Miranda Rights soon to be Abolished?
Written by marchon at http://www.zzine.org/modules.php?op=...rticle&sid=490 and encouraged to spread.
In the US, all suspects being accused of a crime have "the right to remain silent, and to have an attorney present during questioning if they so desired." This blanket requirement of Miranda warnings for all suspects came about because of a US Supreme Court desicion in 1966 that a confession by "Ernesto Miranda" was invalid,
because he did not know that he had the right to remain silent.
"A generation of Americans has grown up since 1966 confident that, if brought to the police station for questioning, we have the right to remain silent, that the police will warn us of that right and, above all, that they will respect its exercise," said a friend-of-the-court brief by the American Civil Liberties Union and California Attorneys for Criminal Justice.
That could all be a thing of the past. The court could decide that the earlier court went too far with it's prior Miranda decision.
"... If petitioners' theory of the Fifth Amendment is correct, then the public's confidence has been misplaced for all these decades and is about to be shattered," said the American Civil Liberties Union and California Attorneys for Criminal Justice brief.
Here is what happened: the defendant in the case about to be heard was 'gravely wounded' and 'screamed in agony,' according to a CNN article. The defendant claimed "I am dying! ... What are you doing to me?" Martinez is heard screaming on a recording of the persistent interrogation by police. (Yes, A RECORDING)
The response of the police was: "If you are going to die, tell me what happened," the officer said. He continued the questioning in an ambulance and an emergency room while Martinez pleaded for treatment. No Miranda warning was given.
There may be a little good news... The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with a federal judge that the confession was coerced and cannot be used as evidence against Martinez. It said Chavez should have known that questioning a man who had been shot five times, was crying out for treatment and had been given no Miranda warning was a violation of his constitutional rights.
The US Justice Department, on the other hand, filed a friend-of-the-court brief along with police organizations and the conservative Criminal Justice Legal Foundation contending that unfettered police questioning is allowable, so long as the information obtained from a suspect is not used against that person in court.
"This is a case to be concerned about," said Charles Weisselberg, a University of California, Berkeley, law professor. "To see the (U.S.) solicitor general arguing that there's no right to be free from coercive interrogation is pretty aggressive."
In the original court Miranda decision, much time was spent putting a historical picture on potential abuses not protected by a clear guideline. In the decision it is stated that "They [our forefathers] knew that "illegitimate and unconstitutional practices get their first footing ... by silent approaches and slight deviations from legal modes of procedure."
I hope that you share this information with others, and help to insure that "no slight deviations from legal modes of prodedure change the protections granted to Americans under the Constitution of the United States of America."
