You can say that again.
“Indiana’s newest Supreme Court justice says the court and its justices are ‘fallible’ and that public institutions should acknowledge that they won’t always get things right. . . . The 50-year-old Massa was appointed to the court by Gov. Mitch Daniels . . . . Massa is a former chief counsel to Gov. Mitch Daniels . . . .”
For an example of the newest justice’s “fallibility,” see here: “Massa, J., votes to grant the Petition to Transfer, concluding Appellant’s invocation of his right to counsel was ambiguous and thus his convictions on all counts should be upheld.”
From the unanimous Court of Appeals opinion that Massa would have overturned if he’d had his way:
Here, Anderson neither posed a question regarding needing an attorney as in Powell, nor expressed doubt as to whether he needed an attorney as in Davis and Taylor. To the contrary, he clearly stated, “I really want to talk to an attorney or something.” The State argues, or at the very least implies, that in order to make an unequivocal invocation of the right to counsel a defendant must “start and end” with “I want to talk to an attorney” and say nothing else. Appellee‟s Br. at 18. That would be clear and nice wouldn’t it? However, the State ignores the reality of an interrogation room, the naïveté of a defendant, and what often may be the diminished mental capacity of a defendant. Anderson was a twenty-two-year-old diagnosed schizophrenic, not a constitutional scholar. We are getting to the point in the interpretation of our constitutional law where the exceptions are swallowing the rules. We should not go further down the slippery slope the State urges and further eviscerate Miranda and an accused’s right to counsel. Anderson’s request for counsel in this case was unambiguous. . . .
AFTERTHOUGHT: I wonder if Massa’s remark about the courts’ “fallibility” might have had anything to do with this incident involving his old boss.
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