You still have the right to remain silent . . .

[Guest121212]

Only now, you have to explicitly tell police that you want to stay silent to invoke your Miranda protections . . .

See - http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/06/0...urt/index.html

http://www.truthout.org/on-having-ri...in-silent60068

http://www.google.com/search?q=Berghuis+v.+Thompkins

http://topics.law.cornell.edu/supct/cert/08-1470

The Court ruled on the 1st, sorry it took me a day and a half to post on it . . .

You can read the entire decision here: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-1470.pdf

Interesting to note that JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, with JUSTICE STEVENS, JUSTICE GINSBURG, and JUSTICE BREYER, dissented.

Be careful out there!

Kisses,

- Jackie

[Allie_Kat]

Thanks for the heads up Jackie.

[swarmyone]

Originally Posted by jackie@sintropolis

Only now, you have to explicitly tell police that you want to stay silent to invoke your Miranda protections . . .

Interesting to note that JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, with JUSTICE STEVENS, JUSTICE GINSBURG, and JUSTICE BREYER, dissented.

- Jackie

What's interesting about that? These four liberals always vote together. Hell...the way they pamper criminals the cops would be required to give the suspects a nap, take 'em out to dinner, give 'em a massage (with HE), and then beg them to confess.

This ruling means absolutely nothing! If you aren't smart enough to keep your mouth shut, you got no room to bitch. This guy didn't get convicted because the big bad police violated his "rights", he murdered a child and then confessed. I'm sorry the "wise latina" on the high court wants to let him go, but I say fry the sonofabitch.

[Guest121212]

Originally Posted by swarmyone

What's interesting about that? These four liberals always vote together. Hell...the way they pamper criminals the cops would be required to give the suspects a nap, take 'em out to dinner, give 'em a massage (with HE), and then beg them to confess.

This ruling means absolutely nothing! If you aren't smart enough to keep your mouth shut, you got no room to bitch. This guy didn't get convicted because the big bad police violated his "rights", he murdered a child and then confessed. I'm sorry the "wise latina" on the high court wants to let him go, but I say fry the sonofabitch.

Swarmy, I swear that occasionally you strike me more and more like LE everyday . . . In an article about Justice John Paul Stevens published in March 2010, Jeffrey Toobin stated that "so far, Sotomayor seems to be voting much like Souter, an ally of Stevens, whom she replaced". Since Sotomayor's appointment at the start of the October 2009 term of the Court, only a handful of opinions have resulted in a closely divided Court with the justices divided along the commonly perceived ideological lines, with Justices Stevens, Ginsburg, and Breyer on one side, and Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito on the other (Justice Kennedy being the "swing vote"); in all these cases as of June 1, 2010, Justice Sotomayor has voted with Justices Stevens, Ginsburg, and Breyer. BUT THEY DO NOT VOTE TOGETHER IN EVERY CASE - ONLY WHEN IT HAS BEEN A CLOSELY DIVIDED COURT!!! In fact, most had pegged Sotomayor (a former prosecutor) to "join the other side" in this case!!!

This ruling means A LOT. Your failure to see the implications of it simply demonstrates your ignorance of the magnitude of the decision as it impacts all of us . . . perhaps you simply missed the salient point(s) and it was a simple error and that may explain how you may have overlooked them, I admit that the decision is rather long and a tedious read . . . HOWEVER,

AS IT STANDS NOW BASED ON THIS RULING - If you are ever arrested (or questioned and given a Miranda warning), you must now specifically state to the officer immediately that you do indeed invoke your right to counsel and to remain silent. You must then restate this over and over to every investigator, every clerk and every official, no matter their rank or standing (even an utterance to a janitor or another prisoner may invalidate your right to remain silent unless and until you restate it implicitly). If you don't restate to EVERYONE at all times that you are invoking your right, law enforcement is simply able to interrogate you for as long as they please, and, as they have demonstrated in Berghuis v. Thompkins, they will do exactly that.

This is a great departure from the status quo policies that now require most LE agencies to obtain a written waiver from you prior to interrogation specifically stating that you waive your right to remain silent.

If you invoke your right now, under this ruling, and open your mouth to use the bathroom or make a phone call or utter a sigh, LE may then determine that you have given up your right to remain silent, you MUST NOW RESTATE THAT YOU ARE INVOKING YOUR RIGHT AFTER ANY INCONSEQUENTIAL UTTERANCE YOU MAKE ONCE YOU HAVE BEEN READ MIRANDA- EVERY TIME YOU SPEAK. What the Court is saying is that any response or utterance ("No, I don't want a mint" or "This chair is uncomfortable") is evidence to the interrogators that you are willing to speak, and they can continue the interrogation, in any legal manner without coercion, regardless of your making it clear to them that you have invoked your right to remain silent previously.

<begin sarcasm> Yeah, that ruling means absolutely nothing (obviously it means a lot if you're ever questioned or detained and read Miranda) . . . or is it just that you'd like us to believe otherwise? </end sarcasm>

And by the way, why do you bring the "race issue" to the discussion? "Wise Latina"?? Do I have to point out how ethnocentric and racist you sound by making such comment? Are we to believe that because a person is a Latina they are somehow less capable or less a person?? Apparently, one may infer from your comments that you feel as such.

