Supreme Court Reaffirms ’66 Miranda Ruling

In an echo of a controversial 1960s decision, the Supreme Court on Monday ruled that the Constitution indeed requires police to warn suspects of their rights before questioning them.

By a lopsided 7-2 vote, the court reaffirmed the Miranda vs. Arizona ruling of 1966, the most well-known criminal law decision of the liberal court led by Chief Justice Earl Warren.

And most surprisingly, the announcement came from a conservative Arizonan and longtime critic of the Miranda decision, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist.

“You have a right to remain silent,” he began, speaking in the courtroom Monday morning. “Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law.”

These warnings, which include the right to a lawyer, are “embedded” in American law and culture, Rehnquist said, noting that they are familiar to many people thanks to television police dramas. Regardless of the original wisdom behind the warnings, it is too late to overturn them now, the chief justice said.

At the same time, the court dismissed an appeal filed on behalf of police in Los Angeles and Santa Monica. Lawyers for the two cities had argued that the Miranda decision was not an absolute constitutional rule and left officers discretion to continue questioning suspects “outside Miranda.”

By rejecting the appeal Monday, the court cleared the way for a civil trial over whether the officers--and presumably their departments--can be held liable for violating a suspect’s Miranda rights.

From the beginning, the Miranda decision has stood as a symbol of the view that suspects, no matter how loathsome the crime, have certain rights and cannot be forced to confess. Police officers must respect those rights even as they pursue the truth.

Monday’s decision ends a debate that has raged for decades among academics and lawyers over the legal status of the Miranda warnings. The outcome is also likely to have an immediate impact in limiting extended police questioning in California and elsewhere.

Warren’s opinion in the Miranda case, which spoke for a 5-4 majority, was none too clear. The ruling did not say whether the warnings were constitutional rights themselves or were merely guidelines for police.

Critics of the decision adopted the latter view. Giving the warnings was simply one way of ensuring that a suspect’s confession was truly voluntary and not forced, they said.

It was not the only way, they believed. As an alternative, some suggested that police should videotape their questioning of suspects to show that officers were not abusive.

Rehnquist himself lent weight to the critics’ view soon after he joined the court in 1972. He described the Miranda decision not as an announcement of constitutional rights but rather as a recommendation that the warnings be used as a “prophylactic” measure to protect the suspect’s right against self-incrimination.

By the 1990s, many police experts adopted this view of the Miranda warnings as optional. In training sessions, new officers often were told that they did not need to follow the strict rule to halt questioning once a suspect had invoked his right to silence or asked for a lawyer.

In California, some trainers urged detectives to continue questioning suspects who had invoked their rights. While suspects’ subsequent answers could not be used as prime evidence, their comments could be used against them if they took the witness stand and told a different story, the trainers told detectives.

This practice came to light recently in a civil suit filed against police in Los Angeles and Santa Monica. The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, alleging that police routinely questioned suspects “outside of Miranda,” sued in hopes of forcing a change in policy.

Lawyers for the two cities responded that the Miranda decision did not set a hard-and-fast constitutional rule and, therefore, left police some freedom to go further in their questioning.

In November, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the ACLU and said that the Miranda warnings were constitutional mandates. The two cities appealed to the high court, disputing this conclusion (Butts vs. McNally, 99-1594).

By coincidence, the constitutional status of the Miranda decision also came before the Supreme Court, but by an entirely different route.

In 1968, an angry Congress wanted to confront the liberal Warren court and it did so in a major crime bill. One provision sought to overrule the 2-year-old Miranda decision by saying that a confession which was “voluntarily given” could be used in court, even if the suspect had not been warned of his rights.

For nearly 30 years, this law was forgotten. It had been seen as unconstitutional by most prosecutors because it directly contradicted the Supreme Court’s Miranda opinion.

Six years ago, it found a champion in conservative Justice Antonin Scalia. In one opinion, he lambasted Clinton administration lawyers for not using the 1968 law to defend convictions that had been thrown out because the suspect had not been given the Miranda warnings.

One of Scalia’s former clerks, University of Utah law professor Paul Cassell, took up the cause. He intervened in several cases to argue that the 1968 law trumped the Miranda decision.

Eventually, he found the right court to make the claim. The conservative U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., took up a Virginia bank robbery case in which a judge ruled that FBI agents had failed to warn an alleged accomplice of his rights before questioning him.

The appeals court invited Cassell to argue that the Miranda decision was no longer the law. In short order, the appeals court announced that voluntary confessions were to be used against suspects, regardless of the Miranda warnings. The 1968 law overturned Warren’s opinion, the court said.

As a result, the Supreme Court was forced to decide the issue: Were Miranda warnings required as constitutional rules or were they just guidelines that did not govern whether confessions could be used?

Rehnquist left no doubt Monday.

“We conclude that Miranda announced a constitutional rule that Congress may not supersede legislatively,” he said in the decision (Dickerson vs. United States, 99-5525). The required warnings must be given before “custodial interrogation” begins, he said, and questioning must stop when a suspect invokes his right to silence.

He was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O’Connor, Anthony M. Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David H. Souter and Stephen G. Breyer.

Not surprisingly, reactions to the court’s decision differed sharply. Civil libertarians said they were heartened by the outcome, while law enforcement leaders were dismayed.

UC Berkeley law professor Charles D. Weisselberg said that Rehnquist’s opinion “erases all the doubts. It makes clear Miranda is the law of the land. . . . I hope it will tell officers that they must comply with Miranda.”

Some police experts complained that the ruling means some guilty suspects will go free because of a technicality. While the numbers are fiercely disputed, the Miranda decision in some instances bars prosecutors from telling the jury of a confession or incriminating comments.

“We are very disappointed,” said Robert T. Scully, executive director of the National Assn. of Police Organizations. “If any officer makes just one misstep--not giving a suspect a Miranda warning because he in good faith believes that the suspect is not yet in custody--the incriminating statement is thrown out and the suspect goes free.”

The warnings need be given only when police have control over a suspect.

Santa Monica City Atty. Marsha Moutrie said that Monday’s decision will force police to curtail their questioning.

“I think it means the interrogation practices will be modified. . . . The policies [on questioning suspects] will have to be reviewed,” she said.

In dissent, Justice Scalia accused his colleagues of “judicial arrogance.” Monday’s ruling is not just “a reaffirmation of Miranda, but a radical revision” that gives it a firm constitutional status, he said. Justice Clarence Thomas agreed.

Professor Cassell took the defeat with equanimity. “You win some, you lose some,” he said. “I guess I’m most disappointed that they didn’t even discuss the cost of Miranda, the fact that dangerous criminals can go free.”

But the court is not finished with the questions of how to apply the Miranda rules.

It announced Monday that it would take up a Texas case to decide whether a suspect who invokes his right to a lawyer in one case can later be questioned by police in an entirely different matter (Texas vs. Cobb, 99-1702).

Meanwhile, the court overturned an appeals court decision upholding an Alabama law that allowed students to lead prayers at assemblies, graduations and other school events. In a one-line order, the justices told the court to reexamine the issue in light of their ruling last week striking down student-led prayers in a Texas school district (Chandler vs. Siegelman, 99-935).