UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT
ESCOBEDO v. ILLINOIS
378 U.S. 478 (1964)
MR. JUSTICE GOLDBERG delivered the opinion of the Court.
The critical question in this case is whether, under the circumstances, the refusal by the police to honor petitioner’s request to consult with his lawyer during the course of an interrogation constitutes a denial of “the Assistance of Counsel” in violation of the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution as “made obligatory upon the States by the Fourteenth Amendment,” Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 342 , and thereby renders inadmissible in a state criminal trial any incriminating statement elicited by the police during the interrogation.
On the night of January 19, 1960, petitioner’s brother-in-law was fatally shot. In the early hours of the next morning, at 2:30 a.m., petitioner was arrested without a warrant and interrogated. Petitioner made no statement to the police and was released at 5 that afternoon pursuant to a state court writ of habeas corpus obtained by Mr. Warren Wolfson, a lawyer who had been retained by petitioner.
On January 30, Benedict DiGerlando, who was then in police custody and who was later indicted for the murder along with petitioner, told the police that petitioner had fired the fatal shots. Between 8 and 9 that evening, petitioner and his sister, the widow of the deceased, were arrested and taken to police headquarters. En route to the police station, the police “had handcuffed the defendant behind his back,” and “one of the arresting officers told defendant that DiGerlando had named him as the one who shot” the deceased. Petitioner testified, without contradiction, that the “detectives said they had us pretty well, up pretty tight, and we might as well admit to this crime,” and that he replied, “I am sorry but I would like to have advice from my lawyer.” A police officer testified that although petitioner was not formally charged “he was in custody” and “couldn’t walk out the door.” [378 U.S. 478, 480]
Shortly after petitioner reached police headquarters, his retained lawyer arrived. The lawyer described the ensuing events in the following terms:
“On that day I received a phone call [from “the mother of another defendant”] and pursuant to that phone call I went to the Detective Bureau at 11th and State. The first person I talked to was the Sergeant on duty at the Bureau Desk, Sergeant Pidgeon. I asked Sergeant Pidgeon for permission to speak to my client, Danny Escobedo. . . . Sergeant Pidgeon made a call to the Bureau lockup and informed me that the boy had been taken from the lockup to the Homicide Bureau. This was between 9:30 and 10:00 in the evening. Before I went anywhere, he called the Homicide Bureau and told them there was an attorney waiting to see Escobedo. He told me I could not see him. Then I went upstairs to the Homicide Bureau. There were several Homicide Detectives around and I talked to them. I identified myself as Escobedo’s attorney and asked permission to see him. They said I could not. . . . The police officer told me to see Chief Flynn who was on duty. I identified myself to Chief Flynn and asked permission to see my client. He said I could not. . . . I think it was approximately 11:00 o’clock. He said I couldn’t see him because they hadn’t completed questioning. . . . [F]or a second or two I spotted him in an office in the Homicide Bureau. The door was open and I could see through the office. . . . I waved to him and he waved back and then the door was closed, by one of the officers at Homicide. There were four or five officers milling [378 U.S. 478, 481] around the Homicide Detail that night. As to whether I talked to Captain Flynn any later that day, I waited around for another hour or two and went back again and renewed by [sic] request to see my client. He again told me I could not. . . . I filed an official complaint with Commissioner Phelan of the Chicago Police Department. I had a conversation with every police officer I could find. I was told at Homicide that I couldn’t see him and I would have to get a writ of habeas corpus. I left the Homicide Bureau and from the Detective Bureau at 11th and State at approximately 1:00 A.M. [Sunday morning] I had no opportunity to talk to my client that night. I quoted to Captain Flynn the Section of the Criminal Code which allows an attorney the right to see his client.”
Petitioner testified that during the course of the interrogation he repeatedly asked to speak to his lawyer and that the police said that his lawyer “didn’t want to see” him. The testimony of the police officers confirmed these accounts in substantial detail.
Notwithstanding repeated requests by each, petitioner and his retained lawyer were afforded no opportunity to consult during the course of the entire interrogation. At one point, as previously noted, petitioner and his attorney came into each other’s view for a few moments but the attorney was quickly ushered away. Petitioner testified “that he heard a detective telling the attorney the latter would not be allowed to talk to [him] `until they [378 U.S. 478, 482] were done'” and that he heard the attorney being refused permission to remain in the adjoining room. A police officer testified that he had told the lawyer that he could not see petitioner until “we were through interrogating” him.
