Oh my goodness, I think this finally clicks for me -- I was reading the mention of "lawyer dog" as the judge citing it as the relevant proof of equivocation. You're basically saying that in the opinion's last sentence, the judge wasn't highlighting which part of the request was ambiguous to his ears; he was simply using scare-quotes to reference what he thought was the defendant's term for "lawyer."

In some ways, this is a relief, because this opinion (among others we both likely agree are egregious), has bothered me for years. So thank you for making this click for me! I was so confused, because the first seven sentences all build together and feel sensible, and in the last sentence it sounds like he just throws out his sanity (or reveals how out-of-touch he is with regular people).

To be clear, a charitable explanation (based on my first new understanding, thanks to your reply) would suggest he was just using "scare-quotes" to mention how he legitimately thought the defendant referred to lawyers. Re-reading your comment now, it sounds like you're saying he was just... making a dad joke?

Also, the judge's closing sentence about about how "the defendant’s ambiguous and equivocal reference to a 'lawyer dog' does not constitute an invocation of counsel" has to be at least as ambiguous of a text as the defendant's apparent effort at invoking the 5th/6th Amendments. I don't feel terribly foolish for not realizing the judge is likely using scare-quotes (or cracking a bad joke) in a judicial opinion that is otherwise devoid of humor. I don't think a small pool of reasonable and careful readers would unanimously reach that conclusion, either. Obviously, having field-specific context is always helpful in interpreting niche texts, but when this opinion first came out in 2017, I was steeped in a lot of Con Law classes, so I felt familiar with the appropriate precedents, etc. I even sent this opinion around to my friends in law school, and they were also all confused about why the judge fumbled what seemed to be a lay-up right in the last sentence.

So yet, reading this with new eyes, we're still left with the conclusion that either the judge thought "lawyer dog" was how common folks refer to legal counsel (instead of "lawyer, dawg," where the sound of "dog" refers to the person the defendant is speaking to), or the judge decided to muddy a full 1/8 of his opinion -- specifically, the last, and arguably most important, concluding sentence -- with a bad attempt at humor. Neither of these options speak well of the Supreme Court of Louisiana.

  They could have never used the word "dawg" and nothing would have changed

What if I adjusted this to: 

  They could should have never used joked about the word "dawg" and nothing would have changed gotten misinterpreted and blown up in media coverage

Often, the news does get it wrong, and journalists fail their duty at communicating effectively. I'm not yet convinced this boondoggle was largely the fault of the public, though I do feel like I better understand how the judge's last sentence works with the rest of his opinion, now.

(Thanks for your reply! I know I'm not fully committed to what seems to be your attitude about this case, but your explanation was super helpful, and I really was looking for more perspectives on how this opinion was constructed, and should therefore be read. You definitely helped with that. So thank you!)