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Defense urges Washington Supreme Court to recognize broader state protection when suspects ambiguously ask to stop questioning
Summary
At oral argument in State v. Van Zandvo, defense counsel asked the Washington Supreme Court to hold that Article 1, Section 9 of the state constitution is more protective than the federal Fifth Amendment when a suspect ambiguously seeks to cut off custodial questioning; the State argued the claim was unpreserved and that state law is coextensive with federal law. The court heard competing legal theories and factual claims about the underlying interrogation; no ruling is recorded in the transcript.
Lila Silverstein, counsel for defendant Jeremy Van Zandt Volpe, told the Washington Supreme Court that Article 1, Section 9 of the state constitution should be read to provide greater protection than the federal Fifth Amendment when a person ambiguously tries to end custodial questioning.
"If a person invokes their rights ambiguously or equivocally, detectives may not continue to interrogate the person and instead are limited to clarifying the request," Silverstein told the panel, asking the court to adopt the rule reflected historically in Rob Toye and in several other state-court decisions.
Silverstein said the court should act even if the precise argument was not framed below because the record—she said the court has the interrogation transcript—permits review under the court’s manifest-error authority. She argued several recent opinions,…
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