Motion to suppress a confession; Right to counsel; People v Tierney; Whether the confession was voluntary, knowing, & given intelligently; People v Gipson; People v Cipriano

The court held that defendant’s motion to suppress was properly denied because his right to counsel was not violated and his “confession was knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently made[.]” He was convicted of first-degree murder, FIP, and CCW. An ATF agent (B) began to ask him “about a home invasion that defendant may have been involved in on a different occasion, and defendant said that he would ‘rather have a lawyer.’ [His] statement, when taken out of context, sounds like an unequivocal request for counsel.” But the court noted that he “then said ‘when it comes to [the victim],’ he was willing to ‘give [the police] everything [he could] . . . with a lawyer or not . . . but all this other shit, [he didn’t] know.’ Based on the context, [he] was referring to the home invasion . . . . Thus, [his] statement indicated that he was willing to continue talking to [B] about the murder, but was unwilling to continue talking about the home invasion without an attorney. When [B] said they would have to stop talking if [he] wanted a lawyer, defendant said ‘[i]t’s not that I—I mean, cause obviously I’m still here talkin’ to you . . . [i]f I wanted to get up, I’d be like, I’m . . . walk me back to my cell, you know what I mean.’” They then took a break, after which B did not ask him “about the home invasion. Thus, defendant’s limited invocation of his right to counsel was honored” by B. As to whether his confession was knowing, intelligent, and voluntary, he was 26 years old at the time, “he claimed a lack of education but also claimed to have fully understood his rights when they were explained to him, and he had extensive prior dealings with police[.]” The interrogation lasted five hours with breaks, he “waived his constitutional rights before confessing, and there was no evidence or allegation from defendant that he was injured, intoxicated, drugged, abused, or threatened during the questioning.” B’s promise of leniency referred “to statements defendant might make in a polygraph exam that would be inconsistent with his statements in the prior interviews.” The court also noted that “defendant continued to claim that he was not the shooter for several hours” afterward. Further, he “testified at the motion hearing that he understood he had the right to an attorney and that he did not have to keep talking to the police, indicating that [his] statements were voluntary.”