Tio Sessoms v. D Runnels

OPINION

Opinion by

McKEOWN, Circuit Judge, joined by SCHROEDER, WARDLAW, FISHER, PAEZ and M. SMITH, Circuit Judges:

An American poet wrote more than 100 years ago: “When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.”1 When a suspect says “give me a lawyer,” that request walks, swims, and quacks like a duck. It is an unambiguous request for a lawyer, no matter how you slice it. The statement is unequivocal — it is not a maybe or a perhaps — it is an invocation of the Fifth Amendment right to counsel.

In late 1999, a naive and relatively…