Brief of respondent for Florida v. Powell, 08-1175 - Oyez

19
the Florida Constitution more broadly than
that afforded by its federal counterpart.
2 So. 3d at 241 (emphasis in original); 3 see also Evans
v. Arizona, 514 U.S. 1, 8 (1995) (“[S]tate courts are
absolutely free to interpret state constitutional
provisions to accord greater protection to individual
3
The Florida Supreme Court has recognized an independent
state constitutional requirement that police advise
suspects of the right to have a lawyer present during interrogation.
It has not done so with respect to certain other selfincrimination
issues. See State v. Owen, 696 So. 2d 715, 719
(Fla. 1997) (stating that Traylor did not establish an independent
state constitutional basis “for requiring police to clarify
a suspect’s equivocal request to terminate questioning,” that the
Traylor defendant “made no request whatsoever that he wished
to invoke his Miranda rights,” and that “our conclusions [in
Traylor] were no different than those set forth in prior holdings
of the United States Supreme Court”); Sapp v. State, 690 So. 2d
581, 585-86 (Fla. 1997) (stating that Traylor did not establish an
independent state constitutional right “to anticipatorily invoke
the right to have counsel present during custodial interrogation”
by signing a claim of rights form at first appearance but
subsequently waiving those rights in writing immediately before
interrogation, and that “we do not interpret article I, section 9 of
the Florida Constitution as [affording greater protection than
the federal Constitution] here”); Ramirez v. State, 739 So. 2d
568, 573 & n.3 (Fla. 1999) (finding that custodial statements
elicited without Miranda warnings and statements made after
an oral waiver after police administered Miranda warnings but
downplayed their significance must be suppressed and
acknowledging that “[t]he protections enunciated in Miranda
have been part of this State’s jurisprudence for over a century
pursuant to the Florida Constitution,” but noting in dicta that
“‘our conclusions [in Traylor] were no different than those set
forth in prior holdings of the United States Supreme Court’ ”
(quoting Owen, 696 So. 2d at 719)).