So what exactly is the damned point?
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.
But the court left open the possibility that some confessions obtained after double interviews would be acceptable, providing police could prove the interrogation wasn’t intended to undermine the Miranda warning.
Criminal defense attorneys and civil libertarians had complained that the 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.
The court had considered the treatment of murder suspect Patrice Seibert. The Missouri Supreme Court ruled that the two-step interrogation process used in her case was improper a decision upheld by the nation’s highest court.
Hunh?
Andrew J. Lazarus
I think the idea is that the police would interrogate the suspect without Miranda and the suspect would confess. This confession, though, wouldn’t be admissible. Then they Mirandize the suspect and get her (in this case) to repeat the confession. Now it’s admissible.
I can understand a suspect blurting out a confession before the police have a chance to say anything, but this seems to be a deliberate policy to bamboozle suspects into not understanding their rights and the implications of their confessions.
(Disclaimer: not a lawyer)
IXLNXS
I’ve never been mirandized. The one time I mentioned it to my a lawyer he about laughed is butt off. Maybe it’s just Florida though.
Mac
Reading the rest of the article doesn’t really hep much, either. Could this sentence be a misprint?
“And when told of their rights later, they may not realize their first confession can be used against them.”
Shouldn’t that be “can not be used”?
How many times have you been busted, sport?
Jesus, IXLNXS, how many times have you been arrested? Also, you apparently are aware of your Miranda rights (which, I concede, does not obviate the requirement that the cops read you those rights — but, still…). Finally, Miranda does not come into play unless you make a statement during custodial interrogation that the prosecution wants to introduce at trial, or you make a statement that leads the government to some incriminating evidence. I suspect that you believe an arrest without the Miranda warning is per se illegal. You would be very wrong.
IXLNXS
While other children were going to school I was knocking of liquor warehouses. I did my knocks and didn’t complain. I understand evidence gathered has nothing to do with miranda or arrest. Miranda dealing exclusively with evidence gathered during interrogation without notifying the perp that they can shut up and wait for a lawyer. But no. Laws in Florida are often overlooked. Rush Limbaugh would be one example. The amount of transients that get booked looking like they’ve toted a beating another.
Ralph Gizzip
“Laws in Florida are often overlooked.”
And a court-ordered partial recount of election votes would be still another.