Police Are Rebuked on Miranda

In a ruling laced with words like “misconduct” and “unconscionable,” the California Supreme Court made it clear Monday that it would no longer tolerate the practice of some California police agencies of deliberately ignoring a suspect’s right to remain silent.

In doing so, the justices overturned the conviction of a Tulare County man who had been convicted of strangling to death a 69-year-old man who had given him a home.

The defendant confessed, but only after being “badgered” by a detective even after he had asked for a lawyer nine times, the court said. Police not only denied the 18-year-old suspect, Kenneth Ray Neal, access to a lawyer, they locked him up overnight without food, water or a toilet until he asked to speak to a detective and confessed, the justices wrote.

The detective later testified that a supervisor had instructed him to ignore requests for lawyers in hope of getting confessions.

During the 1990s, a number of California police departments began training officers to ignore suspects’ requests for lawyers and to continue interrogations in at least some cases. Some departments, including the Los Angeles Police Department, changed their policies in the last few years after losing lawsuits, but an undetermined number have continued.

That practice violates a person’s rights under the U.S. Supreme Court’s Miranda decision. The Miranda rule requires officers to tell people who have been arrested that they have the rights to remain silent and to have an attorney. It prohibits interrogating a suspect who asks for a lawyer until the lawyer is present.

The failure to comply with Miranda means prosecutors cannot directly use a defendant’s statements in court. But those statements can still be used for other purposes. Because of that, many police agencies told detectives to go ahead with interrogations in some cases, gambling that the questioning would yield useful information despite the Miranda rules.In Neal’s case, a trial judge allowed the jury to hear his confession on the grounds that he had voluntarily asked to talk with a detective. Neal was then convicted of murdering Donald Collins by choking him with an electrical cord in Collins’ home.

Two lower courts upheld Neal’s conviction, but the state’s highest court disagreed unanimously even though the justices said there was sufficient evidence to prove his guilt. The confession cannot be used in any fashion in California courts, the court ruled.

The consequence of the officer’s misconduct -- “the absolute inability to introduce the confessions at trial -- is severe, but is intended to deter other officers from engaging in misconduct of this sort in the future,” Chief Justice Ronald M. George wrote for the court.

The deliberate violation of Miranda was not confined to Tulare County, the justices noted, and, “worse yet, has not been without widespread official encouragement.”

In a separate opinion, Justice Marvin R. Baxter, one of the court’s most conservative justices, said police training to find ways around the Miranda rules is “unconscionable.”

“Our community should never be subjected to cynical efforts by police agencies, or the supervisors they employ, to exploit perceived legal loopholes by encouraging deliberately improper interrogation tactics,” wrote Baxter, who was joined by two other justices. “Such practices tarnish the badge most officers respect and honor.”

The justices appeared particularly concerned that the deliberate violation of Miranda had been encouraged by police brass.

Referring to the testimony of Tulare County Sheriff’s Det. Mario Martin, Baxter wrote: “Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this fiasco is Martin’s admission that he was taught on the job to disregard Miranda in order to obtain statements for use as evidence in criminal cases.”

Justices Ming W. Chin and Carlos R. Moreno concurred with Baxter’s opinion.

In 1998, about a year before Collins was killed, the state high court ruled that, if a defendant decides to testify at his trial, prosecutors can use his earlier statements to contradict his testimony, even if those statements have been taken in violation of Miranda. That ruling followed an earlier decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.

At the time, defense lawyers objected that the ruling would encourage police departments to ignore a suspect’s request for a lawyer.

But Baxter said the 1998 decision was “not founded upon any notion that it is legitimate for the police” to violate Miranda as a matter of policy, Baxter wrote.

Moreover, the court said, statements taken in violation of Miranda still have to be voluntary. Neal’s confession was coerced and cannot be used for any purpose, the justices ruled.

Although the court has criticized violations of Miranda in previous cases, it generally has upheld convictions in spite of them. Defense lawyers have complained that the court has been sending mixed messages.

“In this case, I believe the Supreme Court is sending a strong, clear, unmistakable message to police that they need to follow Miranda and be vigilant about the training of officers to follow Miranda,” said UC Berkeley law professor Charles D. Weisselberg, who argued for the defense in the case on behalf of criminal defense lawyers.

Weisselberg, who has studied police training in California, said some departments stopped instructing officers to violate Miranda a couple of years ago because of adverse rulings by other courts.

“But I did not see widespread training of officers” to get them to change their ways, he said. “So the problem is, you have some departments that didn’t get the message to stop.”

Victor J. Morse, who represented Neal on appeal, said the court was telling police in a “powerful” way that they “are required to respect a suspect’s constitutional rights.”

A spokeswoman for Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer offered a similar analysis. “I think the court sent a message that they won’t tolerate police misconduct using coercive techniques to elicit statements in violation of Miranda,” said spokeswoman Hallye Jordan.

Jordan said she doubts there will be an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Lockyer does not condone deliberate violations of Miranda, she said, even though he wanted Neal’s conviction upheld because he considered the evidence of guilt to be overwhelming.

The Tulare County district attorney’s office said it would retry Neal.

In doing so, however, prosecutors will have to present a case without using the statements Neal made to Det. Martin.

When Martin first interrogated Neal, the suspect told him: “I’m ready to go now.” Martin advised Neal of his Miranda rights, but then continued to question him.

Martin accused Neal of lying, telling him, “This is your one chance,” and warning Neal that if he did not cooperate, “the system is going to stick it to you as hard as they can.”

Martin later testified that he continued to interrogate Neal in hopes of obtaining a statement that could be used to contradict him if he took the stand at a trial.

Martin said he was applying “a useful tool” that he had learned from a supervisor and knew to be improper.

When Neal summoned Martin the next morning, the detective again read him his Miranda rights. Neal said he decided to confess because he felt guilty and hoped Martin could help him.

Neal said he had killed Collins after they argued over the television. Neal had wanted to watch MTV or a video, while Collins had wanted to watch the news.

Neal later told the detective that, in the days before the murder, Collins, who was gay, had twice tried to fondle Neal while he was sleeping.

Collins had met Neal at a group home where he lived and where Collins worked as a child-care worker. After Neal left the home, Collins invited him to live with him.