The Edwards/Shatzer Fourteen-Day
Break in Custody Requirement
Robert C. Phillips
DDA, Retired
November, 2015
On January 4, 2010, Bryan David Bridgeford and two others committed a home invasion robbery at a residence in the town of Dos Palos, California. Although all three robbers were wearing masks, the victim quickly recognized Bridgeford (tipped off by Bridgeford’s voice, his unique physical characteristics, and one of the other robbers calling him by his first name) as someone with whom he’d grown up. Bridgeford carried with him a rifle with a distinguishable “see-through clip.” The victim was later able to recognize this rifle at Bridgeford’s subsequent murder trial (see below).[1]
The next day, January 5, two Sureño street gang members (Leonel Medina and Juan Eduardo Avalos) were shot to death in Medina’s garage located on Highway 33 in Dos Palos. From the casings left at the scene, it was determined that a 12-guage shotgun and a .22-calibler rifle were used in the murders. Bridgeford, Jose German, and two other fellow North Side Barrio Locos—a Norteño gang—gang members were caught on a Walmart store surveillance video the day before, apparently stealing ammunition for both weapons.[2]
On January 6, the Dos Palos Police Chief, Barry Mann, went to Bridgeford’s home as a part of the January 4th home invasion investigation. He contacted Bridgeford at the front door and asked him if he knew why he was there. Bridgeford guessed that the chief’s visit was “because of the stuff that happened on the highway,” making apparent reference to the homicides instead of the robbery. A surprised Chief Mann, not missing a beat, asked for permission to search Bridgeford’s house, telling him he could get a warrant if he refused. Despite the threat, Bridgeford wisely declined.[3]
On January 12th, however, Jose German’s house was searched, resulting in the recovery of a .22-caliber rifle with an aftermarket detachable magazine. Ballistics tests later proved that this was the rifle used in the homicides. Also, the victim from the January 4th home invasion robbery testified that this was the same rifle used by Bridgeford in that crime.[4]
With this information, Bridgeford was picked up by Merced County Sheriff’s deputies and interviewed later on January 12. Although told he was not under arrest, he was held in handcuffs and read his rights pursuant to Miranda v. Arizona.[5] Sixteen minutes into the interview he invoked his right to counsel. The interview was immediately ended. Because the deputies didn’t believe they had sufficient evidence at that juncture with which to charge him, he was released.[6] Subsequent interviews that day with other witnesses and suspects, however, including Jose German, led the deputies to believe that they had developed sufficient probable cause to arrest him. Two to three-and-a-half hours after his earlier release, Bridgeford was tracked down and re-arrested.[7]
At the station, he was interviewed by Merced County Sherriff’s Sgt. Charles Hale. Bridgeford was specifically told this time that he was under arrest, and that he was to be charged with two murders.[8]
Leading into the interview, Sgt. Hale reminded Bridgeford that he’d earlier invoked his right to have counsel present, and that “that’s your right.” Bridgeford told Sgt. Hale that after he was released, he went home and told his grandmother that he’d invoked his rights, and that she’d told him that by doing that it make him look guilty. Admitting that he “ain't the very smartest person,” and that he had “a very bad memory,” Bridgeford told Sgt. Hale that he “listen(s) to (his) grandma basically.”[9] Told by the sergeant that he was going to be “give(n) another opportunity to talk,” and asked if he wanted to make a statement, Bridgeford said that he’d “provide everything (he knew).” He was therefore re-read his Miranda rights which this time he waived.[10]
Although Bridgeford initially denied being involved in the murders, he soon confessed after having been put into a room with Jose German who told him that the officers had the murder weapon and knew what he’d done.[11] He was subsequently charged in state court with two counts of murder and various weapons and gang enhancements, along with a multiple murder allegation. (The home-invasion robbery was not charged although evidence of that event was admitted into evidence for the purpose of tying Bridgeford to the murder weapon.)
Bridgeford filed a pre-trial motion to suppress his confession, arguing that his Miranda rights were violated when the deputies interrogated him despite his previous invocation of his right to counsel, made during his first interview. Citing the California Supreme Court decision of People v. Storm,[12] the trial court denied the motion. The trial court judge ruled that while “minimally sufficient,” the two to three-and-a-half hour break between his earlier interview when he’d invoked his right to counsel and his later arrest was enough time for him to have contacted counsel had he wanted to. Although the United States Supreme Court case of Maryland v. Shatzer[13] was mentioned, it was never argued that Shatzer applied to these circumstances.[14]
At trial, Jose German testified for the prosecution under a grant of use-immunity. He told the jury that the murders stemmed from one of the victims throwing a brick at his car a couple of days earlier. He also fingered Bridgeford and another gang member as the shooters. German claimed that Bridgeford had given him the rifle to hide after Chief Mann came to Bridgeford’s house asking for permission to search it and threatening to get a warrant.[15]
Bridgeford was convicted following a jury trial of all charges and enhancements. Sentenced to two consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole plus consecutive 25-years-to-life terms for the firearm use enhancements, he appealed. The Fifth District Court of Appeal, as reported in People v. Bridgeford, [16] reversed.
