Taylor v. State

In accordance with the Unified Appeal Procedure, we granted Robin Leigh Taylor’s application for interim review before her death penalty case proceeds to trial. We requested that the parties address the following matters: 1 whether Taylor’s references to a lawyer during her interview on October 6, 1999, constituted a request for counsel; 2 whether comments that police officers made to Taylor constituted a hope of benefit under OCGA § 24-3-50; and 3 whether the alleged murder weapon would have been inevitably discovered without Taylor’s statement.

Because Taylor’s videotaped statement shows that she made an unambiguous request for counsel during her interview, we conclude that her statement must be suppressed. We reject, however, her contention that the officers induced her to confess by holding out a hope of benefit and affirm the trial court’s ruling that her statement was voluntary under OCGA § 24-3-50. Although we find that the evidence is too speculative to conclude that the police would have inevitably discovered the murder weapon without Taylor’s statement, we nevertheless hold that the gun is admissible because the “fruit” of a Miranda1 violation is not subject to the exclusionary rule under Georgia law.