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You are here: Home / Politics / Activist Judges! / Some Decent Rulings

Some Decent Rulings

by $8 blue check mistermix|  June 17, 20118:14 am| 11 Comments

This post is in: Activist Judges!, Glibertarianism

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Yesterday, the Supreme Court handed down rulings that favored little-guy criminal defendants. One case involved sentence extension for drug treatment, the other was about a 13 year-old who was interrogated but not Mirandized:

The case stems from a situation in September 2005 in which a 13-year-old boy was pulled out of his class at a Chapel Hill, N.C., middle school, escorted to another room and interrogated behind a closed door by a police detective and three other adults.

The boy confessed to a neighborhood larceny. He never was read his Miranda rights, which include the right to an attorney.

One of the adults was the assistant principal at the boy’s school. The child’s guardian was not present.

This case was decided by the usual 5-4 vote, with the inevitable Alito, Roberts, Scalia and Thomas dissenting votes. Reading about a case like this, I wonder how anyone can justify voting for Republicans on libertarian principles. If we had one more hard-right Republican appointee on the court, it would be just fine for cops to essentially coerce (is there any other word for it?) confessions from kids without parents present.

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11Comments

  1. 1.

    Comrade Javamanphil

    June 17, 2011 at 8:23 am

    I wonder how anyone can justify voting for Republicans on libertarian principles.

    Because the vast majority of those that hold libertarian principles believe libertarian principles should only apply to themselves. They couldn’t care less about what happens to some random 13 year old.

  2. 2.

    Clark Stooksbury

    June 17, 2011 at 8:28 am

    I wonder how anyone can justify voting for Republicans on libertarian principles. If we had one more hard-right Republican appointee on the court, it would be just fine for cops to essentially coerce (is there any other word for it?) confessions from kids without parents present.

    But what about the corporations. Won’t someone please think of the corporations.

  3. 3.

    Linda Featheringill

    June 17, 2011 at 8:36 am

    The assistant principal: Just who was he serving?

  4. 4.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    June 17, 2011 at 8:44 am

    Because Democrats are not single issue voters. They look at a wide array of issues until they find something to be disappointed about, and then the don’t vote.

  5. 5.

    Frankensteinbeck

    June 17, 2011 at 8:45 am

    Comrade Javamanphil:
    And remember, it will never happen to THEM. When they break the law it will be because the law is wrong anyway and they’ll get an exception.

  6. 6.

    NonyNony

    June 17, 2011 at 8:54 am

    I wonder how anyone can justify voting for Republicans on libertarian principles. If we had one more hard-right Republican appointee on the court, it would be just fine for cops to essentially coerce (is there any other word for it?) confessions from kids without parents present.

    I’m sorry – nowhere in your argument do you use the word “taxes” so I find it hard to see how these justices did anything to violate “libertarian principles”. At least as defined by people who call themselves libertarians these days.

    Also too – if you don’t have kids your liberties will never be violated. And if you do have kids then your kids will never be in this situation because, as a libertarian parent, you are much more awesome than parents who let their kids become criminals. And if the kid was guilty anyway then who cares if the confession was coerced? And did you mention anything about how this would impact the amount of government theft of my money?

    There’s a reason I gave up on libertarianism as a political philosophy in the 90s. Mostly it was because of libertarians.

  7. 7.

    Zach

    June 17, 2011 at 11:26 am

    I don’t understand why an adult in this situation shouldn’t also be read their Miranda rights. The kids was forced to go from one location to another to be interrogated by police; he wasn’t asked if he’d like to answer questions. Let’s say the police come to a manufacturing floor and get the foreman to demand that a worker come and answer their questions in a separate room (rather than, as in frequent Law & Order episodes, get the foreman’s permission to approach the person in question). It’s not a requirement of the suspect’s job — it ought to count as detention.

  8. 8.

    Brachiator

    June 17, 2011 at 11:57 am

    I wonder how anyone can justify voting for Republicans on libertarian principles. If we had one more hard-right Republican appointee on the court, it would be just fine for cops to essentially coerce (is there any other word for it?) confessions from kids without parents present.

    And besides, kids don’t have any constitutional rights, or any that an adult need respect, because they aren’t really citizens. That’s right, isn’t it? And shouldn’t they have waterboarded the little punk?

    I’m going to have to read the actual opinions and dissents here. Who wrote the majority opinion?

  9. 9.

    Brachiator

    June 17, 2011 at 12:21 pm

    Read the decision and the dissent, J. D. B. v. North Carolina. Alito is a little prick. A lot of noise about how applying Miranda is sooo hard. It’s also interesting to see how he ignores facts and makes shit up.

    Most juveniles who are subjected to police interrogation are teenagers nearing the age of majority. These defendants’ reactions to police pressure are unlikely to be much different from the reac­tion of a typical 18-year-old in similar circumstances. A one-size-fits-all Miranda custody rule thus provides a roughly reasonable fit for these defendants

    But of course, the kid in this particular case was a 13 year old.

    Yeah, the kid may have been a little thieving punk (there was some video evidence implicating him), but no one, not even thieving little punks, should be made to help the cops build a case against themselves.

  10. 10.

    PWL

    June 17, 2011 at 12:33 pm

    Libertarians in this day and age are a funny lot: Essentially, they are concerned with protecting the rights of the plutonomy to run riot and make great gobs of money any way they can, but they are otherwise fine with the idea of an authoritarian government (y’know, to keep the little people in line).

    Someone once gave a great definition of a libertarian: A wingnut who thinks it’s OK to smoke pot.

  11. 11.

    Xof

    June 17, 2011 at 4:41 pm

    Clearly, according to the Four Dark Lords, no reasonable person should *ever* consider themselves “in custody.” Even if they are in the basement of the police station handcuffed to a chair, a superhero might break down the door at any moment and rescue them.

    Can they just be honest for once and say “We don’t like Miranda because cops are great and crooks are bad”? Rhetorical question.

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