Rhode Island Criminal Lawyer; Providence Criminal Lawyer; Rhode Island Criminal Appeals; Providence Criminal Appeals
A recent First Circuit Court of Appeals decision, reported in a Providence Journal article, upheld the denial of the motion to suppress Ricardo Mejia's confession and affirmed his conviction. In December of 2006, Mejia was convicted of selling two kilograms of cocaine to undercover informants. During his trial, Rhode Island criminal lawyer George J. West objected to many pieces of evidence including using information or pieces of a purported confession of Mejia's which was not recorded by police. Attorney West was successful in obtaining a jury instruction that the jury could take into account the fact that officers did not record in their decision of whether the confession was voluntary. In the appellate decision, Mejia’s Rhode Island criminal lawyer on appeal George J. West argued that prosecutors had never proven that Mejia voluntarily waived his Miranda Rights during that interview. Upholding the earlier conviction, Judge Norman Stahl of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, wrote that “the totality of the circumstances indicate that this was a voluntary conversation that Mejia undertook after having been fully advised of his rights.” The court declined however to create a new "automatic" implied waiver rule whereby each time a defendant speaks after being advised of rights, a waiver would be considered valid. The entire decision is available for reading here.
Rhode Island Criminal Lawyer; Providence Criminal Lawyer; Rhode Island Criminal Appeals; Providence Criminal Appeals
Attorney Claudia Gregoire wishes to thank and recognize the assistance of Ms. Stephanie Katherine Yellin, student at Brown University, Class of 2010, with a major in anthropology, in the preparation of this blog post.
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