Miranda warning rights revised by High Court

Lisette Livingston |

Major revisions by the Supreme Court this year is evidence of the high court chipping away at Miranda Rights piece by piece although experts say any overruling of Miranda is pretty much dead.

Watch any television show and youve heard it all before``You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you. Do you understand these rights as they have been read to you?

Although this years Supreme Court decisions did not call for changes in the wording of Miranda warnings read by arresting police officers, conservatives on the court used their 5-4 advantage to rule that in order to invoke the right to remain silent and stop an interrogation, you have to tell the police that youre remaining silent.

The majoritys decision ``turns Miranda upside down, said Justice Sonia Sotomayor who added, ``Criminal suspects must now unambiguously invoke their right to remain silent which counter intuitively 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.

The high court also approved Floridas version of the Miranda warnings that did not specifically inform suspects that they had a right to have a lawyer present during their police questioning.

Used in parts of Florida, that Miranda warning told suspects: ``You have the right to talk to a lawyer before answering any of our questions. If you cannot afford to hire a lawyer, one will be appointed for you without cost and before any questioning. You have the right to use any of these rights at any time you want during this interview.

Lawyers and the Florida Supreme Court said that wording didnt make it clear that lawyers can be present as the police are doing their questioning. But Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing the 7-2 majority decision, said all the required information was included.

``Nothing in the words used indicated that counsels presence would be restricted after the questioning commenced, Ginsburg said. ``Instead, the warning communicated that the right to counsel carried forward to and through the interrogation.

The next day and for the first time, the court unanimously limited how long Miranda rights are valid holding that a suspects request for a lawyer is good for only 14 days after the person is released from police custody. The 9-0 ruling pulled back from an earlier decision that said that police must halt all questioning for all time if a suspect asks for a lawyer.

Under the revisions, police can attempt to question a suspect who asks for a lawyer once the person has been released from custody for at least two weeks without violating the persons constitutional rights and without having to repeat the Miranda warning.

``In our judgment, 14 days will provide plenty of time for the suspect to get reacclimated to his normal life, to consult with friends and counsel and to shake off any residual coercive effects of his prior custody, said Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the majority opinion.

The original ruling in 1966 emerged from police questioning Ernesto Miranda in a rape and kidnapping case in Phoenix. It required officers to tell suspects taken into custody that they have the right to remain silent and to have a lawyer represent them, even if they cant afford one. In 2000, the Supreme Court upheld the requirement that the Miranda warning be read to criminal suspects.

Some experts suggest that over the past 20-25 years, the court has turned more conservative on law and order issues and has been chipping away at Mirandadoing everything it can to ease the admissibility of confessions that police get out of suspects.

The courts three decisions ``indicate a desire to prune back the rules somewhat, says Kent, Scheidegger, the legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a victims rights group. ``But I dont think any overruling of Miranda is in the near future, he added. I think that controversy is pretty much dead, he said.

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