sort of balancing, as ironically an invocation of Miranda’s right to silence is, we could easily affirm the trial judge’s ruling in favor of the State.

Such, however, is not the state of the law. A request for counsel under Miranda , as interpreted by Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477 , 101 S.Ct. 1880 , 68 L.Ed.2d 378 (1981), has been tightly construed against the State. The request for an attorney has a virtually foreclosing effect on any further interrogation or any further conversation that could result in a resumption of interrogation. As interpreted by Edwards and its progeny, once a defendant indicates, even half-heartedly or equivocally, his desire for the presence of an attorney, all interrogation must ²³⁸ cease until an attorney is provided.

If a defendant spontaneously reconsiders the matter and initiates further contact with the police, indicating that he has changed his mind, that would be an effective waiver. If it is the police, on the other hand, who reinitiate or continue discussion, there will be no weighing or balancing. The waiver will be deemed invalid. In this case, the testimony of the interrogating police sergeant made it clear that during the course of the interrogation, and well before anything was reduced to writing, the appellant asked to speak to an attorney.

At that point, the police purported to honor that right. According to them, however, the appellant, though he did not wish to speak about the criminal incident, did want to talk about his injuries and did want to have photographs taken of those injuries. The police, using a ploy that is currently very popular on police television shows, indicated that the