Well, the thing was… when Escobedo was being tried, Ernesto Miranda was years away from committing the rape that lead to the “Miranda Warnings.” Escobedo’s case was, in fact, the first seminal case as far as advising people of their rights; it was quoted with approval, and expanded, by the Court a few years later in Miranda.
So at the time, the prosecutors had every right to be stunned, you see.
But you do raise a cogent argument here:
This is, as you say, a very simple principle. And a reasonable person could absolutely adopt it.
BUT - we started this argument not as a contest to show which approach is more reasonable, but for you to defend the proposition that Ashcroft should be fired because his actions were violative of the Constitution and his oath.
Where does your simple method, above, appear in either the Constitution or the oath of office?
In other words, you cannot excoriate Mr. Ashcroft for violating his oath by arguing a view contrary to the plain language of the Constitution while simultaneously applauding those who argue views contrary to the plain language of the Constitution. The Fifth Amendment was adopted in 1789 - its language had been unchanged for almost 200 years when Danny Escodebo came along. Yet after Escobedo, the law of the land was that the Constitution required warnings about the right to remain silent; before Escobedo, it did not. To make that change, someone had to argue for a different interpretive view. It’s not a violation of oath to do so.
You may certainly decry Mr. Ashcroft’s approach, and policies, as unwise, or even dangerous. You may rail as you like, painting him a threat to civil liberty. Those are certainly supportable views.
But when you say that he’s violated his oath, you tread into unsupportable territory. He is arguing his view of how the Constitution should be interpreted. As long as he has a good-faith belief that his view is the correct one, what we have is merely a disagreement, not a violation of any oaths.
If you don’t accept this still, then tell me: what about the prosecutors who argued against Mr. Williams, an Iowa man that gave a confession that violated his Sixth Amendment rights to counsel. The court was asked to exclude the evidence that resulted from that confession. The defense argued, quite correctly under the decisional law, that all evidence resulting from an illegal confession should be suppressed. No, said the prosecutors, we believe that since the police would have inevitably discovered the evidence, it should be admitted.
Now it’s the defense that’s shocked, pointing out that the Constitution says nothing about inevitable discovery, and that all the case law is on their side. Nothing in case law, in other words, supports the prosecutor’s argument.
Was the prosecutor in violation of his oath? How about the Supreme Court justices that ruled “inevitable discovery” would, from that moment on, be recognized as an exception to the exclusionary rule? Did they violate their oaths? After all, they broke your simple rule, since their decision cut against civil liberties, not in favor of them.
Let me know.
- Rick