Motion to suppress Lakeview teen's confession denied

A 16-year-old developmentally delayed Lakeview teenager’s attempt to suppress his confession to police detectives who interrogated him about his involvement in an October 2010 West Hempstead robbery failed on Feb. 17 after a judge ruled that the teen’s right to counsel had not been violated.

Nassau County Acting Supreme Court Judge George Peck wrote in his decision that Chase Morrison had no representation when Detectives Lyndon John and Jeffrey Rio took him out of a courtroom, where he was awaiting arraignment for an unrelated charge, and into custody on Oct. 14, 2010, questioned him, obtained his statement and then drove him to the scene of the crime to recover evidence.

Morrison and his legal advocate, neighbor and friend Cay Fatima, argued through the teen’s lawyer that the Legal Aid Society was representing Morrison at the time of his arraignment. They also asserted that that representation triggered the “attachment of the indelible right to counsel,” citing a state law known as the Rogers Rule, which dictates that once an attorney has entered a proceeding, police must cease questioning and cannot further interrogate a defendant in the absence of counsel.

In his seven-page ruling, Peck argued that the Rogers Rule did not apply in Morrison’s case because the Legal Aid Society did not enter the case. The morning of Oct. 14, 2010, Legal Aid representatives spoke to Morrison twice while he awaited arraignment: on the first occasion, a lawyer informed the teen and others in custody about arraignment procedures and the Society’s function, and on the second, the attorney spoke with him individually about his bail application.

Morrison and two other teens had been arrested on Oct. 13 on charges of assaulting another boy and harassing him with homophobic slurs. According to court testimony, Detective John said a lieutenant at the 5th Precinct had informed him that someone named Chase was awaiting arraignment, and that it could be the same person involved in a robbery that took place at the One Minute Turkish Restaurant close to midnight on Oct. 12.