The State v. Andrade, 342 Ga. App. 228

October 11-12, 2012: 17-year-old Aram Andrade voluntarily went to the sheriff’s office and gave an initial recorded interview; officer told him he was not under arrest and free to leave.
After a consent search of Andrade’s home produced further evidence, the officer conducted a second recorded interview; Andrade was given Miranda warnings, signed a written waiver, and was asked whether he wanted to make a statement.
The second recording is poor quality; Andrade’s initial verbal responses to whether he would make a statement are unintelligible, he mumbled and shook his head, and then he replied “yeah” and made incriminating statements.
Andrade was indicted for three counts of rape and one count of first-degree burglary and moved to suppress statements from both interviews; the trial court denied suppression for the first interview but granted it for the second, finding Andrade invoked his right to remain silent.
The State appealed; the appellate majority reversed, concluding the video and testimony show Andrade did not unambiguously invoke his right to remain silent and therefore suppression of the second interview was error.
A dissent argued the recording was ambiguous and that the appellate court improperly substituted its view for the trial court’s credibility and factual findings, so the suppression ruling should be upheld.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (State)	Defendant's Argument (Andrade)	Held
Whether Andrade unambiguously invoked his Miranda right to remain silent during the second interview	The video and testimony show Andrade did not clearly invoke the right; he signed a waiver and ultimately said “yeah” to speak	Andrade contends his verbal and head gestures indicated he did not wish to speak, constituting invocation	Reversed: Court held Andrade did not unambiguously and unequivocally invoke the right, so suppression was erroneous
Standard of review for video and factual findings on suppression	Appellate court may independently consider facts indisputably shown by an unambiguous recording	Trial court relied on its credibility findings and the recording (poor quality) to find invocation	Majority applied that uncontradicted facts from recording controlled and reviewed legal application de novo; dissent said record ambiguous so trial court’s findings should be deferred to

Hughes v. State, 296 Ga. 744 (discusses appellate deference to trial court factual findings and exceptions for indisputable video facts)
State v. Allen, 298 Ga. 1 (explains appellate consideration of facts definitively ascertainable from uncontradicted video)
Vansant v. State, 264 Ga. 319 (reviews de novo application of law to undisputed facts)
Barnes v. State, 287 Ga. 423 (requires unambiguous invocation of right to remain silent)
Perez v. State, 283 Ga. 196 (explains that acquiescence to further questioning undermines a claimed invocation)
State v. Nash, 279 Ga. 646 (example where nonverbal negative response was found to be an invocation)
Butler v. State, 292 Ga. 400 (trial court credibility findings on admissibility of statements are upheld unless clearly erroneous)