State v. Haynes, 446 US 945 - Supreme Court 1980

"To pass up an abstract offer to call some unknown lawyer is very different from refusing to talk with an identified attorney actually available to provide at least initial assistance and advice, whatever might be arranged in the long run. A suspect indifferent to the first offer may well react quite differently to the second."

—lawyer retained by defendant's wife was told where defendant was being held but the police moved him before lawyer could offer counsel and defendant never told of lawyer's request to offer counsel

We concluded that "there is an important difference between the abstract right to speak with an attorney mentioned in the Miranda warnings, and a concrete opportunity to meet `with an identified attorney actually able to provide at least initial assistance and advice.'"

—defendant's statements must be suppressed even though the defendant himself had not sought to stop questioning in order to consult with a lawyer

Although not relevant to the Houston case, it is also worth mentioning that Oregon invalidated a suspect's waiver on facts very similar to the Moran scenario.

Nevertheless, this distinction is flawed because a suspect's reaction to a generic right to the presence of an attorney during questioning is quite different from information that a specific attorney is willing and able to assist him in the process

… to its wellknown solicitude for state judicial independence. The Court has assumed that doctrinal influence is the same as constitutional dependence, which is not so. Consider the following example: In an opinion interpreting a provision of the state constitution, the Oregon Supreme Court declares that it is "going to follow the rule announced by the New York Court of …

Courts in a number of jurisdictions have held that a criminal suspect cannot be held to have knowingly and intelligently waived his right to counsel when he was not informed that his attorney had requested, but had been denied an opportunity to consult with him prior to police interrogation.

[CITATION] State Constitutional Law: Litigating Individual Rights, Claims, and Defenses

[BOOK] Criminal procedure: a contemporary perspective