The erosion of Miranda in Berghuis v. Thompkins reflects our legal system's sharp tilt in favor of the prosecution.

The implications here have little to do with the specific reprehensible act of the defendant and everything to do with the erosion of your rights (and everyone else's).

- Jackie

----------------------------------------------

"After this week's 5-4 decision in Berghuis v. Thompkins (PDF), we may well expect a conversation on the scope of Miranda to make an appearance again in a solicitor general's confirmation hearing for the Supreme Court when hearings for Elena Kagan open later this month. In Berghuis, the Supreme Court peels back some of the protection of Miranda by ruling that police need not to curtail their interrogation of a criminal detainee unless that detainee asks for a lawyer.

"Merely remaining silent is not enough to demonstrate that one seeks to exercise the right to remain silent. In Berghuis, Van Chester Thompkins was arrested and questioned about a homicide that occurred at a mall in Michigan. He was questioned for nearly three hours by police and remained silent. Finally, police detectives asked whether he believed in God, whether he prayed to God and whether he prayed for forgiveness for the shooting. Thompkins haltingly answered ''yes'' to each of the questions. He refused to provide a written confession and the interrogation ended. Thompkins' one word ''statement'' was used against him in charging and prosecuting him. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

"So police officers may now interrogate detainees for hours on end--no limit is suggested by the court--and so long as the detainee does not use the magic words that expressly indicate a refusal to answer questions or the desire for an attorney, any words uttered--no matter how few--may be used against him. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor says in dissent, today's decision, ''turns Miranda upside down,'' requiring criminal defendants to ''unambiguously invoke their right to remain silent--which counter-intuitively, requires them to speak.''

"It's ironic that the strongly worded dissent comes from Justice Sotomayor--a career prosecutor. They could well have come from Justice Marshall, whose Oklahoma client ''voluntarily confessed'' after being beaten by police. But Sotomayor's hands-on experience with criminal prosecutions, fully on display in her real-world understanding of the pressures of interrogation in custody and the incentives of police that she articulates in her dissent, demonstrates the importance of having justices on the Supreme Court whose practical experience can inform the court's approach to criminal cases."


- theroot.com

[maxswell69]

Jackie,
You are right on. If you're not a lawyer, you should be one. Most folks who are held in custody are not rocket scientists and are easily led into saying things to make the LEO happy or to quit talking to them at 3:00 in the morning or threatening their families, or....

[KCQuestor]

Originally Posted by swarmyone

What's interesting about that? These four liberals always vote together. Hell...the way they pamper criminals the cops would be required to give the suspects a nap, take 'em out to dinner, give 'em a massage (with HE), and then beg them to confess.

This ruling means absolutely nothing! If you aren't smart enough to keep your mouth shut, you got no room to bitch. This guy didn't get convicted because the big bad police violated his "rights", he murdered a child and then confessed. I'm sorry the "wise latina" on the high court wants to let him go, but I say fry the sonofabitch.

This ruling isn't there to protect the guilty. It is there to protect the innocent who may be coerced into confessing. The Innocence Project, a nonprofit legal clinic, claims 8 percent of wrongful convictions are due to forced or coerced confessions.

Many times, an interrogation will last hours, during which time the person may be denied food, sleep or even the use of the bathroom by interrogators. In 1999 Keith Zinetti was charged with his wife's murder and was interrogated for 38 sleepless hours. After spending eight months in jail, he was finally exonerated for the crime.


In 2001, The Washington Post investigated four reports of coerced confessions in Prince Georges County, MD (Zinetti was one of them). They found that three of the four had been denied their right to counsel and all four had been threatened and interrogated for at 11 hours or more. In all four cases, their confession was the key evidence in their conviction. All four subjects were later exonerated.


With this new law, the police can continue to hold you indefinitely as long as they believe that you might have waived your right to silence. The only way to ensure that this doesn't happen is to say literally nothing except "I invoke my right to silence" until they give up. Any other response to any other question ("Are you cold?" "Yes") gives them the right to continue interrogating you.

[KCJoe]

Never been arrested and had to go thru the ordeal, but based on what I've read or seen on TV (if that's any indication of what really happens), LE is always looking to get around your rights and bend the rules (if not outright break them) in order to get a confession. I've even read about them getting confessions from innocent people. Unfortunately the world is full of stupid people (sometimes innocent) who need to be protected from unscrupulous LE.

[Longermonger]

Awww...I just want to give Jackie a big hug. She's my she-ro.

Remember kids, if the nice policeman is asking you questions it's because he wants something that he doesn't already have. Don't give it to him. He's not really nice.

If you do say anything, make it something that would embarrass the policeman if he said it on the witness stand. See if you can get him to trash talk lawyers and judges.

[swarmyone]

"And by the way, why do you bring the "race issue" to the discussion? "Wise Latina"?? Do I have to point out how ethnocentric and racist you sound by making such comment? Are we to believe that because a person is a Latina they are somehow less capable or less a person?? Apparently, one may infer from your comments that you feel as such."

