Hate to drop an article like this and run, but this sounds quite out of the hands of an armchair everything like myself, and I am rather interested in hearing from several types of dopers out there on the matter:
[ul][li]Lawyers[]those friendly to the administration[]people wishing to express their opinion on Miranda itself[/ul]I do, at least, fit into the last class. And it seems to me that the ruling has changed the way we view cops, and our own rights, in general. No one should be above the law, even for a few seconds just to get some good info. “Hey, we promise not to use it in court” doesn’t make such pressure to speak any better, honestly. When you come down to it, how else can a cop make me speak other than asking intently? What sort of “his word against mine” battles (regarding what was done to extract information) would ensue from an overturning of the Miranda ruling?[/li]
Thanks for your thoughts.
The Supreme Court is not reconsidering Miranda itself. It is considering whether a violation of Miranda is grounds for a civil lawsuit seeking monetary damages. Previous cases, AFAIK, have only addressed Miranda as an exclusionary rule, preventing illegally-obtained confessions from being admitted against the suspect in a criminal trial. This case will not and cannot overturn the informational requirements of Miranda.
As for the merits of the lawsuit, my policy preference is that there should be no basis for money damages for a violation of Miranda. From a legal standpoint, however, the guy has a simple and persuasive argument that boils down to the following syllogism:[ul][]The Supreme Court has established (and recently reiterated) that Miranda is a constitutional right.[]Congress has said that you can sue the police for deprivations of constitutional rights.Therefore, this guy gets to sue for monetary damages for being interrogated without being properly warned in accordance with Miranda.[/ul]
I see. Both the article’s fault and mine, then, and I apologize quickly. Thanks for the clarification. I somehow knew I’d be mucking this up. :o
If, as things stand now, civil suits cannot be brought against police officers, then are there any punishments at all available for the state to take against officers violating this right? Are there any other rights that you can think of which may be violated without retribution?
I disagree with (what I understand to) the principle of Miranda. (Not that I have an opinion on whether it is legally sound - I’m just saying what I think the law should be). Specifically, I have no problem with the right to a lawyer or the exclusionary rule. What I object to is the notion that it is the job of the police to inform you of your rights. As I see it, your rights are yours to exert, but if you are ill-informed, it is your problem. As long as the cops did not specifically tell you that you had to answer their questions, I think they should be able to question you.
The issue here, which is separate, as minty notes. I would say that from a purely technical standpoint the guy’s rights were violated. But since his confession was never used against him, I’d be hardpressed to give him any damages. But I’m on less solid ground here.
The fault is certainly not yours, erl. The media usualy does a piss-poor job of reporting on legal issues. Much easier to sell “Supreme Court may dump Miranda!” than “Should a plaintiff be able to sue for a violation of Miranda instead of just excluding the illegally-obtained confession from a criminal prosecution?”
IzzyR, presumably the damanges here would relate to any extra suffering the guy had as a result of being questioned while he was still bleeding from the five gunshot wounds. I’d imagine it’s kind of annoying to have the police pressing you for information while you’re being wheeled into the operating room.
The Supreme Court actually did reconsider Miranda recently, in Dickerson v. US. At issue there was whether Miranda enunciated a hard and fast constitutional rule, or if it was an expression of the Supreme Court’s authority to make evidentiary rules in federal court.
The remedy for violation of Miranda’s guarantee has always been exclusion of the confession that the illicit questioning gained. Were I a Justice, I would not vote in favor of allowing a civil cause of action for a Miranda violation.
And although I usually don’t like to go out on a limb, I’ll say Rehnquist, Kennedy, O’Connor, Scalia, Thomas, and Breyer would agree with me, and Souter, Stevens and Ginsburg would not.
Any idea what staute this guy’s cause of action is based on, Bricker?
I suspect you’re right that this is headed for reversal, however. It’s another 9th Circuit decision, and the Supreme Court nearly always takes their for the purpose of fixing that circuit’s bad law.
The statute the guy in the OP’s story is suing under? Should be 42 USC Sec 1983 deprivation of civil rights under color of state law case, shouldn’t it?
Well, since the lawyers seem to have the actual facts of his discussion well in hand, I think I will address IzzyR’s preferred theory of citizen’s rights. Tell me, are you at least consistent in your approach? Do you feel in all things that government agents should be allowed to do whatever they wish unless a citizen positively asserts a right to the contrary?
[QUOTE] Originally posted by minty green *
**From a legal standpoint, however, the guy has a simple and persuasive argument that boils down to the following syllogism:[ul][li]The Supreme Court has established (and recently reiterated) that Miranda is a constitutional right.[]Congress has said that you can sue the police for deprivations of constitutional rights.Therefore, this guy gets to sue for monetary damages for being interrogated without being properly warned in accordance with Miranda.[/ul] **[/li][/QUOTE]
I really hope the Supreme Court doesn’t see it that way. Miranda is not a constitutaional right. The constitutional right is “No person . . . shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” The Supreme Court has decided that forcing police to explain the Miranda rights is one mechanism to ensure that someone was not compelled to be a witness against himself.
The fifth Amendment, however, doesn’t say anything about coercive interrogation. As long as he wasn’t being “deprived of life, liberty, or property” during the interrogation, I don’t see a violation of that Amendment.
No, that is entirely incorrect. The Supreme Court has made it entirely clear–both in Miranda itself and in Dickerson two years agoo–that the warning requirement is a constitutional right, not merely a rule of evidence or procedure. You are free to disagree with the Court’s reasoning, but that is the law of this country.
Is exclsuion of the confession the only penalty for not reading a suspect their rights? In the case noted in the OP if the officer had obtained information about the location of physical evidence against the suspect would that evidence also not be admissable, or would it only be the confession that was inadmissable?
I don’t believe that a citizen’s rights are limited to what the constitution explicitly allows. It seems to me that it works the other way around. The people have all rights and the power to form whatever type of government they, collectively, decide they want. Some particular rights are given up in the interest of the common good, but only those that are specified.
I would rely for my opinion on an argument by James Wilson during the Pennsylvania debate on the ratification of the constitution. Wison was a lawyer from Pennsylvania and was later a Supreme Court justice. He was also a signer of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution so he presumeably knew what the intentions of the framers was.
Wilson argued against the inclusion of a particularized Bill of Rights on the grounds that such a thing would be misinterpreted to mean that the people had only the specified rights with the rest being reserved by the government. This, to him, went back to the old idea that the sovereign granted rights to the subjects. He said this was superseded by the idea that the people are the sovereign who establish the government and grant it such powers as they see fit.
Wilson’s objection was presumeably countered by the inclusion of the 9th Amendment
“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
It seems to me that the people have all rights unless it can be shown that the “general welfare”, “common defense” or the “blessings of liberty” would somehow be endangered by the assertion of a particular right.
The physical evidence in that situation would be inadmissible under the “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine. Anything that derived from the illegally-obtained confession is also inadmissible. This doctrine was ennunciated in Wong Sun v. US.
There are some exceptions. Perhaps the best-known is the doctrine of inevitable discovery ennunciated in Nix v. Williams, which permits the government to use evidence if it can show it would have independently and inevitably discovered the evidence even without the illegally obtained confession.
42 USC § 1893 confers a civil cause of action against the government in certain circumstances. In general, however, the government is immune from suit under the doctrine of sovereign immunity.
Are you suggesting that people should have the right to sue the government, and its actors, no matter what, for whatever cause they please?
