In one of a series of cases expanding the rights of criminal defendants, the Supreme Court held that the prosecution may not use evidence deliberately elicited from an indicted defendant when not in the presence of counsel.
After a federal grand jury indicted Winston Massiah and a codefendant on charges of transporting cocaine from South America, Massiah retained a lawyer and was released on bail. He then met with the codefendant who had secretly become a government informant, and Massiah made incriminating statements that were overheard by a federal agent. At the subsequent trial, the judge allowed the agent to testify about the content of the conversation. After Massiah was found guilty in a trial, his lawyers appealed and referred to Spano v. New York
By a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court overturned Massiah’s conviction and ruled that the overheard statements could not be introduced as evidence in a criminal trial. Speaking for the majority, Justice Potter Stewart
Massiah was the first confession case that explicitly relied on Sixth Amendment analysis. That same year, the Court in Escobedo v. Illinois
Counsel, right to
Due process, procedural
Escobedo v. Illinois
Miranda v. Arizona
Self-incrimination, immunity against