Supreme Court Buys Cops' 'Trust Us' Argument, Rules Suspects Can Be Interrogated Without Lawyers
By Susie Madrak Tuesday May 26, 2009 3:30pmYou know, if I hadn't been a reporter and didn't know how heavily politicized (and blind to actual justice) most prosecutors are, I might actually swallow this horse hooey:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court has overturned a long-standing ruling that stops police from initiating questions unless a defendant's lawyer is present, a move that will make it easier for prosecutors to interrogate suspects.
The high court, in a 5-4 ruling, overturned the 1986 Michigan v. Jackson ruling, which said police may not initiate questioning of a defendant who has a lawyer or has asked for one unless the attorney is present.
The Michigan ruling applied even to defendants who agree to talk to the authorities without their lawyers.
There's a good reason for this. In case you haven't noticed, criminals are rarely intelligent and they're often easily coerced. You know that bit on cop shows where they use a copy machine as a "lie detector"? Some cops actually do that.
The court's conservatives overturned that opinion Tuesday, with Justice Antonin Scalia saying "it was poorly reasoned, has created no significant reliance interests and (as we have described) is ultimately unworkable."
Scalia, who read the opinion from the bench, said their decision will have a "minimal" effects on criminal defendants. "Because of the protections created by this court in Miranda and related cases, there is little if any chance that a defendant will be badgered into waiving his right to have counsel present during interrogation," Scalia said.
I don't know where Scalia grew up, but apparently his life experience is very different from mine! I knew too many kids who got arrested and coerced into confessions to give this much credence.
The Michigan v. Jackson opinion was written by Justice John Paul Stevens, the only current justice who was on the court at the time. He dissented from the ruling, and in an unusual move read his dissent aloud from the bench. It was the first time this term a justice had read a dissent aloud.
"The police interrogation in this case clearly violated petitioner's Sixth Amendment right to counsel," Stevens said. Overruling the Jackson case, he said, "can only diminish the public's confidence in the reliability and fairness of our system of justice."
Don't worry, Justice Stevens. We lost confidence in the "reliability and fairness of our system of justice" a long time ago!
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Slip of the tongue?
This is just a green light for the cops to start honing their gamesmanship skills. It will probably create a huge mess with folks mispeaking under duress then trying to recant later. I suspect "interrogations" could get pretty "in your face" depending on the suspected crime you're brought in for.
"Don't worry, Justice Stevens. We lost confidence in the "reliability and fairness of our system of justice" a long time ago!"
S. Madrak
Unfortunately, truer words were never spoken.
Judicial activism is ok, as long as it's of the conservative kind.
Exactly. Remember Bush v. Gore? Most activist decision ever made.
Conservatives rail against "activist" judges, yet they are the MOST activist. Gawd, I can't stand conservatives.
Its not conservatives you need to worry about. Most people are conservative. It's just the people who say they are conservative are not conservative. They are Authoritarians.
Liberal and Conservative have been spread out so thin they don't mean very much at all anymore. Watch Frank Zappa refer to himself as conservative in Crossfire (or Hardball?) in 1986.
I too think people should not torture, government should be well thought out, regulated, but generally a small part of our lives. I believe that people should keep to themselves and generally not get in others faces. I think that anything that applies to one person should apply equally across the board.
This is general conservative values. But to a pundit I am a flaming liberal.
So? Perhaps we should learn that those on TV are trying to change us into something we are not and confusing the issues to the point where we end up fighting each other, and not the authoritarians who are literally trying to tear our countries and world apart for power and profit.
should have the experience of being thought a "perp," and treated like one, by a "good cop" on a bad day, or by a "bad cop" any day.
Cops do what they are permitted by the citizens they 'serve' to do. If every citizen knew what hell just being a suspect was, and what cops felt entitled by civilian indifference to do to do with suspects, it would change the whole culture of policing.
State power mus be curtailed, because the state, its minions, and its operatives will ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS abuse any power they have...
"the state, its minions, and its operatives will ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS abuse any power they have"
That is precisely the crux of the matter. Power corrupts, so only by having two (or more) equally powerful institutions that can act in opposition to one another can there be any hope of a just outcome.
It also happens to be the foundation of our constitutional separation of powers into co-equal branches of government. Our founders knew this was essential to prevent tyranny and abuse. Why the f*%k can't the supreme court understand it.
will never be used against them and theirs, and being wingnuts, don't care about anyone else.
....we've got too many rights in this country. Isn't it great we can depend on the "non-activist" judges on the bench (Scalia, Alito, Roberts, Thomas and the Swinger) to take away those pesky ones that keep us out of jail.
Gee, can we get Scalia to go hunting with his buddy Cheney??
And if he was shot and died, would his little lapdog Clarence Thomas curl up and die too?
