Legal Commentary

Supreme Court Imposes Restrictions on Exercising Miranda Rights

By Jeralyn

The Supreme Court today ruled that suspects must affirmatively state their intent to remain silent and request a lawyer when being questioned by police in order for statements they make to be suppressed. The court was divided 5 to 4. Justice Sotomayor, in a dissent, wrote:

"Criminal suspects must now unambiguously invoke their right to remain silent - which counterintuitively, requires them to speak," she said. "At the same time, suspects will be legally presumed to have waived their rights even if they have given no clear expression of their intent to do so. Those results, in my view, find no basis in Miranda or our subsequent cases and are inconsistent with the fair-trial principles on which those precedents are grounded."

The case is The case is Berghuis v. Thompkins, 08-1470 and the opinion is here.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on June 01, 2010 (boomark / email).