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View Full Version : BREAKING NEWS - Supreme Court throws-out Right to Lawyer during Interrogation Quote




RonPaulCentral
05-27-2009, 06:50 AM
LOL - I am shocked! Can this really be true!? :rolleyes:
Nothing surprises me anymore.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h5yxfTqmBPqbMNsgBYSfLH_WzL3AD98E1DDG0

disorderlyvision
05-27-2009, 06:51 AM
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2009/05/supreme-court-overrules-right-to.php

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website] issued three opinions on Tuesday. In Montejo v. Louisiana [Cornell LII backgrounder; JURIST report], the Court decided 5-4 to overturn [opinion, PDF] its 1986 decision in Michigan v. Jackson [text], which found that the Sixth Amendment required that police cease interrogations after a suspect had invoked his right to counsel, ruling that the Fifth Amendment provides adequate protection. Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia found that under other precedent:

a defendant who does not want to speak to the police without counsel present need only say as much when he is first approached and given the Miranda warnings. At that point, not only must the immediate contact end, but “badgering” by later requests is prohibited. ... [I]t is hard to see why it would not also suffice to protect that same choice after arraignment.

The Court rejected the reasoning of the Supreme Court of Louisiana [official website] that Jackson required defendants to affirmatively assert their right to counsel, and remanded the case to allow Montejo to seek exclusion of inculpatory statements made after a hearing to appoint counsel under the Fifth Amendment protections in United States v. Edwards. Justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote the opinion in Jackson, filed a dissenting opinion to which Justices David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer joined. Breyer also filed separate dissenting opinion.


The Court also ruled [opinion, PDF] 5-4 in Haywood v. Drown [Cornell LII backgrounder; JURIST report] that New York Correction Law § 24 [text], which prevents state trial courts from hearing claims for money damages against prison employees whether based on federal or state law, was a violation of the Constitution's Supremacy Clause. Writing for the majority, Stevens said:
That New York strongly favors a rule shielding correction officers from personal damages liability and substituting the State as the party responsible for compensating individual victims is irrelevant. The State cannot condition its enforcement of federal law on the demand that those individuals whose conduct federal law seeks to regulate must nevertheless escape liability.
Saying that the law "is effectively an immunity statute cloaked in jurisdictional garb", the Court struck down the decision [opinion, PDF] of the Court of Appeals of New York [official website]. Justice Clarence Thomas filed a dissenting opinion, which Chief Justice John Roberts and Scalia joined, and which Justice Samuel Alito joined in part.

Finally, the Court ruled [opinion, PDF] unanimously in Abuelhawa v. U.S [Cornell LII backgrounder; JURIST report] that a defendant who used a cellphone for the misdemeanor purchase of cocaine cannot be charged with a felony for using a "communication facility" to facilitate the distribution of an illegal drug under 21 USC § 843(b) [text]. The Court reasoned that the government's interpretation of "facilitate" exposed a first-time buyer using a phone "to punishment 12 times more severe than a purchase by a recidivist offender and 8 times more severe than the unauthorized possession of a drug used by rapists," and was clearly not in line with Congress' intent, since it conflicts with the classification of the drug sale itself as a misdemeanor.

Elwar
05-27-2009, 07:51 AM
The correct response instead of "I want my lawyer" is..."am I under arrest? No? Ok, have a nice day."

Reason
05-27-2009, 11:37 AM
I am rereading this over and over and it's still kinda hard to understand exactly what the implications are.

devil21
05-27-2009, 01:59 PM
It takes a chunk out of the Miranda rights warning. Cops will stop advising suspects that they can stop answering questions at any time and request a lawyer at any time. Once a suspect requests a lawyer, the cops can continue to question the suspect. Previously, once a suspect asked for a lawyer all questioning was over until the lawyer arrives (whether 10 minutes or 3 days or whatever). Now, cops will keep interrogating you until your lawyer arrives. It is solely on the suspect's shoulders to exercise their 5th amendment right and STFU.

Mesogen
05-27-2009, 02:36 PM
Great. Now they'll have to change all the scripts to Law and Order.

Eric Arthur Blair
05-27-2009, 02:38 PM
That's the way it is in most countries. I was surprised America held out for as long as it did. I got arrested once for 'disrupting the peace', got put in a cell for the night, I was 22 at the time and was shouting at the police 'I want to see my lawyer' when a real snooty police man came up to me and said 'this isn't America, they are called solicitors in Ireland'. I shut up after that and then from a combination of booze and knocks to the head passed out. Lol bad times.

Reason
05-27-2009, 04:16 PM
It takes a chunk out of the Miranda rights warning. Cops will stop advising suspects that they can stop answering questions at any time and request a lawyer at any time. Once a suspect requests a lawyer, the cops can continue to question the suspect. Previously, once a suspect asked for a lawyer all questioning was over until the lawyer arrives (whether 10 minutes or 3 days or whatever). Now, cops will keep interrogating you until your lawyer arrives. It is solely on the suspect's shoulders to exercise their 5th amendment right and STFU.

Hmm if that is indeed an accurate summary I guess it's not really that big of a deal, if people are too stupid to know their rights that's their problem imo.

devil21
05-27-2009, 04:31 PM
Hmm if that is indeed an accurate summary I guess it's not really that big of a deal, if people are too stupid to know their rights that's their problem imo.

I agree to an extent however changing "rights" on the fly never works in favor of the citizens. One of the judge's opinions irks me. Scalia (I think it was) basically stated that too many guilty people go free because of the old Miranda method. Say what? I thought we were "innocent until proven guilty" and that the motto has always been "that it is better for a hundred guilty men to go free than wrongfully convict one innocent man". What happened to all that??? IMO, he just said that our Constitutional rights are starting to get in the way of the prison and judicial complex.

cradle2graveconservative
05-27-2009, 04:46 PM
Edit

Reason
05-27-2009, 06:15 PM
I agree to an extent however changing "rights" on the fly never works in favor of the citizens. One of the judge's opinions irks me. Scalia (I think it was) basically stated that too many guilty people go free because of the old Miranda method. Say what? I thought we were "innocent until proven guilty" and that the motto has always been "that it is better for a hundred guilty men to go free than wrongfully convict one innocent man". What happened to all that??? IMO, he just said that our Constitutional rights are starting to get in the way of the prison and judicial complex.


Sounds like a step in the direction of individual responsibilities to me. I only wish the rest of the country was headed that way. The government shouldn't be forced to hold your hand, ever.

Yeah, there are a few different aspects to this. I agree with both of you.

LATruth
05-27-2009, 08:09 PM
This is not fine, it's another chink in the armor stripped away from the people. Whats next? Sure, it's up to the people to know their rights etc. They don't teach people their rights anymore! Today its this, year it'll be the right to council itself... Personally, I'd like to see more protection on the people, not less.

BeFranklin
05-27-2009, 08:36 PM
Another bad decision. Expect news like this for the next three years. It will keep getting worse as long as the people put up with it. Our system is *completely* different than how the justice system used to be run.

See the comment "this isn't america"? We were known for a country where every citizen had rights, and government was the servant. F* the person that said the government shouldn't hold your hand like their the master.