Supreme Court To Examine Miranda Appeals...

[Macklin]

Aug 25,2003

Supreme Court to Examine Miranda Appeals

By GINA HOLLAND Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - "You have the right to remain silent" will be a common utterance around the Supreme Court this fall. Justices will hear appeals in three cases involving the court's 37-year-old mandate that police officers warn suspects of their rights before beginning interrogations.

The eventual rulings will tell police how far they can go to get answers from suspected criminals, and let courts know when they must bar confessions or evidence from a trial.

Officers hoping to enhance their chances of getting a suspect to divulge key information sometimes put off reading "Miranda warnings." After they get a confession, or answers that will lead to a weapon or other evidence, officers then run through the warnings that have been made famous by TV cop shows.
The Supreme Court will decide if it's smart detective work or deceitful trickery to delay the warning.

Critics say people may not realize that information divulged before they are read their rights cannot be used at trial and they then repeat incriminating statements later in formal interviews.
Yale Kamisar, a Miranda expert who teaches law at the University of Michigan and the University of San Diego, said police officers are being trained to get around Miranda and the court should stop it.

"This is really making a joke out of the whole thing. Even the Supreme Court justices who are not terribly enthusiastic about Miranda have to realize you either keep Miranda on the books or you don't," he said.

Law enforcement is paying attention to the cases.
"They want to make the arrest, but they want to make it stick too," said Bill Johnson, executive director of the National Association of Police Organizations. "They don't want to be embarrassed by the prosecutor, or the judge."

Interrogations are restricted under the court's 1966 ruling in Miranda v. Arizona, which requires officers to warn the people they arrest and question of their rights to remain silent and see a lawyer.

The court reaffirmed Miranda in 2000, but then gave police a victory this summer with a ruling that officers cannot be sued for violating the standard as long as the confession is not used in a prosecution.

The issue of interrogations is also getting some legislative attention. Last month, Illinois became the first state with a law requiring police to tape interrogations and confessions of murder suspects, intended to ensure those in custody are not tortured or coerced.

The upcoming Supreme Court cases give people a glimpse of what interrogations can be like:
Officers armed with an arrest warrant say they just want to chat with a suspected drug dealer before taking him to jail. Officers who arrest a murder suspect at 3 a.m. leave her alone in the interrogation room to "give her a little time to think about the situation." A man suspected of calling and hanging up on his ex-girlfriend breaks down in tears when confronted by a policewoman, then leads officers to a gun he has illegally.

In two of the cases, from Nebraska and Missouri, questionings were started before the suspects were read their rights. In the third case, from Colorado, the suspect interrupted the Miranda warning and told the officer he already knew his rights.

The Supreme Court will decide if the two-step interrogation process is improper when done deliberately by officers to try to get a confession. A 1985 court ruling dealt with the same subject, but the double questioning was not deliberate. Both people questioned twice were convicted.

The court will also consider if evidence obtained from people not read their rights can be used against them. Even with Miranda warnings, an estimated 80 percent of suspects still talk to police, Kamisar said."When you read someone their rights, it goes in one ear and out the other," Johnson said. "The words have lost their meaning because they've become so common."
Susan Klein, a University of Texas professor, said there's a good chance the court will side with the government in all three cases. The Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination is not a cherished right in this age of terror fighting, she said.

"It's not something the justices would bend over backward to protect," Klein said. "This is a good time to chip away at Miranda."
But Eugene Milhizer, a former Army judge advocate and professor at Ave Maria School of Law in Michigan, expects narrow rulings from the court.

"I don't sense that the court wants to do something revolutionary with Miranda," he said.

[Deleted]

You know, I agree that most people ignore the miranda warnings. And most people know what they are anyway. But I think it's better to go ahead and tell them, just in case. That way when you run across that one person who is NOT aware that they don't have to talk if they don't want to, then they will be just as informed as the next person. If the person is struggling and trying to interrupt the person who is readin the rights, they just need to speak louder and make the effort to make themselves heard. That way, if the accused says something that hurts their own case, too bad. They were told. It's not the arresting officer's fault that they wouldn't listen.

[Donnie]

Innocent said:

If the person is struggling and trying to interrupt the person who is readin the rights, they just need to speak louder and make the effort to make themselves heard.

IF the suspect says he understands his rights, they should stop reading.

[Deleted]

I believe that Miranda should be overruled. The Constitution does not say that everyone needs to be informed of their rights. Many people don't realize that at the time that The Court decided Miranda, they were just beginning to apply the Amendments to the states through the 14^th Amendment. Prior to the 1940's-1960's the Contitution only applied to federal law enforcement. During this time The Court had decided Mapp v. Ohio that created the Exclusionary Rule that forced local law enforcement to actually get a search warrant before searching. They also decided Gideon v. Wainright which compelled the government to provide an attorney to those who could not afford an attorney. Times have changed greatly from those times and Miranda has outlived its usefulness.