WASHINGTON — A suspect’s request that a lawyer be present before submitting to police questioning does not last forever, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday. In fact, 14 days is long enough for police to wait before taking the alleged perpetrator into custody again and attempting another interrogation.
The court ruled unanimously that Maryland could use an imprisoned child molester’s statement — given voluntarily 2 1/2 years after police first approached him — to convict him on additional charges that he had abused his son. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that an initial request for a lawyer does not mean that police can never reinitiate an interrogation, provided the person has been released from interrogation in the meantime.
When a suspect “has returned to his normal life for some time before the later attempted interrogation, there is little reason to think that his change of heart regarding interrogation without counsel has been coerced,” Scalia wrote.
In the case at hand, “normal life” meant rejoining the general prison population, where the suspect was serving a sentence for a different set of molestation charges.
But how much time needs to have passed between interrogation attempts? The court decided on the admittedly arbitrary limit of 14 days.
“That provides plenty of time for the suspect to get reacclimated to his normal life, to consult with friends and counsel, and to shake off any residual coercive effects of his prior custody,” Scalia wrote.
He added that while it is “certainly unusual for this court to set forth precise time limits governing police action,” it is not unheard of. And he said that since it was courts that created the rule — that police may not reinitiate interrogation of a suspect without counsel once a request for a lawyer has been made — it is also up to courts to set limits.
