In a 6-1 decision, the Michigan Supreme Court threw out a Detroit murder confession after police told a suspect who had already asked for a lawyer that he could not have one because he had no money to pay for it.
Can police in Michigan trick a suspect into giving up the right to an attorney? No. In a 6-1 ruling issued July 14, 2026, the Michigan Supreme Court held that once a suspect invokes the right to counsel, police cannot exploit confusion or contradict the Miranda warnings already given to obtain a second waiver. Statements obtained that way must be suppressed.
The Michigan Supreme Court ruled 6-1 in People v. Fenderson that Detroit police violated a suspect’s Fifth Amendment and Michigan constitutional rights by undermining his already-invoked right to counsel.
Sgt. Reginald Beasley told Daren Fenderson he did not have a lawyer and could not use the cash in his possession to hire one, more than two hours after Fenderson asked for appointed counsel.
The trial court suppressed Fenderson’s statements. The Court of Appeals reversed the suppression 2-1. The Michigan Supreme Court reinstated it.
Courts must weigh police statements in their totality against the Miranda warnings already given, not treat a signed waiver form as decisive on its own.
Wayne County prosecutors return to circuit court to pursue first-degree murder, felony-firearm, and escape charges without the suppressed confession.
What did the Michigan Supreme Court decide?
That Detroit police violated Daren Fenderson’s rights when they told him, after he had already invoked his right to counsel, that he did not have a lawyer and could not obtain one. His statements afterward must be suppressed.
What exactly did police tell him?
Sgt. Reginald Beasley told Fenderson he did not have a lawyer, that police had tried and failed to reach one, and that Fenderson could not use the cash he had on him to hire an attorney.
Does this change police procedure generally?
Yes. Once a suspect invokes the right to counsel, statements that contradict the Miranda warnings already given cannot be used to justify a later waiver, even if the suspect eventually agrees to talk.
What happens to Fenderson’s case now?
It returns to Wayne County Circuit Court. Prosecutors proceed on the murder, felony-firearm, and escape charges without the suppressed confession.
What Happened in the Interrogation Room
Daren Donell Fenderson was arrested in Detroit in connection with a fatal shooting and jailed on charges of first-degree premeditated murder, felony-firearm, and escape from lawful custody. Police read him his Miranda rights at the time of arrest but held off on questioning him because they believed he was intoxicated.
The next day, Detroit Police Sgt. Reginald Beasley and Detective Douglas Williams sat him down for a videorecorded interrogation. Beasley gave the standard warnings again. Fenderson signed an advice-of-rights form and started answering questions. About an hour in, he changed course and asked for an appointed attorney.
That should have ended the interrogation. Under Miranda v. Arizona and decades of case law since, once a suspect unambiguously invokes the right to counsel, questioning is supposed to stop until a lawyer is present. Instead, according to the record before the Michigan Supreme Court, what followed was more than two hours of continued contact that the trial court later described as a scare tactic.
The Exchange That Undid the Waiver
Beasley checked back in about 40 minutes after Fenderson asked for a lawyer, telling him police were still trying to get that attorney. Fenderson asked to use the bathroom, was handcuffed, and was escorted out, then left alone. More than two hours after his invocation, Beasley returned and told him no attorney was available and that he had no money to hire one.
The exchange, preserved on video and quoted in the court’s opinion, is short. Fenderson asked where his lawyer was. Beasley told him, “You don’t got one.” When Fenderson offered to use cash he had on him at the time of his arrest, Beasley told him he could not use that money either.
Fenderson expressed confusion. He asked what was going to happen to him. Rather than answer, Beasley told him police could not discuss the case unless he agreed to talk without a lawyer present. Fenderson eventually said he wanted to get this over with. A second officer entered, had him sign a new waiver, and the interrogation that produced his confession began.
Fenderson is arrested in connection with a fatal shooting and read his Miranda rights. Police do not question him because they believe he is intoxicated.
Sgt. Beasley and Det. Williams begin a videorecorded interrogation. Beasley reads standard Miranda warnings again. Fenderson signs an advice-of-rights form and begins answering questions.
Fenderson tells police he needs an appointed attorney. Under Miranda, questioning is required to stop immediately until counsel is present.
Beasley returns to tell Fenderson police are still trying to locate an attorney. Fenderson is later handcuffed, escorted to use the bathroom, and left alone.
Beasley tells Fenderson no attorney is available and that he cannot use the cash he had on him at arrest to hire one. Fenderson expresses confusion and asks what will happen next.
Fenderson says he wants to get this over with. A second officer enters, has him sign a new waiver, and the interrogation that produces his incriminating statements begins.
Wayne County Circuit Court suppresses Fenderson’s post-invocation statements, describing the police exchange as a scare tactic.
An unpublished per curiam panel reverses the suppression order, emphasizing Fenderson’s written and verbal waivers. Judge Kristina Robinson Garrett dissents, calling Beasley’s statements confusing and misleading.
