…the American Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that police may question a defendant without a lawyer present.
Naturally, the freedom-loving conservatives on the Court saw no worry about the fears of the tyrannical state this time around (in a police powers case? Shocking). Antonin Scalia, well-known as that brilliant jurisprudential mind,1 wrote in his decision that “there is little if any chance that a defendant will be badgered into waiving his right to have counsel present during interrogation.”
To which all I can say is uh-huh.
- You know he’s brilliant because everybody keeps telling you he’s brilliant! [↩]
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When I saw that “little if any chance” line, my reaction was “Scalia’s never been anywhere near an interrogation room in his life, has he?”
I now revise that to “or even seen an episode of Law & Order.”
Because cops are The Good Guys, and there aren’t any bad ones, or inept ones, or ones who take shortcuts. Nope. Sterling princes to a man.
Gah.
Wow.Just wow.Usually do not comment on legal issues, but in this case I just have to. It just seems a little dangerous that Scalia has never read the American Constituion or Bill of Rights, and Miranda Rights because it is legaly required for the ploice to ask a suspect if they want a lawyer. Matter of fact when they do not do so the case usually gets thrown out for legal reasons that even a five year old can grasp.
The sooner that fat prick chokes to death on his own bile, the happier I’ll be.
The saddest thing about Bush’s second term is how much he was able to stack the court. Barring unexpected health issues (or hunting trips with Dick Cheney) Scalia and Stevens are Obama’s best chances to actually change the balance of the court as opposed to maintaining the status quo. And most court watchers have Stevens pegged as holding out for the oldest sitting and longest serving records, which would have him on the court into 2012.
@solid snake: The decision doesn’t allow the cops to skip the Miranda warnings. However, there’s nothing in Miranda saying that the cops can’t read the suspect his rights, and then sit around asking him “When did you stop beating your wife” for three hours in hopes that he’ll crack.
Oh, Jesus fucking Christ, this week just keeps getting more and more horrific, doesn’t it?
I now revise that to “or even seen an episode of Law & Order.”
Which is ironic, given his track record for basing judicial philosophy on network dramas.
You know what makes it suck all the more?
The Obama administration asked them to rule this way:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/23/obama-legal-team-wants-de_n_190852.html
“Look no further than Scalia; people always point to his “judicial brilliance.” But he’s only “brilliant” in the capacity to arrange any given set of circumstances into an argument in favor of what you knew he was in favor of before the circumstances were given to him.”
— Ezra Klein
While I consider myself to be fairly liberal, this doesn’t particularly worry me (although I don’t like it). You still don’t have to say a damn thing, and can clam up until your lawyer arrives. They still have to Mirandize you.
Something I don’t like a lot more than this, is the police ability to lie to you. They can make up all sorts of random shit, or outright lie to you in an effort to elicit information or a confession and it’s absolutely legal.
Sadly, as a mostly law-abiding citizen, I’ve made it my rule never to sat jack shit to the police under any circumstance. The only exceptions are if I call them myself, or I am pulled over for a moving violation – I don’t want to piss the cop off and have them looking for citations to add.
It’s really sad that I feel I need to act this way.
And with this, the likely-hood of me moving to your country increases greatly….again.
*sigh*…where’s that damn change I was promised!
“While I consider myself to be fairly liberal, this doesn’t particularly worry me (although I don’t like it). You still don’t have to say a damn thing, and can clam up until your lawyer arrives. They still have to Mirandize you.”
In theory a person would know that and keep silent. However in real life most people can be pressured into talking, given enough time.
Case in point: The West Memphis 3. Three teenagers were accused of killing and mutilating three young boys. The prosecution had zero hard evidence to tie them to the murder. (They presented Metallica posters as evidence.) Yet all three were convicted because of a confession they made after literally hours of nonstop questioning by police without the presence of a lawyer. The cops were able to do this becuase the suspects were young (two were minors), scared, and didn’t know they could ask for a lawyer or were afraid of looking “guilty”–a fear innocent people often express when they are being questioned by the police.
And this happened when cops were still required to stop an interview if the suspect asked for a lawyer. Imagine if something similar happened tomorrow. At least the lawyers for the West Memphis 3 can argue that the confessions were illegally obtained, but the next wrongfully convicted person won’t be able to.
Dude, they are very concerned about a potential police state. You know, that horrible authoritarian wasteland of taxes and no torture. Of Glenn Beck types occasionally failing to co-opt genuine concerns so that he can fit it into his utterly insane femacamp alarms, meat to libertarians and dogwhistles to religious nutters etc etc.
I can’t wait until a commentator grills Obama for it (as he fucking should be grilled) so he can score a dumbass anti-obama point and ask for more fascism towards mexicans, less rights for gays and boots in the face of brownfolk in the next sentence without any sense of irony whatsoever.
This is scary shit
Crap. There was really no way Obama would be capable of living up to even half of the hopes people had for him, but I was really hoping he would drive the courts back leftwards into at least the vicinity of the center. Oh, well. Sucks to be us these days.
And regarding an earlier post, I believe that Colorado passed what was billed as “Katie’s Law” (after all, with a dead kid’s name attached, it must be good, right?) What this does, is to require anyone arrested for a felony (not convicted, mind) to submit DNA for the express purpose of running it through as many databases as they can access to see if there are any unclaimed crimes out there that they can attach to you. Why stop at finger prints? It’s the same concept, after all.
Sucks to be us.
Justice is a stinky word for the SCOTUS, apparently.
Scalia made some really clueless statements about protecting private information and it came back to bite him when a law school had a class project to dig up everything they could find about him on the internet and sent it to him. Not that this changed his opinion, it only made him angry about this ‘violation of his privacy.’
Much like the ones who supported his nomination, I get the impression that he lives in his own little bubble.
As for “brilliant,” he is. But then again, so is the person who can oppress his countrymen and still keep power by convincing them he’s a benevolent ruler.
It amazes me that people in America don’t know about Miranda when there are people in other COUNTRIES that demand their rights read.
I wonder how much the appealate court judges want to slap them right now considering how likely this is to increase their work.
Mind boggling and unbelievably irresponsible.
This really is going to mess up Law & Order plots, though. How are the prosecutors going to cuss out the cops for not getting the obviously-guilty-but-released-on-a-technicality sleazebag a lawyer if they don’t even HAVE to? Wah wah, my rights are being trampled, but what are tv writers supposed to do now? What will have to happen to furrow Sam Waterston’s beetley brow? Thank God I can’t afford cable, or this shit would really make me puke.
ummm… guys… you can be questioned by police without a lawyer present. That’s *always* been the case. Now, when you say “I want my lawyer, (insert pig-related epithet here).” They must stop questioning until the attorney arrives.
This is basic civics. This ruling just re-enforces what’s always been the case. Way to get around it? Ask to have a lawyer present as soon as your butt hits the seat — then say nothing else until one arrives.
BZZZ WRONG.
Previously: You can be questioned by police without a lawyer present, but once you assert your right to a lawyer traditionally they have to stop.
Now: The ruling pretty explicitly allows police to continue questioning a suspect AFTER he has asserted his right to a lawyer but before the lawyer arrives. Scalia spends half a dozen paragraphs trying to justify this very ruling (and to my mind fails).