(Sigh) Just some wishful thinkin'....
Suzy, Suzy, Suzy, what are we going to do with you . . . .
"There's a good reason for this. In case you haven't noticed, criminals are rarely intelligent and they're often easily coerced."
Suzy, please allow me to remind you that until they're tried AND convicted, they're "suspects".
I'm sure it was just a slip of the keyboard on your behalf. . . .
Not everyone who's interrogated is a criminal. I was contradicting the media-enhanced image people have of "street smart" criminals who allegedly know how to work the system, and thus wouldn't say anything against their own interests. They do, all the time.
Didn't Chief Justice Roberts, in his confirmation hearings promise to rule in favor of precedent? How come every major decision is now against precedent, such as this one? Especially when that precedent was protecting rights?
which everyone at the time knew, and shose to ignore
duh...
was going to stop lying because he told us so?
Oh, noes! What is this world coming to?
Watch for more terrorists plots by the simple-minded being Saran Wrapped.
the ruling means the police can initiate questions before the individual being interrogated has a lawyer present, but the individual doesn't have to answer if s/he so chooses until accompanied by an attorney?
Is this all the ruling means? That the police have not been allowed to begin questioning suspects until they have a lawyer by their side, but now they don't have to wait?
Certainly this won't be to the benefit of those who may need a lawyer most, the uneducated or the ignorant. Miranda still means that anything they say can be used against them in court, right?
It won't be long, and they'll have you where they want you: naked and powerless and in custody.
I guess Justice Scalia hasn't read a newspaper recently or heard on the teevee about the case of Marty Tankleff who was released from prison after serving something like 17 years for murder.
If only he had opened up his newspaper that day, Justice Scalia would have read about Marty who was a 17-year-old kid who had found that his parents were just savagely murdered. The cops brought Marty in for questioning and used some rather unconventional tactics and after many, many hours claimed the kid confessed...17+ years later courts in NY through out the conviction due to the coercion of this youngster(surprisingly, not with his lawyer around)
Nope, why should the narrow-minded Scalia educate himself about the world around him.
My brother, the cop, once told me that, if arrested the only words that should come out of your mouth are, "I want to speak to a lawyer."
until they decide that its okay to waterboard American criminal suspects.
Scalia:
Why don't we test that little theory out when your neocon patrons are in custody and "suspected" of treason and war crimes?
[Spit]
Exactly New Damage , and ditto water boarding . The right piss and moan about putting activist judges on the court but what the hell is the Cheney clone Scalia but a far right wing activist plant and a hack that has no business being on the supreme court ?
It's easy, really. No one can serve as a judge at any level until they've been arrested and charged with a crime they did not commit. Even if they don't get wrongfully convicted, the unreal amount of bullshit they have to go through will teach them a valuable lesson. Sounds to me like most of them have no idea how the legal system really works.
From beacon of democracy to banana republic in 8 years. Way to U.S.!
...so much for that vaunted respect Roberts and Alito expressed for that quaint old stare decisis.
If that fat, disgusting bag of shit is going to keep yanking off the bits he doesn't like?
First he starts talking about how cops can beat the shit out of people who have been arrested - because they're not being punished it doesn't count. Now the cops can just start questioning you. So is there a limit to how long they can hold you before giving you access to our lawyer? Or should we just make it official and just start assuming everyone is guilty unless they are Republican?
That's the only way to save us from 'activist judges'.
what??? ANYONE is "easily coerced" if not up chapter and verse on law. in case you've never been arrested as a youth or young adult or just a person who doesnt study law! its not like the cops dont pretend as it is that you've no rights. this is a terrible ruling because we all deserve protection from cops who just want to wrap up a quick arrest/conviction and don't care so much about our rights. has NOTHING to do with "intelligence of criminals" as if THEY are not US.
wow. "progressives."
up on chapter and verse of the law, all you have to remember is a few simple words, I plead the fifth and I request council.
Don't we get reminded by the same loons, who masturbate poetic about their role as defenders of the constitutional purity with their penile extenders, to lay off any criticism of their stupidity every time the gun debate nonsense comes to light?
Oh, that is right... they are too busy shooting blanks at the range to notice their buddies are raping the constitution as we speak.
Maybe we should make some sh*t up, like... I don't know, that Scalia wants to take their guns away... maybe they will do something about it. LOL. I doubt it, biggest collection of chikenshits that is what these "constitutional purists" are...
but this resident "gun nut" just started reading this and is currently reading the SCOTUS decision and dissent, of this and the referenced cases. I'll be glad to weigh in when I'm done.
my take on this? I don't agree with or approve of the decision. And I feel their reasoning for overturning Jackson was flawed. But it won't effect me. Nor should it effect anyone else. People should know and understand their rights.
and civil rights. First Prop 8 and now this. I hate my country today.
or the planned next step in the degeneration of US justice into a medieval system.
