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Court To Decide on Miranda Warning
By RICHARD CARELLI, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- ''You have the right to remain silent'' -- a police warning recited countless times daily and made familiar to generations of Americans by movies and television -- is on trial in the Supreme Court.
After hearing arguments today, the justices must decide whether police still must warn criminal suspects about their right against self-incrimination before questioning them.
Such warnings have been required ever since the Supreme Court's landmark 1966 decision in Miranda vs. Arizona, but a federal appeals court ruling last year threw Miranda's future into doubt.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Congress effectively overturned Miranda when it enacted a 1968 law.
The long-ignored law, known as Section 3501, means failure to give such warnings no longer requires automatic exclusion of incriminating statements as trial evidence, the appeals court ruled in the case of a Maryland man accused of robbing banks in Maryland and Virginia.
Today's argument session drew an unusually large crowd of persons seeking a place among the some 200 seats available to the public.
First in line were four District of Columbia high school students who arrived at 7 p.m. Tuesday and camped out overnight. ''We've studied the case in our honors Supreme Court class,'' said Aaron Pearl, a Field School junior. ''We know it's a blockbuster case.''
By 9 a.m., the line of people seeking entry stretched across the expansive plaza in front of the court building and down First Street toward the Capitol.
The Clinton administration refuses to defend the 1968 law. ''Confidence of the public in the fairness of the criminal justice system ... may be expected to suffer if Miranda were overruled,'' Justice Department lawyers have told the court.
Opponents of the Miranda ruling blame it for letting some criminals go free.
They invoke a 1994 opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia, in which he said federal prosecutors' failure to invoke Section 3501 ''may have produced -- during an era of intense national concern about the problem of runaway crime -- the acquittal and the nonprosecution of many dangerous felons. ... There is no excuse for this.''
The justices will take an initial vote behind closed doors Friday, and their decision is expected by late June.
The court, far more liberal 34 years ago than it is today, sought to remedy ''inherently coercive'' interrogations by creating bright-line guidelines in its Miranda ruling. Courts previously had used a ''totality-of-the-circumstances test'' to determine whether a confession or incriminating statement had been given to police voluntarily.
Section 3501 returns the law to pre-Miranda days, stating ''the presence or absence'' of any factor such as a Miranda warning ''need not be conclusive on the issue of voluntariness.''
Charles Dickerson of Takoma Park, Md., reportedly made several incriminating statements to FBI agents after being arrested and charged with seven bank robberies. He says he did not receive a proper Miranda warning.
Neither Dickerson nor the federal prosecutors who had opposed his appeal to the 4th Circuit court focused on the 1968 law. But University of Utah law professor Paul Cassell, representing the conservative Washington Legal Foundation as a friend of the court, sought to revive the dormant Section 3501. He won before the 4th Circuit court, spurring Dickerson's Supreme Court appeal.
The justices have received plenty of unsolicited advice in the form of friend-of-the-court briefs.
Among those arguing for the Miranda ruling's continued vitality are the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the House Democratic leadership.
Among those urging the court to uphold the appeals court's ruling are the National District Attorneys Association, the National Association of Police Organizations and 10 Republican senators.
Also siding with Cassell are 17 states: Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia.
The case is Dickerson vs. U.S., 99-5525.
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Court To Decide on Miranda Warning
By RICHARD CARELLI, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- ''You have the right to remain silent'' -- a police warning recited countless times daily and made familiar to generations of Americans by movies and television -- is on trial in the Supreme Court.
After hearing arguments today, the justices must decide whether police still must warn criminal suspects about their right against self-incrimination before questioning them.
Such warnings have been required ever since the Supreme Court's landmark 1966 decision in Miranda vs. Arizona, but a federal appeals court ruling last year threw Miranda's future into doubt.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Congress effectively overturned Miranda when it enacted a 1968 law.
The long-ignored law, known as Section 3501, means failure to give such warnings no longer requires automatic exclusion of incriminating statements as trial evidence, the appeals court ruled in the case of a Maryland man accused of robbing banks in Maryland and Virginia.
Today's argument session drew an unusually large crowd of persons seeking a place among the some 200 seats available to the public.
First in line were four District of Columbia high school students who arrived at 7 p.m. Tuesday and camped out overnight. ''We've studied the case in our honors Supreme Court class,'' said Aaron Pearl, a Field School junior. ''We know it's a blockbuster case.''
By 9 a.m., the line of people seeking entry stretched across the expansive plaza in front of the court building and down First Street toward the Capitol.
The Clinton administration refuses to defend the 1968 law. ''Confidence of the public in the fairness of the criminal justice system ... may be expected to suffer if Miranda were overruled,'' Justice Department lawyers have told the court.
Opponents of the Miranda ruling blame it for letting some criminals go free.
They invoke a 1994 opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia, in which he said federal prosecutors' failure to invoke Section 3501 ''may have produced -- during an era of intense national concern about the problem of runaway crime -- the acquittal and the nonprosecution of many dangerous felons. ... There is no excuse for this.''
The justices will take an initial vote behind closed doors Friday, and their decision is expected by late June.
The court, far more liberal 34 years ago than it is today, sought to remedy ''inherently coercive'' interrogations by creating bright-line guidelines in its Miranda ruling. Courts previously had used a ''totality-of-the-circumstances test'' to determine whether a confession or incriminating statement had been given to police voluntarily.
Section 3501 returns the law to pre-Miranda days, stating ''the presence or absence'' of any factor such as a Miranda warning ''need not be conclusive on the issue of voluntariness.''
Charles Dickerson of Takoma Park, Md., reportedly made several incriminating statements to FBI agents after being arrested and charged with seven bank robberies. He says he did not receive a proper Miranda warning.
Neither Dickerson nor the federal prosecutors who had opposed his appeal to the 4th Circuit court focused on the 1968 law. But University of Utah law professor Paul Cassell, representing the conservative Washington Legal Foundation as a friend of the court, sought to revive the dormant Section 3501. He won before the 4th Circuit court, spurring Dickerson's Supreme Court appeal.
The justices have received plenty of unsolicited advice in the form of friend-of-the-court briefs.
Among those arguing for the Miranda ruling's continued vitality are the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the House Democratic leadership.
Among those urging the court to uphold the appeals court's ruling are the National District Attorneys Association, the National Association of Police Organizations and 10 Republican senators.
Also siding with Cassell are 17 states: Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia.
The case is Dickerson vs. U.S., 99-5525.
------------------
Slowpoke Rodrigo...he pack a gon...
Vote for the Neal Knox 13