The primary issue on appeal was the admissibility of Bridgeford’s confession, obtained during his second interview and after having invoked his right to counsel, been released, and re-arrested.[17]
The rule, often referred to as the “Edwards Rule,” and pursuant to the United States Supreme Court decision of Edwards v. Arizona,[18] is that once an in-custody suspect invokes his right to counsel (as opposed to his right to remain silent), he is off limits to all further attempts to interrogate him about that case, or any other case, absent any one of three events occurring; being provided with an attorney, the suspect’s own reinitiation of the interrogation, or (as significant here) a break in custody.[19] “This is true even when the defendant again waives his Miranda rights and his statements are voluntary under traditional standards.”[20]
The California Supreme Court, in People v. Storm, used by the trial court as the basis for its denial of Bridgeford’s motion to suppress his confession, found two days to be a sufficient break in custody. Per the trial court, this two days gave Charles Storm, suspected of killing his wife, a reasonable opportunity to consult with friends, relatives, or an attorney, about his predicament, and dissipating the inherent coerciveness of the prior in-custody interrogation.[21]
In Shatzer, however, decided eight years after Storm, the United States Supreme Court set out a uniform—even if somewhat arbitrary—rule requiring a 14-day break in custody, impliedly overruling Storm. Shatzer involved a state prisoner who, after invoking his right to counsel, was put back into the general prison population where he, in effect, lived at the time (i.e., “return(ing) to his normal life.” [22]), and was not re-interviewed by law enforcement again until several years later. The High Court held this to be, for purposes of Miranda and Edwards, more than a sufficient “break in custody” (i.e., “Miranda custody,” even if not actual “physical custody’), allowing officers to return and attempt a renewed interrogation.[23]
The idea behind this theory is that once the pressures of an in-custody interrogation are sufficiently relieved, and the suspect has had the opportunity to seek outside advice as to what his options are, thus relieving the inherent coerciveness of the interrogation situation, then the justifications for the Edwards Rule no longer exist. For the express purpose of providing law enforcement and the courts with an easy to follow bright-line rule, the Shatzer Court arbitrarily set fourteen days as the minimum time required for this break in custody. Finding that the trial court in the instant case had “impliedly” found Bridgeford to have been in custody when he initially invoked his right to counsel, the Appellate Court held here that the investigating officers failed to wait the required 14 days as dictated by Shatzer. As such, Bridgeford’s confession, being obtained in violation of the Edwards Rule as refined in Shatzer, should have been suppressed.[24]
The Court further rejected the People’s argument that having consulted with his grandmother, who apparently chastised him for having invoked, Bridgeford had in effect reinititated the interrogation himself. Whatever advice his grandmother may have given him, it was law enforcement that re-arrested Bridgeford and reinitated the interrogation.[25]
Finding also that the rule in Shatzer is retroactive[26] (it being decided after Bridgeford’s crimes), and the admission into evidence of Bridgeford’s confession to be prejudicial,[27] the Court reversed his conviction and remanded the case to the trial court for retrial.
Previous to this case, one could make the argument that the rule of Shatzer applied only to its facts; i.e., a prison inmate who is put back into the general prison population after invoking his Miranda right to counsel (as opposed to remaining silent), avoiding the issue of whether it applied at all to the pre-conviction situation. But a close reading of Shatzer tells us that the Supreme Court intended to impose an over-all general—even if a bit arbitrary—requirement that police interrogators must wait at least fourteen days after a suspect, who has invoked his right to counsel, is released from custody, and that the post-conviction prisoner situation is but one, non-exclusive, application of this rule. So Bryan Bridgeford in this case was indeed entitled to the benefit of Shatzer’s fourteen-day requirement.
However, among the many issues left undecided is whether Shatzer applies to the commonly occurring situation where a defendant remains in physical county jail custody while awaiting trial, during which time he is released into the general county jail population for fourteen days or more. There is some significant language in Shatzer indicating that even a 14-day hiatus from any police contact is not enough when a defendant is sitting in county jail pending trial. That’s because even though he may be free from being molested by law enforcement between arraignment and trial, the suspect is still being held in “uninterrupted pretrial custody while the crime is being actively investigated, . . . cut off from his normal life and companions, ‘thrust into’ and isolated in an ‘unfamiliar’ ‘police-dominated atmosphere’ . . . where his captors ‘appear to control [his] fate, . . .’”[28]
While the Supreme Court in this quote was presumably talking about the time period before the in-custody suspect’s arraignment—i.e., the period of time between arrest and arraignment—the same argument can be made about any criminal defendant right up to, and including, his trial. In other words, there is a difference between the county jail inmate, under the pressure of a pending trial, the outcome of which will have a significant effect upon the rest of his life, and the post-conviction prison inmate who’s immediate, if not extended, future has already been decided. But we will have to await another case to give us the answer to this question.
[1] People v. Bridgeford (Oct. 27, 2015) 241 Cal.App.4th 887, 891
[2] Id., at pp. 891-892
[3] Id., at p. 892
[4] Ibid.
[5] (1966) 384 U.S. 436
[6] People v. Bridgeford, supra, at pp. 892, 895-896
[7] Id., at pp. 896-897
[8] Id., at pp. 897-898
[9] Id., at pp. 903, 897-898
[10] Id., at pp. 897-898
[11] Id., at pp. 892-893, 898
[12] (2002) 28 Cal.4th 1007
[13] (2010) 559 U.S. 98
[14] People v. Bridgeford, supra, at p. 899
[15] Id, at pp. 893-894
[16] (Oct. 27, 2015) 241 Cal.App.4th 887
[17] Id., at pp. 900-903
[18] (1981) 451 U.S. 477
[19] Id., at pp. Id. at pp. 484–485
Miranda v. Arizona, supra, at pp. 473-474
[20] People v. Thomas (2012) 54 Cal.4th 908, 926
[21] People v. Storm, supra, at pp. 1024-1025
[22] Maryland v. Shatzer, supra, at pp. 107, 110, 114
[23] Id., at pp. 103-117
[24] People v. Bridgeford, supra, at pp. 902-903
[25] Id., at p. 903
[26] Ibid.
[27] Id., a pp. 904-907
[28] Maryland v. Shatzer, supra, at p. 128
