'Get me a lawyer' not clear enough, court says

[Newsjock]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

When 19-year-old Tio Sessoms was arrested in 1999 for the murder of a Sacramento minister, he told police that his father "asked me to ask you guys -- uh, get me a lawyer."

The officers responded by saying they would advise him of his rights and then see if he wanted a lawyer. They also told him two other suspects had already talked to them without lawyers and that an attorney would probably discourage him from giving them his version of events. And they denied his request to call his father.

After they gave him the Miranda warning of his right to remain silent and have an attorney present, Sessoms said he was willing to talk. He then admitted he had taken part in a home robbery in which another man fatally stabbed Edward Sherriff, a 68-year-old pastor at the Cathedral of Promise, affiliated with the gay-oriented Metropolitan Community Church. Sherriff was a civil rights advocate who ran a food bank in a poor Sacramento neighborhood. Sessoms was sentenced to life in prison without parole, the same term given to Frederick Clark, who was convicted of killing Sherriff.

... This month, the case reached the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which upheld the conviction in a 2-1 ruling. The court said police must halt their questioning of a suspect who clearly asks for a lawyer, but that Sessoms hadn't done that.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/crime/detail?entry_id=90689&tsp=1