State v. Demesme

State of Louisiana v. Demesme, 228 So. 3d 1206 (2018), is a case in which the Louisiana courts ruled that police had not denied defendant Warren Demesme his right to counsel by continuing to interrogate him without an attorney after a remark that was transcribed by the state as "If y'all think I did it, I know that I didn't do it, so why don't you just give me a lawyer dog 'cause this is not what's up". When Demesme petitioned the Louisiana Supreme Court to take the case, the court refused; one justice, concurring in that denial, interpreted the words "lawyer dog" to refer to an actual dog, sparking significant pushback from commentators. As a result of the court rulings, Demesme's subsequent confession to child sexual abuse was not suppressed; he later pled guilty to second-degree rape.

Under Davis v. United States, police do not have to honor a request for counsel that is "ambiguous or equivocal"; at issue in Demesme's case were the conditional "If y'all think I did it" and the meaning of the phrase transcribed variously as "a lawyer dog" or "a lawyer, dawg". The district judge ruled that the request was ambiguous because of the conditional's subjectivity. The Louisiana Supreme Court refused to review the ruling; they did not give a rationale, but Justice Scott Crichton in a concurring opinion argued that the phrase "lawyer dog" was "ambiguous and equivocal". Commentators in academia, the press, and on the internet widely criticized Crichton's analysis, arguing that Demesme, a Black man who speaks African-American Vernacular English (AAVE), was using the term dawg to refer to the officers, not a canine lawyer. Some argued that the Crichton's misunderstanding of that term was a case of linguistic discrimination, saying that Demesme had been denied his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights because of his dialect, and by extension, his ethnicity. Other scholars argued that while the "lawyer dog" interpretation was clearly incorrect, other parts of Demesme's statement, such as "if y'all think I did it" or "why don't you", could potentially make the statement ambiguous.

Background Warren Demesme, then a 24-year-old resident of Harvey, Louisiana, was arrested in October 2015 on suspicion of two instances of child sexual abuse, including the rape of a preteen girl. Waiving his Miranda rights, he consented to two interviews by New Orleans Police officers without an attorney present, repeatedly denying the accusations. At one point in the second interview, he made a statement to the interrogating detective that was later transcribed as "If y'all think I did it, I know that I didn't do it, so why don't you just give me a lawyer dog 'cause this is not what's up". The detective continued to interrogate him; according to the arrest documents, Demesme subsequently confessed to one of the two charges.; . In advance of a trial where a rape conviction would carry a mandatory minimum sentence of life, Demesme moved to suppress the incriminating statements made to the detective.

Demesme speaks African-American Vernacular English (AAVE), a dialect of English mainly spoken by black Americans in urban areas. By contrast, most formal communication in the United States is conducted in Standard American English (SAE), which has significant differences from AAVE in its grammar, syntax, and lexicon. Because of the U.S.'s history of anti-Black racism, AAVE speakers face discrimination from non-speakers and institutions that rely on SAE, who sometimes characterize AAVE speakers as less intelligent or making grammatical mistakes. While some scholars have described AAVE to be its own language, and some non-speakers consider it to simply be improper English, most linguists understand AAVE to be its own dialect, a variation of SAE with distinctive rules governing its grammar and syntax.

The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees a right against self-incrimination and the Sixth Amendment guarantees the right to an attorney; both of those rights also apply to the states because of the Fourteenth Amendment. The United States Supreme Court's landmark ruling in Miranda v. Arizona (1966) held that when someone is under custodial interrogation, any statements they make are inadmissible unless they are made aware of their rights and waive them knowingly. Under the Court's ruling in Edwards v. Arizona (1981), when a suspect requests an attorney, police may not ask them questions until the attorney arrives. However, the Court also ruled in Davis v. United States (1994) that the statement "maybe I should talk to a lawyer" does not count as an invocation of the right to counsel; the statement cannot be "ambiguous or equivocal", although the Court did note that suspects do not have to "speak with the discrimination of an Oxford don".. Quoting at 459.

Case Demesme's attorneys at Orleans Public Defenders argued that his request for a lawyer made his subsequent statements inadmissible; the prosecution argued in return that the request was ambiguous because it depended on "if y'all [officers] think I did it". Demesme's motion was denied by Criminal District Judge Karen Herman on September 16, 2016; the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal denied certiorari, refusing to take the case. Demesme then petitioned the Louisiana Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court denied certiorari in a 6–1 vote, with Justice Jefferson Hughes dissenting. While the Court majority did not issue a rationale, Justice Scott Crichton wrote a concurring opinion in order to "spotlight the very important constitutional issue regarding the invocation of counsel during a law enforcement interview". Crichton cited the holding in Davis that ambiguous requests do not require that interrogation is paused, and then concluded that "the defendant's ambiguous and equivocal reference to a 'lawyer dog' does not constitute an invocation of counsel that warrants termination of the interview".. Quoting at 1207.

Demesme pled guilty to one count of second-degree rape on April 13, 2018.

Reaction and analysis Crichton's concurrence, and particularly his interpretation of Demesme's statement as a request for a "lawyer dog", was mocked heavily on the internet, and drew significant criticism from journalists; ; . and legal commentators as well. Commentators widely agreed that Demesme was clearly not asking for a canine lawyer when he said "give me a lawyer dog"; instead, he was addressing the officers as dawg, an AAVE term similar to man, in the way one might say "give me a lawyer, man". In that light, scholars and journalists argued that the quote was inaccurately transcribed by the office of the Orleans Parish District Attorney and should have read "... why don't you just give me a lawyer, dawg, 'cause this is not what's up".; ; ; ; ; ; ; . Justice Evelyn Wilson, concurring in part and dissenting in part from a decision of the Kansas Supreme Court, referenced Crichton's opinion in Demesme as an "exercise[] in linguistic contortionism" that "pass[es] beyond the point of parody". at 755 (Wilson, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).

Some commentators have further argued that the concurrence showed how African-American Vernacular English speakers, and African Americans by extension, were being mistreated in the justice system. Demesme had a Fifth and Sixth Amendment right to a lawyer and, according to them, his statement was an unambiguous request for a lawyer and he should have been given one. They argued that by denying the request on the basis of his use of the AAVE word dawg – whether the officers misunderstood the statement or actively ignored it – the justice system was violating his rights because of his race, an example of a broader phenomenon of linguistic discrimination.; ; ; ; . Linguistics professor Dennis Baron wrote that "the police and Judge Crichton willfully ignored the prisoner's assertion of his rights and then pretended that they didn’t understand him. Not because he spoke ambiguously, or informally, but because he spoke black." Some commentators drew parallels between Demesme and the testimony of Rachel Jeantel in the trial of George Zimmerman, pointing to the widespread belief that Jeantel's testimony was not credible or even that Jeantel was unintelligent solely because she spoke AAVE.; ; ; .

Some commentators said that Crichton's opinion was out of step with Davis v. United States, pointing to the U.S. Supreme Court's holding that the suspect does not have to "speak with the discrimination of an Oxford don" in order to unambiguously request a lawyer.; ; . However, several scholars also stated that, "lawyer dog" aside, other parts of Demesme's statement like "why don't you [just give me a lawyer]" and "if y'all think I did it" are still potential sources of ambiguity that might keep the statement from passing the Davis test.; ; .

State v. Demesme

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