Recently, I’ve seen the scene in “A Few Good Men”, where, upon admitting he ordered an illegal “code red”, Jack Nicholson’s character is red his Miranda Rights by the JAG/Prosecuting Attorney played by Kevin Bacon.
Do DAs and ADAs have the power to mirandize and arrest suspects…under certain conditions… like law enforcement officers?
I suspect that, like so many police power questions, the answer is, it depends on the jurisdiction.
Let’s bypass the question of the peculiarities of the UCMJ in this post (mostly because I don’t know them but do know some exist).
Here’s the relevant points:
The SCOTUS principles only require that a person being arrrested/questioned be advised of his rights and in some manner acknowledge having heard and understood them, not who is entitled to give them. I suspect that a scenario where they are read off by a taxi driver or fan of police procedural novels present at the scene would pass muster if the person being Mirandized acknowledges having heard and understood them.
Prosecutors are officers of the court and I cannot imagine a situation in which they would not be eligible to give a Miranda warning.
It’s my impression that in almost all jurisdictions, there’s a wide overlap between prosecutor and police duties/powers as regards the elements of putting together a successful case, which would of course include a proper Miranda warning.
The Dopers-at-Law, particularly Bricker, Elendil’s Heir, and Hamlet, who have all served on both sides of criminal cases, can probably amplify and correct this.
In jurisdictions that allow a “citizens arrest”, it would be logical to conclude that even if DA’s don’t have explicitly delegated police powers, they could still validly arrest.
The warning being given is the “Article 31(b) warning” required by the UCMJ, and is generally understood to be required any time questioning is conducted by a service member acting in an official capacity. Bacon’s character certainly falls into that category.
Article 31(b) was part of the UCMJ years before the Miranda decision (since 1950?); the coercive nature of military authority created a special concern, which Congress recognized.
Even if it was SOP for Bacon’s character (Capt. Ross) to read Miranda to suspects, his doing it at that particular time was Hollywood showboating. Jessup was being taken into custody and removed from the courtroom by MPs, so Ross wasn’t going to ask him any questions. And he wasn’t planning on asking him any questions anytime soon, as he states that he is leaving immediately to arrest Lt. Kendrick. So even if he is planning to ask him questions at a later time, he will have to Mirandize him again before he starts asking questions, so the courtroom reading of rights is unnecessary.
To answer your question in regards to Indiana law, under IC 35-41-1-17, a prosecuting attorney is a law enforcement officer, along with police officers, sheriffs, their deputies, etc…
Didn’t Cruise also say “the witness has rights” or was that Bacon?
You are no doubt correct that it was Hollywood showboating, but it seem within the realm of possibility that it would be a good idea to Mirandize someone who had just made a spontaneous confession, in an effort to keep admissible any further spontaneous confessions the suspect might subsequently care to make.
Note: IANAL.
I’m pretty sure it was Cruise, as he was terminating his line of questioning after the spontaneous confession.
To hijack - what is different about the UCMJ that makes it illegal for a defense attorney to ask certain questions of a high ranking officer? In a civilian court, if a defendant was claiming that he was just doing what he was told to by a work superior, it must be possible for his attorney to subpoena and question that superior, even if there’s no other evidence. But in AFGM, they made it clear that if Kaffee couldn’t come up with some corroborating evidence before he put Jessup on the stand, even questioning whether he gave the order for a code red could get him in deep trouble. What that also just Hollywood, or is there some truth to that?
Again, IANAL, but I was in the military.
In my opinion, I think a lot of that was somewhat exaggerated for dramatic effect. There should not have been any issue with asking whatever questions LT Kaffee wanted to ask; the issue was with being insubordinate to a superior officer by coming out and calling him a liar in court.
The basic issue was that Col. Jessep was not accused of any crime during the trial; he was just there as a witness. As he was a superior officer who was not accused of any crime, it could be construed as a violation of the UCMJ to come out and call him a liar, which is what LT Kaffee essentially did.
(No matter how much I got angry at a superior officer, I would have gotten in serious trouble by being blatantly insubordinate to a superior officer (to include telling them to f*ck off, call them a liar, or whatever).)
So while LT Kaffee could subpoena the Colonel (using the authority of the Court), he could not be blatantly insubordinate to him. LT Kaffee was risking his career by this, because even something like a Letter of Reprimand in his file for insubordination would be career-ending.
A defense attorney could certainly question a superior officer and ask him or her if they gave a particular order. However, if the officer denied giving the order, then the line of questioning would end at that point if there were no corroborating evidence.
I don’t recall him saying Jessup was a liar but I can’t recall every question or statement Kaffee said. He did eventually just ask “Did you order the code red?” which to me is a legit question.
As always, the scene is up on youtube. When Kaffee finally asks Jessup if he ordered Kendrick to give Santiago a code red, Bacon objects, the judge holds Kaffee in contempt, and tells Jessup he doesn’t have to answer the question. Not that he shouldn’t answer it BTW, but that he doesn’t have to. Given that the whole defense case was built on the defendants claiming they were ordered to give a code red, I can’t see asking the superiors up the chain “Did you order a code red?” being in any way objectionable. But now that I’ve watched it again, its clearly all Hollywood bullshit. Either Kaffee can ask the question, and Jessup must answer it, or he can’t ask, and Jessup would be instructed not to answer.
According to the memorable quotes on IMDB, Kaffee was concerned about being court-martialed for “falsely accusing a highly decorated Marine officer of conspiracy and perjury.”
There was also this exchange:
Kaffee: Colonel, Lt. Kendrick ordered the Code Red because that’s what you told Lt. Kendrick to do!
Capt. Ross: Object!
Judge Randolph: Sustained!
Kaffee: And when it went bad, you cut these guys loose! You coerced the doctor…
Capt. Ross: Your honor!
Kaffee: You doctored the log book!..
Capt. Ross: Damn it, Kaffee!
Judge Randolph: Consider yourself in Contempt! (speaking to Kaffee)
If Col. Jessup hadn’t spilled his guts, Kafee would have been screwed.
ETA: I can’t view Youtube at work, but I think that the above accusations were the problem for Kaffee, not just asking a question of the colonel.
Yeah, that exact exchange is in the video. It then goes off the rails Hollywood style, where the judge tells Jessup “You don’t have to answer that,” but allows him to go ahead and do so.
Wow this thread is soon headed to Cafe Society.
Back to the OP, I’ve always wondered if the President as the chief executive has the power of arrest for federal crimes. Can you imagine President Joe Arpaio visiting a border state?
You might want to start a separate thread on that. I don’t believe that the President of the United States has official and personal arrest powers, as such. Given his duty under Art. II, Sec. 3 of the Constitution to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” perhaps he’s defined somewhere in the U.S. Code as a law enforcement officer with such explicit powers, but I’m unaware of it. He’d be a fool to exercise such powers anyway, given the many tougher and better-trained people he can order to do it for him.
I also don’t believe, in Ohio at least, that prosecutors or assistant prosecutors have arrest powers beyond those of any other citizen. As an offshoot from Miranda, as a magistrate I will sometimes advise a person who insists on testifying in her own criminal case, “You don’t have to testify, and neither the court nor the prosecutor may comment upon your decision not to, but you should be aware that if you do, you are then subject to cross-examination, and I may have questions of my own. With that in mind, do you still wish to testify?” Despite this red flag, they invariably still insist on testifying.