Good Rules, Good Arrests

Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Miranda decision in 1966, some of the worst stationhouse abuses of crime suspects have been tamed. Gone, or mostly gone, are the hours of questioning by a tag team of detectives, the sleep deprivation, the isolation from family members and lawyers, all designed to wear down the suspect and get him to confess, whether he committed the crime or not.

But many police officers have long chafed under the Miranda rule, which requires that police formally warn suspects in custody that they have the right to remain silent and to have an attorney present during questioning. In recent years, some police departments, including a few in California, have quietly trained their officers to issue the warning but continue questioning even when the suspect has asked for a lawyer but isn’t smart enough to stay clammed up until his attorney arrives.

State Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles) is wisely trying to stop this patently illegal practice. Her straightforward bill, SB 1211, provides that police officers may not be trained to violate the Miranda rule by continuing to question a suspect who has invoked his right to remain silent or to have an attorney present.

The bill is a no-brainer; if Miranda’s protections against self-incrimination mean anything, police departments must abide by them, not just wink and nod as many have.

SB 1211 handily passed the Senate in May. But as the bill heads to the Assembly floor in coming weeks it faces troubling opposition.

The Miranda ban on questioning has never been an absolute one; courts have created a limited “public safety” exception, allowing an officer to, for example, ask a suspect where his gun is before advising him of his rights. Other rulings have allowed prosecutors to impeach a suspect’s credibility in court by using statements unintentionally gathered by police after the suspect invoked his Miranda rights.

Citing these exceptions, Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer and the California District Attorneys Assn. oppose Romero’s bill on grounds it would further hamstring police inquiry. Supporters of the legislation fear that this opposition could peel off enough moderate Democrats to kill the bill or, failing that, spook Gov. Gray Davis into vetoing it.

On this issue, Lockyer is mistaken. Prosecutors should support the narrow measure for what it is: an affirmation that sound police practice is also constitutional police practice. SB 1211 does nothing more than stop police departments from training officers to do something that courts have already declared to be illegal and that they should have stopped, once and for all, more than 30 years ago.