California Gets It Right

Under former Chief Justice Warren E. Burger the U.S. Supreme Court whittled away at the Miranda ruling, which requires that criminal suspects be told that they have a right to have a lawyer. Last March, the court held, 6 to 3, that as long as the police observed the letter of the law, they could violate its spirit with impunity. In that case, the court upheld a murder conviction even though the police did not tell the suspect that there was a lawyer outside trying to see him and even though the police misled the lawyer about the questioning that was going on.

The California Supreme Court sees things differently. By a vote of 5 to 1, the California justices last week threw out a drug-dealing conviction because the police prevented a lawyer from talking to a suspect who was being interrogated. In both cases, police had read the suspect his rights. That was enough for the U.S. Supreme Court, but not for the California Supreme Court.

In the federal case, the suspect’s sister asked the public defender’s office to intercede on behalf of her brother, who had been arrested on a burglary charge. Police told the public defender on the phone that the suspect would not be questioned about the burglary that night. Police then proceeded to question him about a murder, to which he confessed. He was not told that a lawyer had tried to reach him and had been turned away.

In the California case, a suspect was arrested for selling two pounds of cocaine to an undercover agent. Two of his friends hired a lawyer, who went to the police station in Walnut Creek. The police refused to let him see the suspect and did not tell him that a lawyer was outside. The California Supreme Court threw out the conviction.

Justice Joseph Grodin, writing for the majority, said that the U.S. court’s rulings are entitled to “respectful consideration,” but that the California Constitution took precedence in this case because it guarantees the right to assistance of counsel and grants a privilege against self-incrimination, both of which were violated by the police.

The California justices have it right. Suspects have rights, and those rights must be protected. The California Supreme Court once blazed new paths in the law that the U.S. Supreme Court followed. We hope they are doing it again.