Its not natural to have new comments at the top and replies to them below, defies logic, the known laws of the universe, and the natural flow of things.
But I PREFER it this way, hate to scroll down a thread of posts I've already read to see new posts.
My administrative law prof was right that the flaw in our "democracy" is that Americans can't vote on the Chief Justices, and they don't have "term limits". It's the reason slavery and segregation were extended beyond their expiration dates, and why we're getting closer to a fascist state, if we haven't already. [He also made the argument that our legal way of picking judges, based on who's in charge of picking them, rather than their experience, isn't any different from Stalin's method of picking out bureaucrats to run the U.S.S.R.] Hell, if Obama picks a Latina judge, it might be good for pro-choice groups, but depending on her potential Catholic beliefs, it might be bad for pro-gay marriage groups.
The U.S. is heavily invested in a criminal justice system that would be paralyzed without confessions. Ninety-two per cent of felony convictions are obtained by plea bargains or confessions. That’s a far higher rate than in other countries. Italy’s, for example, is 8 per cent, and Norway doesn’t allow plea bargaining at all.
Relying on confessions to prosecute crimes is thrifty because it avoids the need for costly investigations. But it’s also very destructive to justice. After a suspect is apprehended, police tend to ignore serious investigation; instead, they focus on getting a confession. And once the confession is obtained, any other work going on at all typically ends. The push to handle cases this way encourages misbehavior in the interrogation room.
After Charles Lindbergh’s baby was abducted, over 200 people walked into police stations and said they were the kidnapper. More than 30 told authorities they were the murderer of a woman who came to be known as “The Black Dahlia” – a Hollywood actress whose mutilated body was found in a vacant lot in Los Angeles in the 1940s. In a case that truly smacks of internalized abjection and desire for quick death, Heinrich Himmler lost his pipe while visiting a concentration camp during World War II. A search ensued, but on returning to his car Himmler found the pipe on his seat. Meanwhile, the camp commandant reported that six prisoners had already confessed to stealing it.
Since they are not products of police interrogation, no amount of videotaping will eradicate these confessions. Yet, we accept them. This is because quick admissions of guilt are cheap, and easy on the justice system, which is now more of a business than a justice system. It's no wonder that the most pro-business Supreme Court ever ruled in their favor.
to toss out Miranda, and call it a day.
Funny - it's the reich-wing that keeps whining that Obama's going turn this country into a police state. Oh, the irony ...
Please take a few minutes to watch these two lectures. The law professor that gives the first lecture is VERY informative and gives solid, sound advise about exactly what you must do in the event that you are questioned by the police. I was skeptical about what the officer would say in the second one, but it was also informative. You may think that you know how to react to being "interviewed", but unless you have watched this lecture and seen the way ANYTHING and EVERYTHING you may say can be used against you, you don't understand how the table is slanted against you. Watch this video:
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/342.html
Thanks for posting that link. Rock-solid reasons why no one, innocent or guilty, should talk to the police without an attorney to guide him or her. And why some innocent people believe it can't hurt them, and they're dead wrong.
Interesting videos. Synopsis: You hear the words "You have the right to remain silent" - REMAIN SILENT.
I will never speak without an attorney present. Police State is alive and well in this country.
I've seen them before and have them bookmarked and downloaded. But they are great videos. I played them for two of my nephews about a week and a half ago. The one didn't understand about how telling the truth to a LEO could hurt.
This one is by the ACLU and is more about how to get off of charges and is a bit.. amateurish/overacting? But a good informative video about your rights.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqMjMPlXzdA&fe...
You need to go into a different line of work, writing is not your métier.
One is, or should be presumed innocent until proven guilty.
The rules are meant to protect the guilty as well as the innocent from abuses.
In a police state the distinction between guilt and innocence is thrown by the wayside. Anyone will do when the police have quotas. That is why one needs a competent lawyer present from the start.
I was saying there's a good reason the Michigan ruling applied to even voluntary confessions without a lawyer.
Now a defense attorney is really going to have to be on their toes to get improperly collected evidence thrown out. And if they don't they might end up looking at a malpractice suit. At this rate we'll be living in Topsy-Turvy world by the time I pass the Bar, and the just lawyer is the crooked one, the unjust opposition plays by
Everyone remember, the police are not your friends, they are not there to help you. Especialy now, treat them the way you'd treat a member of the Gestapo. Just keep your damned mouth shut around them.
There's also a running joke amongst attorneys.
What do you call an attorney with an IQ of 70? Your Honor.
Those who can, play the game, those who can't sit on the bench.
Apparently these jokes also apply to US Supreme Court justices.
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