U.S. Supreme Court justices posed a series of ‘what if’ scenarios to Maryland lawyers Tuesday in an attempt to determine when police have gone too far in questioning a suspect who has asked for an attorney, and whether the statements gained can be used in court.

            “Suppose the police are twisting his arm behind his back,” Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said, would you call that voluntary?
            The justices tried to determine how a suspect could make a voluntary statement after the police acted improperly.

            “Is there any circumstance under which that (police) overreach can be cured?” Chief Justice John Roberts asked.
            Provide the suspect with a lawyer or do something to put the suspect back into the same position he was in before being exposed to the police’s overstep, said Kenneth Ravenell, lawyer for Leeander Jerome Blake, the man at the center of the case. If his lawyers are successful before the court, he likely would never stand trial.

            Blake and his friend Terrence Tolbert, who has since been convicted, were charged in the 2002 murder of Straughan Lee Griffin in Annapolis.

            The Maryland Court of Appeals found in 2004 that police illegally interrogated Blake when they questioned him without a lawyer after he requested one.

            That finding was based on the fact that just a half hour before the questioning a detective delivered a list of charges that erroneously included “DEATH” as the possible sentence, and then an officer said in a loud, confrontational voice: “I bet you want to talk now, huh?”

            The comment may have been improper, said Kathryn Grill Graeff an assistant attorney general for the state, but it was negated by the detective’s immediate correction: “No, he doesn’t want to talk to us. He already asked for a lawyer.  We cannot talk to him now.”

            “We have that Detective Johns then pushed him out of the cell,” Graeff said as she threw her arms out in a pushing motion.
            All of this, done in front of Blake, Graeff said, made it clear to him that the questioning had stopped and he didn’t have to talk to the police.  Therefore, when Blake agreed to talk to the police it was a voluntary decision.

            The police did not do enough to negate the officer’s improper statement; Ravenell said when