McKinney v. Ludwick, No. 10-1669 (6th Cir. 2011)
Annotate this CaseIn 2005 petitioner was convicted, under Michigan law, of felony murder for his role in the robbery, fire, and homicide at a gun shop. He had initially invoked his right to counsel, after which an officer made a remark about the possibility of the death penalty. A day later, petitioner stated that he had planned the crime. The trial court refused to suppress the statement. After exhausting state appeals, petitioner was denied habeas corpus (28 U.S.C. 2254) by the district court. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. The state court decision, that the death penalty statement did amount to an impermissible interrogation and that the coercive effect of this interrogation had subsided by the next morning, so that petitioner had validly waived his right to counsel before giving his statement, did not reflect an unreasonable application of relevant Supreme Court precedent. The court noted that it is not clear that the death-penalty comment qualified as the functional equivalent of interrogation, as opposed to a type of "subtle compulsion" to cooperate that is not foreclosed by precedent.
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