ESCOBEDO V. ILLINOIS
One of three important cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1960s on the subject of the RIGHT TO COUNSEL, Escobedo v. Illinois 378 U.S. 478, 4 Ohio Misc. 197, 84 S.Ct. 1758, 12 L.Ed.2d 977 (U.S.Ill. 1964), was a far-reaching
decision which held for the first time that defen-
dants had a right to counsel even before they
were indicted for a particular crime. However,
the decision was overshadowed by the high
court’s Miranda decision two years later, and
later decisions by both the Supreme Court and
lower courts indicated the application of the
decision in Escobedo was to be limited to its
facts.Nevertheless, the Supreme Court has never
directly overruled Escobedo.
The case involved Danny Escobedo, who
was arrested on the night of January 19, 1960,
for the murder of his brother-in-law, but was
released after contacting his lawyer. The lawyer
told him not to answer any more questions if
the police rearrested him. Ten days later, he was
arrested a second time and made a request to
contact his attorney repeatedly. This request
was denied.
His attorney then arrived at the police sta-
tion and requested to see Escobedo but was
refused permission to see him. The police then
told Escobedo that his alleged coconspirator in
the shooting of his brother-in-law had confessed
and implicated Escobedo. Escobedo demanded
to confront his coconspirator, and when he was
brought face-to-face with him he said, “I didn’t
shoot Manuel (Escobedo’s brother-in-law), you
did it.” After this admission of his involvement
in the crime, police were able to obtain a more
elaborate written confession, and Escobedo was
eventually convicted of murder. Escobedo
appealed his conviction, claiming his confession
was obtained without his lawyer being present in
violation of his right to counsel, and should be
thrown out.
Escobedo’s case reached the Supreme Court
at a precipitous time. Just six weeks before, the
high court had decided MASSIAH V. UNITED
STATES, 377 U.S. 201, 84 S.Ct. 1199, 12 L.Ed.2d
246 (U.S.N.Y. 1964), in which the Court ruled
for the first time that the SIXTH AMENDMENT
right to counsel attaches once an individual has
been indicted. That case involved a defendant
who made a statement to an ACCOMPLICE after
he had been indicted, gotten an attorney, and
had been released on bail. Unknown to the
defendant, his accomplice was working with the
police. The Court held that the defendant’s Sixth
Amendment rights had been violated because
the police had used the accomplice to elicit
incriminatory statements after the right to
counsel had attached.
The Supreme Court in Escobedo reached a
similar result in a 5 to 4 decision.Writing for the
majority, Justice ARTHUR GOLDBERG first stated
that Escobedo’s right to counsel did not depend
on whether, at the time of interrogation, the
authorities have secured a formal indictment. In
overturning Escobedo’s conviction and ruling
that his right to counsel had been violated,
Goldberg then enunciated a somewhat compli-
cated holding that set out numerous benchmarks
in determining whether a defendant’s Sixth
Amendment right to counsel had been violated.
Wrote Goldberg: “We hold, therefore, that
where, as here, the investigation is no longer a
general inquiry into an unsolved crime but has
begun to focus on a particular suspect, the sus-
208 ESCOBEDO V. ILLINOIS
WEST’S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 2nd Editionpect has been taken into police custody, the
police carry out a process of interrogations that
lends itself to eliciting incriminating statements,
the suspect has requested and been denied an
opportunity to consult with his lawyer, and the
police have not effectively warned him of his
absolute constitutional right to remain silent,
the accused has been denied ‘The Assistance of
Counsel’ in violation of the Sixth Amendment
to the Constitution as ‘made obligatory upon
the States by the Fourteenth Amendment,’ and
that no statement elicited by the police during
the interrogation may be used against him at a
criminal trial.”
The high court decision in Escobedo had
many observers theorizing the Court would try
to establish a broad right to counsel utilizing the
Sixth Amendment whenever police took a sus-
pect into custody. However, two years later, the
high court changed course in MIRANDA V. ARI-
ZONA 384 U.S. 436, 10 Ohio Misc. 9, 86 S.Ct.
1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (U.S.Ariz. 1966), using the
FIFTH AMENDMENT right against SELF-INCRIMI-
NATION to hold that statements obtained from
defendants during incommunicado interroga-
tion in a police-dominated atmosphere, without
full warning of constitutional rights, were inad-
missible. Miranda made the crucial question
whether a defendant was in custody or other-
wise significantly deprived of his freedom of
movement, rather than the “focus of investiga-
tion” test enunciated in Escobedo.
Since the Miranda decision, most Supreme
Court and lower court cases mentioning the
right to counsel have relied on the Fifth Amend-
ment and Miranda, and those that have relied on
the Sixth generally lean on the earlier Massiah
decision, rather than the more complex tests of
Escobedo. Escobedo has been limited by the
Supreme Court and lower courts to only apply
to the facts of its case, and since those facts were
unusual, it is rarely invoked by a court as pri-
mary law when determining whether the right
