Jewell v. State

Appellant was charged with tattooing a minor for taking his former Stepdaughter to get a tattoo. While the charge was pending, a detective arranged for Stepdaughter to make recorded phone calls to Appellant to obtain evidence concerning a sexual relationship Appellant allegedly forced upon Stepdaughter. The State subsequently charged Appellant with several sex-related crimes. Appellant moved to suppress the incriminating statements from the conversations, claiming they were obtained in violation of his right to counsel. The trial court denied the motion and convicted Appellant as charged. The court of appeals affirmed. At issue before the Supreme Court was whether an "inextricably intertwined" exception to the offense-specific nature of the right to counsel existed under the state Constitution. The Court affirmed, holding (1) under the Indiana Constitution, the right to counsel is violated only where the different offense is inextricably intertwined with the charge on which counsel is already representing the defendant; and (2) because there was no evidence that it would have been objectively foreseeable for the detective, at the time he conducted the phone calls, to believe the pending tattooing offense was inextricably intertwined with the alleged sexual misconduct, the recorded conversations did not violate Appellant's right to counsel.