Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Underdog

Criminal Law

: Underdog

Putting a shelf life on Miranda rights.

By Marks & Katz, LLC

How many Supreme Court justices have been interrogated by police? Probably none. How many have asserted their Miranda rights with the police, only to have the police repeatedly come back to them seeking a reversal of the waiver? Probably fewer. How many of them agree with a shelf-life of fourteen days for an assertion of the right to counsel in the face of police interrogators? Seven, including the so-called more liberal wing justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Breyer. Maryland v. Shatzer, _ U.S. (Feb. 24, 2010).   With such an overwhelming majority opinion, Shatzer is likely to have an indelible mark for decades to come, unlike the fourteen-day shelf-life of assertions of the right to counsel in the face of interrogators.   On the one hand, lawyers can try to file pleadings and provide their criminal suspect clients letters that provide the following language suggested by a listserv member (whom I thank deeply):   "I, XXX, hereby assert my Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights to remain silent and to have counsel present at any and all of my interactions with the government or others acting on the government's behalf...continue to full post

Full post as published by Underdog on March 02, 2010 (boomark / email).