"Wise Latina" aren't my words, rather they were the words of none other than Supreme Court Justice Yolanda Sotomayor. In a speech she gave at Berkley (go figure!) she said "I would hope that a wise Latina woman, with the richness of her experiences, would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

[lacrew_2000]

I guess I don't see the big deal. They could question me until the cows come home, I just won't say anything.

I know the counterargument is that some people will break down and talk...but as described in the posts above, that already happens, under the current Miranda rules...for some reason I'll never understand, there are people who will talk to the police after being told they don't have to...and this won't change that. In fact, I think it may become counter-productive to LE, as more people realize that 'I don't want to talk' no longer cuts it...but 'I want a lawyer' does.

The 'wise latina' comment is straight from Sotomayor's mouth. She herself has declared that she believes one race and gender class (latina women) is superior to other races and genders, when ruling on cases. If anybody is a racist, its certainly not the person pointing out the absurdity of the comment. Elections have consequences...and the biggie is appointment of judges. Its done, she's a judge, not gonna change...but its still ok to criticize her (so far, I think, unless there was another ruling that I missed).

[Guest052813-01]

Actually, once you invoke your right to speak to an attorney before any questioning, the police MUST stop the interrogation at that time, regardless if you invoke your right to remain silent, or "revoke" that right by asking to go to the restroom or asking for a La-Z-Boy during your stay in their interrogation room.

[Guest121212]

Originally Posted by maxswell69

Jackie,
You are right on. If you're not a lawyer, you should be one.

Well, as I admitted on ASPD some time ago, I am not a lawyer, but I have played one on TV (although I did have a cock in my mouth for most of the scene). Ah, the wonderful impetuousness of being young and horny in Southern California with bills to pay . . . a few here have seen the tape (yeah, it was ALL the way back in the days of VHS - although not that long ago as they were also pressing DVD)!

However, thank you for the compliment, although I feel it undeserved. I simply enjoy staying informed and knowing my rights. Handsome Dennis (rest in peace) taught me and a few others well and being a card carrying member of the ACLU myself, this just made me fume - and I felt that the ramifications of the ruling would be such that the information needed to be disseminated to the community.

Knowledge is power . . . this is one issue (instance) where LE will take advantage of you at every chance they get, especially now! After last year's ruling limiting search (a great victory) this is a loss that will be felt especially hard. I am hopeful that this matter will be addressed by the Congress (the Miranda issue) and reversed.

Kisses,

- Jackie

[Guest121212]

Originally Posted by swarmyone

"And by the way, why do you bring the "race issue" to the discussion? "Wise Latina"?? Do I have to point out how ethnocentric and racist you sound by making such comment? Are we to believe that because a person is a Latina they are somehow less capable or less a person?? Apparently, one may infer from your comments that you feel as such."

"Wise Latina" aren't my words, rather they were the words of none other than Supreme Court Justice Yolanda Sotomayor. In a speech she gave at Berkley (go figure!) she said "I would hope that a wise Latina woman, with the richness of her experiences, would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

Okay Swarmy - touché, I honestly didn't know she had said that (or I had forgotten - I am far from perfect) - at least admit that your use was seemingly derogatory to one ignorant of that fact (like me). Also, at least admit that your use was most likely sarcastic and repeating her words by singling her out from the others that dissented (whom are all Caucasian) in your statement does appear "loaded" with what would imply a racial bias to the average reader. I apologize if I reacted in such a manner as to cast dispersion upon your good character in that instance.

Kisses,

- Jackie

[Guest121212]

Originally Posted by fritz3552

Actually, once you invoke your right to speak to an attorney before any questioning, the police MUST stop the interrogation at that time, regardless if you invoke your right to remain silent, or "revoke" that right by asking to go to the restroom or asking for a La-Z-Boy during your stay in their interrogation room.

Yes, you're right - but this provides a technical loophole that they may exploit if another officer doesn't know that you have requested counsel and you are asked a question and respond with a one or two word answer . . . that officer may then feel that he may have the right to interrogate you based on this new ruling - you'll have to reassert your right to have counsel present each time you make any utterance (or you ask for anything, including that lounge chair) . . . at least that is how most scholars are interpreting the ruling. In the real world, they don't mark your forehead with a special ink once you've "lawyered up" and stop asking you questions . . . I was present during an interrogation by the US Secret Service where an individual asked for an attorney six times and was never provided access to a phone to call his lawyer - and this took place in his home . .

I see this ruling as a huge setback to Miranda (and I feel they'll chisel away at more of it given the chance) and the poor and uneducated will suffer even more . . they are least likely to know they have to reassert the right and more likely now to suffer as a consequence. However, there has already been some discussion from larger agencies that they will not modify or change their procedures for interrogation based on this ruling, simply because they don't want to create an issue where this matter will be revisited by the Court (or have their jurisdiction foot the bill for an appellate case when the matter would be resolved by not changing present procedure and obtaining a written waiver).

Kisses,

- Jackie

[Cheaper2buyit]

normaly if you tell em eat a dick or fuck off then they stop talking to you & get to the point whats your bail amount