SHEPARD, C.J.
When a defendant is represented by a lawyer for a particular offense, do the police violate his right to counsel if they approach him about a different offense? Under the Sixth Amendment, the answer is no. We hold that under the broader protections of Article 1, Section 13, of the Indiana Constitution, the right to counsel is violated only where the different offense is inextricably intertwined with the charge on which counsel is already representing the defendant.
Facts and Procedural History
In August 2008, Christopher Jewell was arrested and charged with tattooing a minor, a class A misdemeanor, for allegedly taking his former stepdaughter T.S. to get a tattoo. [Footnote omitted.] Detective Terry Judy investigated the case for the Hendricks County Sheriff’s Department. Released on bond, Jewell retained counsel for the charge.
Shortly thereafter, but while the tattooing charge was still pending, T.S. got into an argument with her boyfriend. During the course of the argument, she revealed that Jewell forced a sexual relationship upon her while Jewell and her mother were married. T.S.’s mother contacted the police and Detective Judy also began to investigate the alleged sex crimes. The sexual relationship appeared to last from March 25, 2004, through June 30, 2007. T.S. was between thirteen and sixteen years of age during this period.
Detective Judy arranged for T.S. to make recorded phone calls to Jewell in order to obtain evidence concerning sexual misconduct. T.S. made two such calls in late August 2008. Detective Judy was present and listening in during the calls and prompted T.S. with notes on things to say and questions to ask. During the course of the conversations, Jewell mentioned the pending misdemeanor charge and that he had obtained an attorney for that charge, but also made several potentially incriminating statements about sexual misconduct. . . . At no point during the phone conversations did T.S. indicate that she was working with, or in the presence of, the police.
The State then charged Jewell with three counts of sexual misconduct with a minor, two as class B felonies and one as a class C felony, [footnote omitted] one count of felony child molesting, a class C felony, [footnote omitted] and two counts of child seduction, a class D felony. [Footnote omitted.] It eventually dismissed the tattooing charge.
Jewell moved to suppress the incriminating statements from the recorded conversations, claiming they were obtained in violation of his right to counsel under the Sixth Amendment and Article 1, Section 13, of the Indiana Constitution. Following a hearing, the trial court denied the motion. The court admitted the evidence at trial over Jewell’s renewed objection.
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In light of our traditional view that Article 1, Section 13 provides broader protection than the Sixth Amendment, we believe the “inextricably intertwined” exception is appropriate under our Constitution. It properly reflects the balance we seek to maintain between society’s legitimate law enforcement needs and a defendant’s right to counsel.
The “inextricably intertwined” exception to the general rule that Section 13’s right to counsel protection is offense specific applies when it was objectively foreseeable that the pending offense, for which the right to counsel has already attached, was so inextricably intertwined with the offense under investigation that the right to counsel for the pending offense could not be constitutionally isolated from the right to counsel for the offense under investigation. [Footnote omitted.] The inquiry focuses on the nature of the conduct involved rather than on the elements of the offenses. A reviewing court must examine and compare all the facts and circumstances—as known at the time of the investigation—related to the conduct, including the nature of the conduct, the identity of the persons involved (including the victim, if any), and the timing, motive, and location of the crimes. [Footnote omitted.]
None of those factors is particularly dispositive, nor do all factors need to tip in favor of the exception for it to apply. However, the greater the commonality of the factors and the more directly linked the conduct involved, the more likely it is that the two offenses are “inextricably intertwined.”
C. Applying the Test Here. We conclude that Jewell’s sexual misconduct was not—based on the facts and circumstances known to Detective Judy at the time of the phone calls—so closely related to the offense of tattooing a minor as to be inextricably intertwined. The respective offenses were not linked temporally or geographically, nor by any common motive in the record. It is true that the primary parties—Jewell, T.S., and Detective Judy—were the same. However, that does not end the inquiry.
The sexual misconduct occurred over a period of years, from 2004 to 2007, at both T.S.’s and Jewell’s homes, whereas the tattooing was a single incident at a single location—an otherwise-unrelated tattoo parlor—and took place almost a year after the sexual relationship ended. In fact, aside from the identity of the parties, the nuclei of operative facts for the two offenses are wholly and logically distinct. Not only would it be possible for Detective Judy to confine his questioning to the facts and circumstances of one offense without straying into a discussion of the other, that is exactly what occurred. Cf. Covarrubias, 179 F.3d at 1226 n.8.
Furthermore, while one might now hypothesize that Jewell’s conduct facilitating T.S.’s tattoo was some form of grooming related to the sexual misconduct, at the time Detective Judy conducted his investigation there was no indication that this could have been the case. Nor has this been claimed by any party. For that matter, while the motive for the sexual misconduct appears clear—Jewell’s own sexual gratification—there is no evidence whatsoever of any particular motive for the tattooing offense.
In sum, there is no evidence that it would have been objectively foreseeable for Detective Judy, at the time he conducted the phone calls, to believe the pending tattooing offense was inextricably intertwined with the alleged sexual misconduct. His inquiry into Jewell’s alleged sex crimes was a proper exercise of his responsibility to protect society by investigating potential criminal activities and did not violate Jewell’s right to counsel.
Accordingly, we affirm the trial court’s denial of Jewell’s motion to suppress the recorded phone conversations.
Dickson, Sullivan, Rucker, and David, JJ., concur.