There is testimony by the police that during the interrogation, petitioner, a 22-year-old of Mexican extraction with no record of previous experience with the police, “was handcuffed” in a standing position and that he “was nervous, he had circles under his eyes and he was upset” and was “agitated” because “he had not slept well in over a week.”
It is undisputed that during the course of the interrogation Officer Montejano, who “grew up” in petitioner’s neighborhood, who knew his family, and who uses “Spanish language in [his] police work,” conferred alone with petitioner “for about a quarter of an hour. . . .” Petitioner testified that the officer said to him “in Spanish that my sister and I could go home if I pinned it on Benedict DiGerlando,” that “he would see to it that we would go home and be held only as witnesses, if anything, if we had made a statement against DiGerlando . . ., that we would be able to go home that night.” Petitioner testified that he made the statement in issue because of this assurance. Officer Montejano denied offering any such assurance.
A police officer testified that during the interrogation the following occurred:
“I informed him of what DiGerlando told me and when I did, he told me that DiGerlando was [lying] and I said, `Would you care to tell DiGerlando that?’ and he said, `Yes, I will.’ So, I [378 U.S. 478, 483] brought . . . Escobedo in and he confronted DiGerlando and he told him that he was lying and said, `I didn’t shoot Manuel, you did it.'”
In this way, petitioner, for the first time, admitted to some knowledge of the crime. After that he made additional statements further implicating himself in the murder plot. At this point an Assistant State’s Attorney, Theodore J. Cooper, was summoned “to take” a statement. Mr. Cooper, an experienced lawyer who was assigned to the Homicide Division to take “statements from some defendants and some prisoners that they had in custody,” “took” petitioner’s statement by asking carefully framed questions apparently designed to assure the admissibility into evidence of the resulting answers. Mr. Cooper testified that he did not advise petitioner of his constitutional rights, and it is undisputed that no one during the course of the interrogation so advised him.
Petitioner was convicted of murder and he appealed the conviction.
The Supreme Court of Illinois, in its original opinion of February 1, 1963, held the statement inadmissible and reversed the conviction…..
* * * *
It is argued that if the right to counsel is afforded prior to indictment, the number of confessions obtained by the police will diminish significantly, because most confessions are obtained during the period between arrest and indictment, and “any lawyer worth his salt will tell the suspect in no uncertain terms to make no statement to police under any circumstances.” Watts v. Indiana, 338 U.S. 49, 59 (Jackson, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). This argument, of course, cuts two ways. The fact that many confessions are obtained during this period points up its critical nature as a “stage when legal aid and advice” are surely needed…….
We have learned the lesson of history, ancient and modern, that a system of criminal law enforcement [378 U.S. 478, 489] which comes to depend on the “confession” will, in the long run, be less reliable and more subject to abuses than a system which depends on extrinsic evidence independently secured through skillful investigation….
This Court also has recognized that “history amply shows that confessions have often been extorted to save law enforcement officials the trouble and effort of obtaining valid and independent evidence . . . .” Haynes v. Washington, 373 U.S. 503, 519 .
We hold, therefore, that where, as here, the investigation is no longer a general inquiry into an unsolved crime but has begun to focus on a particular suspect, the suspect [378 U.S. 478, 491] has been taken into police custody, the police carry out a process of interrogations that lends itself to eliciting incriminating statements, the suspect has requested and been denied an opportunity to consult with his lawyer, and the police have not effectively warned him of his absolute constitutional right to remain silent, the accused has been denied “the Assistance of Counsel” in violation of the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution as “made obligatory upon the States by the Fourteenth Amendment,” Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S., at 342 , and that no statement elicited by the police during the interrogation may be used against him at a criminal trial.
Nothing we have said today affects the powers of the police to investigate “an unsolved crime,” Spano v. New York, 360 U.S. 315, 327 (STEWART, J., concurring), by gathering information from witnesses and by other “proper investigative efforts.” Haynes v. Washington, 373 U.S. 503, 519 . We hold only that when the process shifts from investigatory to accusatory – when its focus is on the accused and its purpose is to elicit a confession – our adversary system begins to operate, and, under the circumstances here, the accused must be permitted to consult with his lawyer.
Reversed and remanded. (Foot notes and dissenting opinion omitted)
