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Escobedo v. Illinois
Course: Courts and Judicial Process (CJ560)
26 Documents
Students shared 26 documents in this course
University: Southern New Hampshire University
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Skyler Riddle
Escobedo v. Illinois (1964) 5-4 Justice Goldberg
Facts: (January 20, 1960) Danny Escobedo of 22 years old, whom is from Mexican extraction,
was arrested for the murder of his brother-in-law Manuel Valtierra. Although with advice from
counsel Plaintiff did not talk during interrogation, friend of Plaintiff, Benedict Digerlando, told
police that Plaintiff had shot Valtierra due to the victim had mistreated Plaintiff’s sister. (January
30, 1960) Police arrest Plaintiff again, as well as Plaintiff’s sister, Grace. On transportation,
police officers refused to allow Plaintiff to communicate with his attorney. The police officers
then interrogated the Plaintiff for fourteen and thirty minutes until the Plaintiff made damaging
statements. DiGerlando and the Plaintiff were found guilty of the murder. The Plaintiff appealed
because he was denied the right to counsel, and that counsel should have been present at time of
interrogation.
Issue: Whether the Plaintiff was denied the right to counsel under the Sixth Amendment?
Held: Yes.
Reasoning: The Plaintiff had not been adequately informed of his constitutional rights to remain
silent, also the police officers violated “Assistance of Counsel” guaranteed under the Sixth
Amendment of the Constitution whenever they denied the Plaintiff his attorney during the
interrogation. The Fifth Amendment was also emphasized due to whether the appropriate
warnings had been given, and were given correctly, and whether the right to remain silent had
been waived or not.
Dissent: (White) (Clark) (Stewart) The Court held that once the accused becomes a suspect, and
is arrested, then any admission made to the police thereafter is inadmissible evidence unless the
accused has waived the right to counsel, the Justices that dissent reject that step and state that
from the moment that his right to counsel was attached, the Court cannot dismiss the Court’s
prior cases requiring the presence of aid of counsel and substitute the amorphous and wholly
unworkable principles that counsel.