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Monday, December 07, 2009

Courts - "Famous Miranda rights warning could get rewrite" [Updated]

Today the SCOTUS heard oral arguments in the case of Florida v. Powell (08-1175) - see the links and argument preview on the SCOTUSwiki page. The issue in the case: "Must a suspect be expressly advised to his right to counsel during questioning and if so, does the failure to provide this express advice vitiate Miranda v. Arizona?"

Here is the post-argument story this afternoon from the AP, published by USA Today - some quotes:

The Supreme Court on Monday seemed headed toward telling police they have to explicitly warn criminal suspects that their lawyer can be present during any interrogation. * * *

The Florida Supreme Court overturned the conviction on grounds the Tampa police didn't adequately convey to Powell that he was allowed to have a lawyer with him during questioning.

Joseph W. Jacquot, Florida deputy attorney general, argued that the warning given Powell "expresses all the rights required under Miranda."

Justice Stephen Breyer clearly disagreed.

"Aren't you supposed to tell this person, that unlike a grand jury, you have a right to have the lawyer with you during interrogation?" Breyer said. "I mean, it isn't as if that was said in passing in Miranda. They wrote eight paragraphs about it. And I just wonder, where does it say in this warning, you have the right to have the lawyer with you during the interrogation?"

Different courts have came down on different side on what exactly should be said, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said.

"We've got a split of circuit courts and state courts on whether this reasonably conveys or not. Shouldn't that be enough of an ambiguity for us to conclude it can't reasonably convey, if there's this many courts holding that it doesn't?" Justice Sonia Sotomayor said.

[Updated] "Are there two Mirandas?" just posted from SCOTUSblog, by Lyle Denniston, begins:
After all these years, with police and federal agencies routinely giving criminal suspects Miranda warnings (under the 43-year-old Miranda v. Arizona), it seemed Monday as if the law books have a formal notion of what the warnings must be, but, in reality, officers may have their own variations. The Court spent an hour in Florida v. Powell (08-1175) exploring whether the two can — or should — be the same.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on December 7, 2009 04:08 PM
Posted to Courts in general