April 20, 2013

Thurgood Marshall wrote a strong dissent in the Quarles case

It's worth keeping in mind that the Quarles case was a conservative decision and the liberals on the court dissented.
Justice Marshall specifically pointed to the decision as "limiting the protections of the Fifth Amendment ."

Some excerpts from Justice Marshall's dissent:

http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/467/649/case.html


III
Though unfortunate, the difficulty of administering the "public safety" exception is not the most profound flaw in the majority's decision. The majority has lost sight of the fact that Miranda v. Arizona and our earlier custodial interrogation cases all implemented a constitutional privilege against self-incrimination. The rules established in these cases were designed to protect criminal defendants against prosecutions based on coerced self-incriminating statements. The majority today turns its back on these constitutional considerations,
Page 467 U. S. 681
and invites the government to prosecute through the use of what necessarily are coerced statements.
A
The majority's error stems from a serious misunderstanding of Miranda v. Arizona and of the Fifth Amendment upon which that decision was based. The majority implies that Miranda consisted of no more than a judicial balancing act in which the benefits of "enlarged protection for the Fifth Amendment privilege" were weighed against "the cost to society in terms of fewer convictions of guilty suspects." Ante at 467 U. S. 656-657. Supposedly because the scales tipped in favor of the privilege against self-incrimination, the Miranda Court erected a prophylactic barrier around statements made during custodial interrogations. The majority now proposes to return to the scales of social utility to calculate whether Miranda's prophylactic rule remains cost-effective when threats to the public's safety are added to the balance. The results of the majority's "test" are announced with pseudoscientific precision:
"We conclude that the need for answers to questions in a situation posing a threat to the public safety outweighs the need for the prophylactic rule protecting the Fifth Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination."
Ante at 467 U. S. 657.
The majority misreads Miranda. Though the Miranda dissent prophesized dire consequences, see 384 U.S. at 384 U. S. 504, 384 U. S. 516-517 (Harlan, J., dissenting), the Miranda Court refused to allow such concerns to weaken the protections of the Constitution:
"A recurrent argument made in these cases is that society's need for interrogation outweighs the privilege. This argument is not unfamiliar to this Court. The whole thrust of our foregoing discussion demonstrates that the Constitution has prescribed the rights of the individual when confronted with the power of government
Page 467 U. S. 682
when it provided in the Fifth Amendment that an individual cannot be compelled to be a witness against himself. That right cannot be abridged."


~~~


The Fifth Amendment prohibits compelled self-incrimination. [Footnote 3/10] As the Court has explained on numerous occasions, this prohibition is the mainstay of our adversarial system of criminal justice. Not only does it protect us against the inherent unreliability of compelled testimony, but it also ensures that criminal investigations will be conducted with integrity, and that the judiciary will avoid the taint of official lawlessness. See Murphy
Page 467 U. S. 688
v. Waterfront Comm'n, 378 U. S. 52, 378 U. S. 55 (1964). The policies underlying the Fifth Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination are not diminished simply because testimony is compelled to protect the public's safety. The majority should not be permitted to elude the Amendment's absolute prohibition simply by calculating special costs that arise when the public's safety is at issue. Indeed, were constitutional adjudication always conducted in such an ad hoc manner, the Bill of Rights would be a most unreliable protector of individual liberties.

April 19, 2013

UMASS-Dartmouth students evacuated from campus as officials investigate the dorm room of Dzhokhar

From the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/19/boston-mit-police-dead-watertown

UMASS-Dartmouth students were evacuated from campus on Friday, April 19, 2013 as local and state officials investigate the dorm room of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, one of the two suspects wanted for the Boston Marathon bombing on Monday. UMASS-Dartmouth students were evacuated from campus as local and state officials investigate the dorm room of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, one of the two suspects wanted for the Boston Marathon bombing on Monday.

April 14, 2013

Yes, it has become blatant

Here in Washington state, we even had two "Democrats" side with the Republicans to stage a coup to give the Republicans control of the state Senate - that's how blatant they've become here.


I keep going back to Obama's Toronto G20 speech. He laid it out there and now is more openly acting on it. And for those who say he doesn't mean it, his statements then show he does and in no uncertain terms:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-obama-g-20-press-conference-toronto-canada


In 2010, Obama said “I’m doing it because I said I was going to do it.”

He said it during a G20 press conference in response to a question about deficit reduction.

He said it in the context of tying Social Security to the deficit (erroneous as that is) and of describing the fiscal commission and referring to other actions, including ACA, that he acted upon.

He said it after describing what he calls structural issues and changes (austerity measures) by other G20 countries and stating his “violent agreement” with these. (And note that whether it’s called pension cuts or chained CPI, cuts to social retirement plans are a key part of austerity measures.)

And he said it in terms of "not rushing to the exits too quickly and all at the same time" in terms of austerity measures in other countries.

He also said "And one of the interesting things that's happened over the last 18 months as President is for some reason people keep on being surprised when I do what I said I was going to do."


I was hoping against hope in the last election that other Democrats, including the ones I helped elect from Washington State, Murray, Cantwell and McDermott, might have shifted his view and his campaign rhetoric seemed to indicate that.
But he seems more bound to his promises on the global stage than to the ones he makes to us.

No surprise here, not anymore, just dismay.

April 14, 2013

There's a river of ice flowing down the hill here in Seattle

from the hail storm.

April 8, 2013

EXceptionally well researched and compiled article

Thank you for posting this!

I do agree with other posters about Obama not trembling.

He has continually (except during campaign times) indicated that he agrees with global austerity measures, going so far as to note he is in "violent agreement" that this is the direction to go :http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-obama-g-20-press-conference-toronto-canada

And part of that has been purposefully conflating Social Security with the deficit and introducing decisions at key points (such as the Fiscal Commission) which are aimed at cutting Social Security, just as austerity measures have been doing this globally.

He's made an agreement and keeps taking actions to fulfill it - the problem is that the agreement is not with citizens here, but with financiers and the politicians who are in the club with them.