Opinion of the Court by Chief Justice MINTON.
Antonio Bradley entered a conditional plea of guilty but mentally ill to one count of murder and one count of tampering with physical evidence. Bradley unsuccessfully sought to withdraw his conditional guilty plea, and the trial court sentenced him to twenty years' imprisonment for murder and five years' imprisonment for tampering with physical evidence, to run concurrently with each other but consecutively with a cumulative ten-year sentence Bradley received on two counts of attempted arson in another case. Bradley then filed this appeal as a matter of right.
The main issue before us is whether custodial interrogation by the police violated Bradley's constitutional right to remain silent or his right to counsel — or both rights. After carefully examining the record, we conclude that the police improperly continued to interrogate Bradley after he had invoked his right to counsel. So we hold that the trial court erred by denying Bradley's motion to suppress his confession. Accordingly, Bradley's convictions must be vacated. Vacating those convictions renders moot Bradley's secondary arguments that the police improperly continued to question him after he invoked his right to remain silent and that the trial court erred by denying his motion to withdraw his conditional guilty plea.
The facts that led to the charges against Bradley are not germane to the limited issues presented on appeal. As we understand the underlying facts, Bradley was accused of murdering a person outside an apartment complex and, in a separate indictment, of pouring gasoline on the apartment complex's steps, ostensibly as a precursor to setting them afire. Because those underlying facts do not involve the limited issues before us, the parties appropriately do not focus on them.
Instead, the parties focus on the facts pertaining to the overarching question we must answer: whether the trial court erred by denying Bradley's motion to suppress his confession. In answering that question, we must bear in mind that "[w]hen reviewing a trial court's denial of a motion to suppress, we utilize a clear error standard of review for factual findings and a de novo standard of review for conclusions of law."
Neither Bradley nor the Commonwealth takes issue with the trial court's findings of fact. So those findings of fact are conclusive.
During the interrogation, Detective Williamson misrepresented to Bradley the state of their investigation when he told him that there was a police officer waiting in the hall who could identify Bradley as having run away from the scene of the shooting. Williamson assured Bradley that he (Williamson) wanted to help him (Bradley).
As set forth by the trial court, the most crucial portion of the interrogation is as follows:
As the trial court noted, not every use of the word lawyer or attorney by a suspect is an invocation of the right to counsel.
In making that determination, we must remember that a suspect "need not speak with the discrimination of an Oxford don. . . ."
Had Bradley said only, "[w]ell, you know, I need a lawyer" then it would have been clear that he was invoking his right to counsel. The issue is rendered less clear by Bradley's added "or something" to his statement. Obviously, the generic phrase "or something" lends some superficial credence to the Commonwealth's claim that Bradley's request was equivocal. But taken in the relevant context of the questioning, we do not conclude that the phrase "or something" defeats the otherwise clear request for counsel.
Of course, the test for whether a suspect has clearly invoked the right to counsel is objective, not subjective.
In addition to finding that Bradley had not unequivocally invoked his right to counsel, the trial court concluded that Bradley had later waived his right to counsel again when he responded to Williamson's continued effort to induce Bradley to confess. But law enforcement authorities must cease interrogating a suspect once that suspect has invoked the right to counsel. Only the suspect may re-initiate dialogue with the authorities; the authorities cannot continue to cajole or otherwise induce the suspect to continue to speak without first affording the suspect an attorney.
In the case at hand, once Bradley invoked his right to counsel, Williamson was required to cease in his efforts to get Bradley to speak (i.e., confess), without first affording Bradley the services of an attorney. Williamson, however, continued to beseech Bradley to speak — even though Bradley had invoked his right to counsel — without honoring Bradley's request for an attorney.
Obviously, Williamson's efforts were successful because Bradley soon confessed. But that confession cannot be used against Bradley because the confession was not made at Bradley's initiation. Instead, the confession was the result of Williamson improperly continuing to question Bradley once Bradley had invoked his right to counsel. So the fact that Bradley made incriminating statements to Williamson after Bradley had invoked his right to counsel cannot defeat the initial, unequivocal request for counsel. When that request occurred, Williamson erred by refusing to stop his interrogation of Bradley.
The confession and other statements Bradley made after invoking his right to counsel could only be considered to determine if Bradley had, after invoking his right to counsel, waived that right by speaking further to the police without having been afforded the services of counsel.
In short, we conclude that Bradley unequivocally invoked his right to counsel when he stated that he needed to talk to a "lawyer or something" and then repeated the phrase "a lawyer" when asked to clarify his request. So all questioning of Bradley should have stopped until such time as Bradley was provided an attorney. Because questioning did not stop, the trial court erred by denying Bradley's motion to suppress. This means that Bradley's convictions for murder and tampering with physical evidence must be vacated, and this case remanded to the trial court with instructions to grant Bradley's motion to suppress.
For the foregoing reasons, Antonio Bradley's convictions for murder and tampering with physical evidence are vacated and this matter is remanded to the circuit court with instructions to grant the motion to suppress and for any further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
All sitting. All concur.