High Court to Hear Miranda, Art Cases

The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to review the issue, raised in a Los Angeles-area murder case, of whether juveniles must be warned of their Miranda rights before they are questioned at a police station.

The court also dealt a setback to a West Los Angeles woman who is suing the Austrian government seeking to recover six paintings of Gustav Klimt, which she says were seized from her uncle by the Nazis in 1939.

In all, the justices agreed to hear 10 new cases. However, they took no action on several of the most closely watched appeals, including the dispute from California’s U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals over the language in the Pledge of Allegiance.

In the case of the paintings by Klimt, an Austrian artist who died in 1918, judges in California had cleared Maria Altmann’s suit to go forward in Los Angeles. But the high court said it would hear the Austrian government’s claim that it has a “sovereign immunity” that shields it from foreign lawsuits.

The paintings, estimated to be worth $150 million, are on display in the government-run Austrian Gallery in Vienna. Klimt’s works are considered significant examples of the Art Nouveau style, which was popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

In their appeal, Austrian authorities refer to the paintings as “national treasures and part of the cultural heritage of the Austrian people” that were left to the gallery by Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, a sugar magnate who fled the Nazis and died in Zurich in 1945.

“Stripped to its essentials, this case concerns [the Austrians’] complicity in the looting of the artworks,” responded Altmann’s lawyers.

They say Bloch-Bauer left his entire estate to two nieces and a nephew, only one of whom -- Altmann, age 87 -- is still alive.

The case of Republic of Austria vs. Altmann will not be heard until early next year, and it will not resolve ownership of the paintings. Instead, it will decide only where Altmann’s claim may be heard -- Vienna or Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles County murder case is the fourth for this term that will test how Miranda warnings work in practice.

Generally, police must warn people who are “in custody” for questioning that they have a right to remain silent and to see a lawyer.

However, courts remain divided over what that means.

Officers investigating a 1995 murder at a shopping mall in Santa Fe Springs told the mother of 17-year-old Michael Alvarado that they needed to see the youth. His parents took him to a station house where he was questioned alone for two hours by a sheriff’s deputy.

Based on his statements, Alvarado was convicted of second-degree murder and attempted robbery for his participation in the crime. He is serving a sentence of 15 years to life in prison.

The police maintained, and the California courts agreed, that the deputy did not have to warn Alvarado of his rights since he was not in custody. The interview was voluntary and the youth remained “free to leave,” they said.

But in February, the 9th Circuit disagreed, ruling that the officer should have warned Alvarado of his rights before questioning him.

“We do not believe that a reasonable 17-year-old in Alvarado’s position would have felt at liberty to terminate the interrogation and leave,” said the three-judge panel.

Its opinion relied in part on the age of the defendant and the fact that his parents were barred from the interview room.

If it is not reversed by the Supreme Court, the circuit court’s ruling would give Alvarado a chance for a new trial.

In the past, the Supreme Court has said that the test for “custody” turns on whether the person being questioned feels free to walk away. On the street, for example, a pedestrian who is stopped by an officer may feel free to walk away and refuse to answer questions. By contrast, a person at a station house in the control of the police may not feel that he or she is at liberty to leave.

California prosecutors appealed the decision in Alvarado’s case, arguing that it puts “an unwarranted burden on law enforcement officers.” It creates “an element of uncertainty” as to whether juveniles must be warned of their rights before being questioned by police, they said.

The court is likely to hear the case, Yarborough vs. Alvarado, in late February and hand down a ruling by June.

In another case, Tennessee vs. Hood, the court has agreed to decide whether former students with unpaid state loans may use the federal bankruptcy courts to wipe out their debts.

In recent years, the court has ruled that states and state agencies are immune from most lawsuits in federal court. The Tennessee Student Assistance Corporation says the same logic should shield it from being sued in a federal bankruptcy court.

Pamela Hood, the plaintiff, is trying to wipe out a $4,169 debt in state-backed education loans.