The Michigan Supreme Court reinstates the suppression order, holding that police statements undermining the right to counsel invalidate the later waiver regardless of its form. Justice Brian Zahra dissents.
Clutch Justice’s course library walks through judicial accountability, FOIA strategy, and court literacy step by step, including a course on AI-assisted accountability complaints.
See the Courses →What the Michigan Supreme Court Decided
The majority did not need much room to explain the problem. One section heading in the opinion states plainly that Fenderson was not provided counsel and was told he did not have and could not obtain counsel. The justices weighed the entire exchange, not just the moment Fenderson agreed to talk, because Miranda requires courts to assess police conduct in its totality when deciding whether a waiver was knowing and voluntary.
The core problem was not that police failed to produce a lawyer on demand. Appointed counsel is not always available instantly, and delay alone is not automatically unconstitutional. The problem was what Beasley told Fenderson about why: that he did not have a right to a lawyer he could not personally afford. That statement contradicts what Miranda actually promises, that an attorney will be appointed regardless of a suspect’s ability to pay. The opinion also draws on a New Jersey appellate ruling for the underlying principle: a police officer cannot contradict, out of one side of his mouth, the Miranda warning just given out of the other.
The Argument the Court Rejected
The state had a real argument, and one justice accepted it. Justice Brian Zahra, the lone dissenter, wrote that police did exactly what the Fifth Amendment requires. They stopped questioning the moment Fenderson invoked, tried to locate an attorney, told him plainly when that search failed, and only resumed once he said he wanted to talk without one. In Zahra’s reading, a decision to waive is still voluntary even when the news that no lawyer is coming is unwelcome.
The Court of Appeals majority had reasoned similarly two years earlier, emphasizing that Fenderson signed both a verbal and written waiver and that police described a defined plan to him, returning him to the Detroit Detention Center and submitting a warrant for prosecutorial review, before he agreed to talk. To that panel, a suspect who understands what happens next and still chooses to talk has made a voluntary choice.
Court of Appeals Judge Kristina Robinson Garrett dissented from that ruling. She called Beasley’s answers to Fenderson’s questions confusing and misleading, and she flagged what she described as possible irregularities in how police tried to procure him a lawyer in the first place. The Michigan Supreme Court ultimately adopted her reasoning over her colleagues’, six votes to one.
The Pattern This Case Fits
Here is what stands out on a close read of this record. Fenderson was not deprived of a lawyer through simple delay or bad luck. He was deprived of one through a specific, false statement about what his rights actually meant, delivered by the same officer who had just read him those rights correctly.
Michigan does not have a strong statewide mechanism for tracking interrogation-room misconduct the way it tracks prosecutorial disclosure failures. Clutch Justice’s Brady, Giglio, and Santobello List currently documents more than 60 disclosure failures across more than 30 Michigan prosecutors: evidence a prosecutor withheld, rather than a right an officer misdescribed. Fenderson’s case is a different failure point inside the same system. It is not about what got hidden from a suspect after the fact. It is about what got misrepresented to him in the room, while the recorder was running.
The two failures are not identical, but they land in the same place. In one Michigan case Clutch Justice has tracked, Brady and Giglio exposure tied to the conduct of Michigan State Police Detective Bryan Fuller contributed to a $14.5 million wrongful prosecution settlement in McCann v. Fuller. Fenderson’s interrogation did not involve Fuller, and the two cases do not share facts. What connects them is the question this ruling answers: what happens when the person across the table from a suspect is not being straight with him about what his rights actually are.
What This Means Going Forward
The ruling does not require police to produce a lawyer instantly, and it does not bar them from telling a suspect that a search for counsel is taking time. What it bars is police contradicting, in substance, the promise Miranda already made: that if a suspect cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed regardless. A suspect’s later agreement to talk does not erase an earlier, false statement about what his rights meant.
For defense attorneys, a signed waiver form is no longer close to the end of the inquiry. What was said to a client between invocation and re-waiver, on video, off the record log, in the hallway, is now squarely part of the suppression analysis. For prosecutors, it raises the cost of continuing an interrogation after invocation without counsel actually present. And for the hundreds of law enforcement agencies operating across Michigan, it is a direct instruction from the state’s highest court about the specific kind of statement that turns a resumed interrogation into a constitutional violation.
Why This Case Matters
Fenderson’s confession is gone. The murder, felony-firearm, and escape charges against him remain, and prosecutors will have to build their case in Wayne County Circuit Court without it. That outcome will read, to some, like a technicality that let a murder suspect back out from under his own words. It is not. The words were obtained after police told him something false about a constitutional right they had just finished explaining to him correctly. A right that can be talked away by the person enforcing it is not much of a right at all.
A Miranda warning that can be contradicted forty minutes later by the officer who gave it was never really a warning. It was a formality.
Continue Your Investigation
If this reporting raised more questions, use the Clutch Justice ecosystem to keep going.
