Washington – Supreme Court: Suspects Must Say They Want To Be Silent

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    Washington – The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that suspects must explicitly tell police they want to be silent to invoke Miranda protections during criminal interrogations, a decision one dissenting justice said turns defendants’ rights “upside down.”

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    A right to remain silent and a right to a lawyer are the first of the Miranda rights warnings, which police recite to suspects during arrests and interrogations. But the justices said in a 5-4 decision that suspects must tell police they are going to remain silent to stop an interrogation, just as they must tell police that they want a lawyer.

    The ruling comes in a case where a suspect, Van Chester Thompkins, remained mostly silent for a three-hour police interrogation before implicating himself in a Jan. 10, 2000, murder in Southfield, Mich. He appealed his conviction, saying that he invoked his Miranda right to remain silent by remaining silent.

    But Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing the decision for the court’s conservatives, said that wasn’t enough.

    “Thompkins did not say that he wanted to remain silent or that he did not want to talk to police,” Kennedy said. “Had he made either of these simple, unambiguous statements, he would have invoked his ‘right to cut off questioning.’ Here he did neither, so he did not invoke his right to remain silent.”

    Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court’s newest member, wrote a strongly worded dissent for the court’s liberals, saying the majority’s decision “turns Miranda upside down.”

    “Criminal suspects must now unambiguously invoke their right to remain silent — which counterintuitively, requires them to speak,” she said. “At the same time, suspects will be legally presumed to have waived their rights even if they have given no clear expression of their intent to do so. Those results, in my view, find no basis in Miranda or our subsequent cases and are inconsistent with the fair-trial principles on which those precedents are grounded.”

    Van Chester Thompkins was arrested for murder in 2001 and interrogated by police for three hours. At the beginning, Thompkins was read his Miranda rights and said he understood.

    The officers in the room said Thompkins said little during the interrogation, occasionally answering “yes,” ”no,” ”I don’t know,” nodding his head and making eye contact as his responses. But when one of the officers asked him if he prayed for forgiveness for “shooting that boy down,” Thompkins said, “Yes.”

    He was convicted, but on appeal he wanted that statement thrown out because he said he invoked his Miranda rights by being uncommunicative with the interrogating officers.

    The Cincinnati-based appeals court agreed and threw out his confession and conviction. The high court reversed that decision.

    The case is Berghuis v. Thompkins, 08-1470.


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    20 Comments
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    Anon Ibid Opcit
    Anon Ibid Opcit
    13 years ago

    Thank you Robertscalito, Kennedy and “Uncle” Thomas.

    Next up, you have to tell the police you are invoking your Eighth Amendment rights against being tortured before they waterboard you or switch on the cattle prod. You must tell the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives you wish to remain a Jew by explicitly invoking your First Amendment right to religious freedom. And when they decide to quarter a platoon of Marines in your house you will have to tell each one individually that you are kicking him out in accordance with your Third Amendment rights.

    Use Your Head
    Use Your Head
    13 years ago

    The high court is correct. In this case, the defendant was NOT silent. In fact, I don’t even see how explicitly stating that he is invoking the right to silence would make any difference in this case. Anyone want to analyze how all of this fits in with Talmudic law, viz-a-viz “sh’tikah k’hoda’ah”?

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    13 years ago

    Miranda has never prevented the introduction into evidence of purely voluntary statements. It will be interesting to read the majority’s opinion as to how they managed to now require a mandatory assertion.

    Alan
    Alan
    13 years ago

    If you have ever been stooped by and questioned by police: you know how hard it is is to remain calm and think rationally (even when you have not committed an unlawful act.) The ruling shows that ALL of the Supreme Court Justices have an ax to grind. All are “activist:” none go to the court free of baggage as “impartial umpires.” Hence the twisted logic of the court’s majority.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    13 years ago

    This is an example of the famous story of a Lawyer who had a big Tuna mounted on a plaque on his wall above his desk. The plaque read: If I had only kept my mouth shut I wouldn’t be sitting up here !!!

    Informed Consent
    Informed Consent
    13 years ago

    The interrogators nailed this dude, got him to admit her murdered someone and the discussion in the highest court of the land is around the fact that maybe he said he wanted to be silent by being silent and therefore, even if he did say it, we should “pretend” that he didn’t, so that some poor soul, who does not yet exist, will not be forced to incriminate himself of a crime he did not commit.

    Ahhhh. America.

    It will swallow itself.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    13 years ago

    To #1 well said.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    13 years ago

    Sotomayor’s dissent is ridiculous. If the person says nothing at all, how would anyone know if they understand their rights. Silence could lead to a later defense of they didn’t understand, especially if their native language not English.

    Fred
    Fred
    13 years ago

    Ask yourself if the end result in this case is a good one. Seems to me it darn well is. The guy did it. He was convicted. Whats not to like?

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    13 years ago

    Your miranda rights mean that you cannot be FORCED to speak! If you decline to answer a question there is nothing the police can do. By answering a question after you affirm that you understand your rights you are waiving them!!!!!!

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    13 years ago

    The Miranda decision, which became effective in1966, following the Escobedo decision in 1965, would not have been necessary, if cops would not have physically and mentally abused (and in some cases still do) the rights of detainees. A custodian at a New York City police station told me that years ago, when he used to clean up the area where the detectives worked, he would routinely find blood there. The blood was that of arrestees, whom NY’s finest had “interrogated”. If anybody still thinks that this never occurred, or doesn’t reoccur at various times, then perhaps you should visit Fantasyland in Disneyland. Incidentally, everyone should be glad that Miranda warnings exist in the USA. In Israel, the cops are far more brutal both physically and mentally at interrogations. I’m not just speaking about Israeli cops questioning Arabs, as they employ the same techniques against Yehudim (sometimes worse).

    Charlie Hall
    Charlie Hall
    13 years ago

    One more example of how right wing judges have skewed and continue to skew the American criminal justice system against people who are accused of crimes.