In September 1980, the police were investigating the death of Lowell Reynolds in Tillamook County, Oregon.

It appeared that Reynolds had been killed in a traffic accident, when the truck in which he was a passenger careened off the road and into a creek.

In Edwards, the Court had held that "an accused, having expressed his desire to deal with the police only through counsel, is not subject to further interrogation by the authorities until counsel has been made available to him, unless the accused himself initiates further communication, exchanges, or conversations with the police."

The Oregon Court of Appeals had concluded that Bradshaw had waived his right to counsel when he asked what would happen to him.

It "evinced a willingness and a desire for a generalized discussion about the investigation; it was not merely a necessary inquiry arising out of the incidents of the custodial relationship."

The police did not otherwise make any threats, promises, or inducements to Bradshaw in order to persuade him to talk; in fact they confirmed that he had the right to counsel before resuming their questioning.

Powell felt that what it meant to "initiate" conversation with the police was far from clear, and the fact that two plausible meanings each garnered the votes of four Justices in this case.

Powell was uncomfortable with the two-part test the plurality had adopted, under which a reviewing court first asked whether the suspect had initiated conversation with the police before asking whether, under the totality of the circumstances, the suspect had waived his right to counsel.

If a suspect is not inviting further questioning about the criminal case at hand, he is not acceding to further "interrogation" as Edwards and Miranda contemplated.

"If [Bradshaw's] question had been posed by Jean-Paul Sartre before a class of philosophy students, it might well have evinced a desire for a 'generalized' discussion.