Maine v. Moulton
E821209
Maine v. Moulton is a 1985 U.S. Supreme Court decision that expanded Sixth Amendment protections by holding that the government violates the right to counsel when it deliberately elicits incriminating statements from an indicted defendant through a cooperating co-defendant acting as an informant.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Maine v. Moulton canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T9799114 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Maine v. Moulton Context triple: [Massiah v. United States, relatedTo, Maine v. Moulton]
-
A.
McCullen v. Coakley
McCullen v. Coakley is a 2014 U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down Massachusetts’ abortion-clinic buffer zone law as violating the First Amendment’s free speech protections.
-
B.
Cantwell v. Connecticut
Cantwell v. Connecticut is a 1940 U.S. Supreme Court case that first applied the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause to the states, striking down a state law that improperly restricted religious proselytizing.
-
C.
Alden v. Maine
Alden v. Maine is a 1999 U.S. Supreme Court decision that expanded state sovereign immunity by holding that states are generally immune from private suits for damages in their own courts under federal law.
-
D.
DeBoer v. Snyder
DeBoer v. Snyder was a federal court case challenging Michigan’s same-sex marriage ban that became one of the key cases consolidated into the landmark Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
-
E.
McConnell v. Federal Election Commission
McConnell v. Federal Election Commission is a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court case that largely upheld the constitutionality of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (McCain–Feingold Act), significantly shaping modern campaign finance law.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Maine v. Moulton Target entity description: Maine v. Moulton is a 1985 U.S. Supreme Court decision that expanded Sixth Amendment protections by holding that the government violates the right to counsel when it deliberately elicits incriminating statements from an indicted defendant through a cooperating co-defendant acting as an informant.
-
A.
McCullen v. Coakley
McCullen v. Coakley is a 2014 U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down Massachusetts’ abortion-clinic buffer zone law as violating the First Amendment’s free speech protections.
-
B.
Cantwell v. Connecticut
Cantwell v. Connecticut is a 1940 U.S. Supreme Court case that first applied the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause to the states, striking down a state law that improperly restricted religious proselytizing.
-
C.
Alden v. Maine
Alden v. Maine is a 1999 U.S. Supreme Court decision that expanded state sovereign immunity by holding that states are generally immune from private suits for damages in their own courts under federal law.
-
D.
DeBoer v. Snyder
DeBoer v. Snyder was a federal court case challenging Michigan’s same-sex marriage ban that became one of the key cases consolidated into the landmark Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
-
E.
McConnell v. Federal Election Commission
McConnell v. Federal Election Commission is a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court case that largely upheld the constitutionality of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (McCain–Feingold Act), significantly shaping modern campaign finance law.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (46)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
Sixth Amendment case
ⓘ
United States Supreme Court case ⓘ criminal procedure case ⓘ |
| arguedDate | 1985-03-27 ⓘ |
| citation | 474 U.S. 159 ⓘ |
| constitutionalProvision | Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| country |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| court | Supreme Court of the United States ⓘ |
| crimeCharged | theft-related offenses ⓘ |
| decisionDate | 1985-12-10 ⓘ |
| dissentingJustices |
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Lewis F. Powell Jr. NERFINISHED ⓘ William H. Rehnquist NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| dissentingOpinionBy | Chief Justice Warren E. Burger NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| effect | Expanded protections for indicted defendants against government use of informants to obtain incriminating statements. ⓘ |
| holding |
The State may not use surreptitious investigatory techniques to circumvent the protections of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel after formal charges have been filed.
ⓘ
The government violates the Sixth Amendment right to counsel when it deliberately elicits incriminating statements from an indicted defendant through a cooperating co-defendant acting as an informant. ⓘ |
| jurisdiction |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| language | English ⓘ |
| legalIssue |
deliberate elicitation of incriminating statements
ⓘ
right to counsel ⓘ use of informants after indictment ⓘ |
| majorityJustices |
Byron R. White
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Harry A. Blackmun NERFINISHED ⓘ John Paul Stevens NERFINISHED ⓘ Sandra Day O’Connor NERFINISHED ⓘ Thurgood Marshall NERFINISHED ⓘ William J. Brennan Jr. NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| majorityOpinionBy | Justice William J. Brennan Jr. NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| petitioner | State of Maine NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| principle |
Once the Sixth Amendment right to counsel has attached, the government may not knowingly circumvent that right by using an undercover agent to elicit incriminating statements about the charged offense.
ⓘ
The State’s interest in investigating new or additional crimes does not justify knowingly circumventing the accused’s right to counsel regarding pending charges. ⓘ |
| proceduralPosture | review of a decision of the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine ⓘ |
| relatedCase |
Brewer v. Williams
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Massiah v. United States NERFINISHED ⓘ United States v. Henry NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| relatedDoctrine | Massiah doctrine NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| reporter | United States Reports ⓘ |
| respondent | Richard Moulton NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| result | Judgment of the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine affirmed in part and reversed in part ⓘ |
| subjectMatter | state criminal prosecution ⓘ |
| topic |
criminal investigations
ⓘ
post-indictment interrogation ⓘ use of undercover informants ⓘ |
| volume | 474 ⓘ |
| year | 1985 ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Maine v. Moulton Description of subject: Maine v. Moulton is a 1985 U.S. Supreme Court decision that expanded Sixth Amendment protections by holding that the government violates the right to counsel when it deliberately elicits incriminating statements from an indicted defendant through a cooperating co-defendant acting as an informant.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.