An officer went to talk to defendant because a maid suspected defendant of making false identification cards in his motel room, since she had seen blank identification cards, a typewriter, and a laminating machine in defendant’s motel room. Another officer translated the officer’s Miranda warnings into Spanish, but the translation did not convey to the defendant the government’s duty to appoint an attorney for those who could not afford one. This was a fatal flaw in the warning, and since the consent search occurred as a result of the fatally flawed warning, the evidence obtained in the resulting consent search of the motel room was required to be suppressed.
Case Summaries