# Montejo v. Louisiana

> Supreme Court of the United States · May 26, 2009 · 556 U.S. 778

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9435336

## Case

- **Full name:** Montejo v. Louisiana
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** May 26, 2009
- **Citations:** 556 U.S. 778; 129 S. Ct. 2079; 173 L. Ed. 2d 955; 2009 U.S. LEXIS 3973
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Breyer
- **Judges:** Scalia, Alito, Kennedy, Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer
- **Cited by:** 598 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Yellow flag:** Declined to follow by State of West Virginia v. William Bevel, 231 W. Va. 346 (2013).
- Negative treatments: 1
- Distinguished by: 1
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9435336

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- stating that, even without Jackson, "any suspect subject to custodial interrogation has the right to have a lawyer present if he so requests, and to be advised of that right.... These three layers of prophylaxis are sufficient. Under the Miranda-Edwards-Minnick line of cases (…
- explaining that “when a defendant is read his Miranda rights (which include the right to have counsel present during interrogation) and agrees to waive those rights, that typically does the trick [for establishing a valid waiver] even though the Miranda rights purportedly have…
- finding that because the right to counsel under both the Fifth and Sixth Amendments “is waived using the same procedure, ... doctrines ensuring voluntariness of the Fifth Amendment waiver simultaneously ensure the voluntariness of the Sixth Amendment waiver”
- concluding that " [i]f Montejo made a clear assertion of the right to counsel when the officers approached him about accompanying them on the *572 excursion for the murder weapon, then no interrogation should have taken place unless Montejo initiated it"
- holding that “no reason exists to assume that a defendant ... who has done nothing at all to express his intentions with respect to his Sixth Amendment rights, would not be perfectly amenable to speaking with the police without having counsel present”

## Opinion text

Justice Breyer,
dissenting.
I join Justice Stevens’ dissent except for footnote 5. Although the principles of stare decisis are not inflexible, I believe they bind the Court here. I reached a similar conclusion in Arizona v. Gant, ante, at 354-355 (dissenting opinion), and in several other recent cases. See, e.g., Leegin Creative Leather Products, Inc. v. PSKS, Inc., 551 U. S. 877, 923-929 (2007) (same); Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School Dist. No. 1, 551 U. S. 701, 865-866 (2007) (same); Federal Election Comm’n v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc., 551 U. S. 449, 534-536 (2007) (Souter, J., dissenting); Bowles v. Russell, 551 U. S. 205, 219-220 (2007) (Souter, J., dissenting); Gonzales v. Carhart, 550 U. S. 124, 190-191 (2007) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting); District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, 675-679 (2008) (Stevens, J., dissenting).

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9435336. Public record. Not legal advice.