Supreme Court Hearing Features an Unusual Cast of Characters

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist’s attorney daughter was there. So was Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.). And so was the bank robbery suspect whose case was at the heart of the arguments.

They were among those attending the U.S. Supreme Court’s arguments on whether to overturn its legendary 1966 Miranda ruling ordering police to tell suspects of their rights.

Before arguments began, Janet Rehnquist, 42, a federal prosecutor who works in Alexandria, Va., was among the group of attorneys sworn in to practice before the Supreme Court. Sitting at the bench, the chief justice admitted that he was “very proud” of his daughter.

She works in the office that brought the case against Charles Dickerson, the bank robbery suspect.

It is unusual for criminal defendants to attend Supreme Court arguments, but it is his case that forced the challenge to the Miranda ruling.

According to court documents, Dickerson voluntarily confessed to FBI agents in 1997 that he drove the getaway car in a series of bank robberies in Virginia and Maryland.

A federal trial judge in Alexandria suppressed Dickerson’s confession as evidence, ruling he had not been told of his Miranda rights before the confession.

But a U.S. Appeals Court allowed the confession, citing a long-ignored federal law that allows the use of voluntary confessions as evidence even when suspects have not been read their rights.

Thurmond? He was one of the original sponsors in the Senate of the 1968 federal law at issue.