Supreme Court struck down Miranda today

[scottxyz]

The court on Monday also ruled that evidence derived from a confession after police failed to give Miranda rights does not have to be suppressed at trial...

http://kutv.com/topstories/topstories_story_180103554.html

[JohnLocke]

1. Bastards.

Every last one who voted for that should be impeached.

[radwriter0555]

2. Welcome to Nazi America...

It's now here.

[Caution]

3. WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?

This gets buried by the terror decisions and it is far and away the most important of the decisions made. They friggin kill Miranda!

[GiovanniC]

4. My, They're on Quite a Roll Today

Aren't they?

At this rate, by 1:00 pm it will be against the law to be non-Christian, against the law to speak badly about the government, against the law to own any firearm, people will be forced to house soldiers in their homes, forced to submit to any and all searches and siezures, forced to testify against themselves, refused the right to a jury, forced to face excessive bail and fines, and forced to endure cruel and unusual punishment.

Then, Antonin Scalia will personally get up from the bench and anally rape your grandmother.

[AP]

5. Wouldn't jump to conclusions.

This is probably a very narrow opinion. The court has upheld Miranda very recently and I doubt, without any change in personel on the court they decided to hear a case that would overturn so recent an opinion.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is just a case where the confession is being used as evidence of someone else's guilt, for example, or where the defendant knowingly and willingly waived a right to an attorney BEFORE being read Miranda right (and therefore MRs weren't read at all).

Cops actually LOVE miranda rights, because once you read them you're good to go. Without Miranda Rights, there's a huge gray area and you have to argue about knowledge and wilfullness of waivers of those rights and you would lose more convictions than you lose by simply forgetting to give the rights.

[Caution]

6. i believe (but could be wrong here) that the case was something like this

1.) cop gets confession
2.) cop reads Miranda
3.) cops says "hey could you repeat what you told me before?"

Nice little tactic for a cop to take don't you think? pretty effectively eliminates the gray area now doesnt it. The ruling held that the cop could do this and get away with it. I'm sorry but this totally undermines the intent and spirit or Miranda. I *hope* I'm wrong about this ruling.

[AP]

8. Do you know the circumstances of the first confession?

Was it voluntary? Did the guy blurt it out at arrest?

Obvioulsy, you wouldn't want a rule that precluded the admissability of blurted out confessions prior to mirandizing the defendant. You should be able to give a warning ask again and get the confession again.

I highly doubt the Supreme Court would allow a rule which meant that cops could coerce a confession, mirandize the supsect, and then get a repeated good confession, especially so soon after upholding the constitutionality of Miranda.

[geek tragedy]

11. Depends on how you define "coerced."

It was a confess-Miranda-second confession fact pattern.

Not a good ruling, but it doesn't eviscerate Miranda either.

[Caution]

13. it's pretty nasty

read my post below. If cops can use this tactic, it opens a lot of gray area space for the courts to determine if the tactic was used knowingly by the cop or not. It's not a good ruling for civil liberties.

[amber dog democrat]

7. Its happening.

I only hope this is reversable.

[pdmike]

9. Ruling May Not Be As Bad As All That

I'm not sure this ruling is as terrible as first thought. Consider this, which I just pulled off of the Web:

"The Supreme Court warned police on Monday to stop using a strategy intended to extract confessions from criminal suspects before telling them of their right to remain silent.

The court, on a 5-4 vote, said that deliberately questioning a suspect twice — the first time without reading the Miranda warning — is usually improper.

Criminal defense attorneys and civil libertarians had complained that strategy was being used to get around the Supreme Court's landmark 1966 Miranda v. Arizona ruling, which requires that suspects in custody be told they have the right to remain silent."

pdmike

[RubyDuby in GA]

10. Doesn't even come close

The phrase going to hell in a handbasket doesn't even come close to describing this. This country is in serious trouble.

[Caution]

12. More info here

and for once I have to agree with the conservatiove side of the court. I can't believe i agree with a dissent which includes Scalia and Thomas but I do this time.

basically the court is saying that cops have to be careful about two-step interrogations, if they get a confession without miranda and then give miranda rights and then ask the suspect to repeat the confession, they must do so and be able to prove that they weren't specifically trying to avoid the miranda ruling.

the idea i guess would be for people who gush out a confession before a cop has a chance to read the rights.

this is very shaky ground here, because it leaves things open to abuse and basically becomes a question of the cops word. How do you proive the cop didnt intend to do a two step interrogation and thus undermine miranda?

<snip>
Kennedy said that police must be able to prove that the interrogation was not done "in a calculated way to undermine the Miranda warning."

In a dissent, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (news - web sites) said it would be tough for lower courts to determine if officers had gone too far. She was joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia (news - web sites) and Clarence Thomas (news - web sites).


"In virtually every two-state interrogation case ... courts will be forced to conduct the kind of difficult, state-of-mind inquiry that we normally take pains to avoid," she wrote.
<snip>

link:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20040628/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_miranda

[AP]

15. But obviously you can't have a rule which makes it impossible to mirandize

a defendant after blurting out a confession.

What do you suggest they do?

Obvioulsy, the inquiry that's required here is exactly the one that Miranda was designed to eliminate. But the fact is people do blurt out confessions.

Like I said above, the police actually love Miranda because it's a solid line. They'd rather read Miranda first, regardless of whether they try to coerce a confession.

I suspect that after this ruling, they'll still want to read Miranda first because it offers a clearl line.

[Caution]

16. i really dont know the answer to your question

but personally I'd err on the side of caution. This ruling is clearly skewed in favor of the prosecution side of things rather than in defending the rights of the accused. The scenario of a blurted out confession prior to the reading of Miranda is very troubling due to the simple fact that someone is admitting actual guilt (though this alone doesn't necessarily mean that person is in fact guilty). While this ruling doesnt present a problem for honest cops, it really opens a nasty pandora's box for dishonest cops. I wish i had a solution.

[AP]

17. I'm not sure it's so clearly skewed.

Cops like Miranda. Even bad cops don't like arguing over gray areas.

Like I said, I just don't think there's any logic to having a Miranda rule that makes it impossible to resuscitate uncoerced confessions. The point of Miranda is to prevent coerscion, not to punish an absence of coerscion.

[LiberalTechie1337]

14. Let me get this straight...

According to the RightWingers, Massachussetts allows same-sex marriages, and that is "activist judges" messing with the Constitution, but Supreme Court strikes down Miranda, and suddenly they're "hey did you see what happened in Iraq today." Damn these incompetent pigs!!!

[geek tragedy]

18. Actually, the conviction was tossed out

so this was not an anti-Miranda opinion.

[The Backlash Cometh]

19. They've been headed this way for a long time.

My prosecutor professor talked as if Miranda was already over. I'm only surprised because it happened so quickly. This must have been in the works for longer than anyone realized.

[NashVegas]

20. Somewhat Misleading

more details here

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/180/wash/Supreme_Court_rules_that_polic:.shtml