Rhode Island v. Innis

Thomas Innis was identified by a Rhode Island cabbie as being the person that robbed him with a sawed off shotgun. Just five days earlier a different cab driver had been found shot in the back after disappearing on the way the pick up a passenger. Directly after Innis was identified as a suspect a patrolman found and arrested Innis, making sure to advise him of his rights. Innis didn’t have the shotgun on him at the time of arrest but the police suspected he had stashed it somewhere right before the time of the arrest. After the arrest two additional officers came to the scene and also advised Innis of his rights. Innis said that he didn’t want to speak without a lawyer present. The three officers then got into the van with Innis and were advised by a senior officer not to try and coerce any information from Innis as to not violate his Miranda Rights.

As they drove to the central station one of the officers started a conversation with another officer being sure that Innis was able to hear what they were talking about. The officer casually mentioned that nearby there was a school for handicapped children and it would be awful if any one of them was to find a weapon and injure themselves or others. One of the other officers agreed and this conversation continued for a short while before Innis confessed the location of the weapon saying that he didn’t want anyone innocent to get hurt. The police recovered the weapon and determined that it was the one used for both the murder and robbery and Innis was convicted.

This case calls into question whether or not this testimony was given under a violation of Innis’s Miranda Rights. The Supreme Court determined that it was in violation with a vote of 6 to 3 stating that the intention of the officers in their overheard conversation was more important than what was said. So even though they didn’t directly question Innis they still elicited a response though a tactic that violated his rights. This is a difficult issue because there was no formal integration of Innis that explicitly disregarded his choice to have an attorney present while being questioned, but he was indirectly tricked into giving a confession to the police.