Re: Miranda rights

More | Report Post

Two Supreme Court Cases Confront Further Erosion of “Right to
Remain Silent” (12/09/2003)

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments today in
United States v. Patane and Missouri v. Seibert, two cases in which
confessions, information and evidence were obtained by police
without fully advising suspects of their “right to remain silent”
as required by the landmark Miranda ruling.

Found at ACLU website under Police Practices.
Missouri vs. Seibert was a major ruling for this cause.

Supreme Court : 2003 Term

Two Supreme Court Cases Confront Further Erosion of “Right to
Remain Silent”

December 9, 2003

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments today in
United States v. Patane and Missouri v. Seibert, two cases in which
confessions, information and evidence were obtained by police
without fully advising suspects of their “right to remain silent”
as required by the landmark Miranda ruling.

“The Seibert case highlights the increasingly commonplace practice
of questioning suspects ‘outside Miranda,’” said Steven R. Shapiro,
Legal Director of the ACLU, which filed friend-of-the-court briefs
in both cases. “Rather than instructing their officers to follow
Miranda, too many police departments are training their officers to
undermine Miranda. The result is an erosion of perhaps the Court’s
best-known criminal justice ruling – and an erosion of faith in the
justice system that police are sworn to uphold.”

Questioning ‘outside Miranda,’ Shapiro explained, is a strategic
method of interrogation that includes everything from intentionally
withholding the Miranda warning, to ignoring requests for counsel,
to continuing to question a subject even after he’s invoked his
right to remain silent.

In Missouri v Seibert, Patrice Seibert was convicted of second-
degree murder for her role in the death of Donald Rector in a fire
in the mobile home they shared. Seibert was arrested five days
after the fire. Before her arrest, a supervising officer told the
officers sent out to question Seibert to advise her of her Miranda
rights. But before doing so, an officer interrogated her alone for
nearly an hour until she made a statement implicating herself.

The officer then gave her a break and a cup of coffee, and came
back 20 minutes later to read Seibert her Miranda rights. He had
her sign a waiver, turned on a tape recorder and had her repeat the
statements she had made prior to the Miranda warning. The officer
said he had been trained to conduct the interrogation this way.

Missouri’s highest court later reversed Seibert’s conviction due to
the unconstitutional method the police had used to obtain her
statements.

Re: Miranda rights, 11/24/04, by SFanua.

Due Process Chatboard

LATEST POSTS | BY TOPICS | SUBMIT A POST