United States v. Moulton
Citation and Court
474 U.S. 159 (1985), Supreme Court of the United States
Facts
Moulton and a co-defendant, Colson, were indicted on theft charges. Colson agreed to cooperate with the government and, at the government’s direction, recorded phone calls and a face-to-face meeting with Moulton. During those conversations, Moulton made incriminating statements about both the charged theft offenses and other uncharged crimes. The government sought to use all of Moulton’s statements at trial.
Issue
Whether the Sixth Amendment bars admission of statements deliberately elicited by a government informant about charged offenses, and whether statements about uncharged crimes elicited in the same encounter are also inadmissible.
Holding
The Sixth Amendment right to counsel applies offense-specifically: statements deliberately elicited about charged offenses are inadmissible, but statements about separate uncharged crimes made in the same encounter may be used because the Sixth Amendment right had not yet attached to those offenses.
Rule / Doctrine
The Sixth Amendment right to counsel is offense-specific. Once formal proceedings have been initiated on a particular charge, the government may not deliberately elicit statements about that charge outside the presence of counsel. However, incriminating statements made during the same interaction that concern separate, uncharged conduct are not protected, because the right to counsel has not attached to those uncharged offenses. Knowing exploitation of an opportunity to investigate a charged offense violates the Sixth Amendment even if the primary purpose of the informant was to gather information about other crimes.
Significance
Moulton is the definitive case establishing the offense-specific nature of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel, a principle later reaffirmed in McNeil v. Wisconsin (1991). It defines the outer boundary of the Massiah doctrine: only incriminating statements about the charged offense itself are suppressed; the government may use the same encounter to gather admissible evidence of separate crimes.