Post by KC on Dec 29, 2006 23:49:35 GMT -5
Frederick William Asper last week heard some of the most famous words engrained in the public’s consciousness over the last two generations:
“You have the right to remain silent.”
Asper was read his Miranda rights after his arrest in the second of two southern Blair County vehicle chases. He didn’t have to answer questions from police.
“Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”
Asper spoke to Martinsburg police. He said he recently had returned from Kentucky and was the driver of a vehicle stolen from that state. He also admitted to fleeing from the officer trying to stop him, court documents state.
Asper later invoked his right to remain silent. He said he wouldn’t answer questions that Magisterial District Judge Craig E. Ormsby asked for a bail questionnaire.
“My attorney advised me to decline to answer,” Asper said.
Asper knew his rights of self-incrimination and right to counsel. That might not have been the case 40 years ago.
The Miranda warning today commonly is heard on the streets of America, in movie theaters and on television.
The warning was created after the June 1966 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Miranda v. Arizona, dealing with the admissibility of statements made during “custodial interrogations.”
Protections of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments were at stake in the case. The Fifth Amendment protects against self-incrimination, while the Sixth Amendment gives a person the right to counsel.
The ruling was hailed as a victory for citizens’ rights and viewed as a victory for criminals. A constitutional law professor, an area defense attorney and police, however, say the high court’s ruling protects police and citizens.
The true proof of the success of the ruling is that the Miranda warning is an accepted part of police procedure, said Bruce A. Antkowiak, assistant professor at the Duquesne University School of Law.
But there still are public misconceptions about what Miranda means.
“The people’s rights are protected under Miranda v. Arizona, but there’s still a lot of judicial interpretation of whether a person is actually in custody [before Miranda takes effect],” Ebensburg defense attorney David L. Beyer said.
Miranda also took center stage two weeks ago as an Armstrong County judge tossed out the alleged confession of a woman arrested for cutting a fetus from another woman’s womb. The judge ruled that state police didn’t have enough evidence to take Peggy Jo Conner into custody.
State police said they read Conner her Miranda rights three times before she gave her statement. Conner testified that she didn’t feel she was free to go until she gave her final statement and that troopers told her if she wasn’t guilty, she didn’t need an attorney.
Armstrong County District Attorney Scott Andreassi said he has other evidence, including an apparently blood-covered crowbar, to continue his prosecution.
Landmark case
Miranda v. Arizona came about because of the 1963 arrest of Ernesto Miranda in Phoenix.
Miranda was picked out of a photo lineup by an alleged rape and kidnapping victim. After his arrest, Miranda confessed to the crimes. The officers hadn’t informed Miranda of his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights.
His statement said he was aware of his constitutional right against self-incrimination. An attorney was not present during questioning.
Miranda was found guilty and sentenced to 40 to 60 years in prison.
Before Miranda, courts looked at the totality of the circumstances of each case to determine whether a confession was voluntary, Antkowiak said.
“The concern was the reliability of the confession. The courts have always realized that there are few things in the prosecution more important — or I should say, more devastating — to a defendant than having the prosecution present to a jury his own words confessing to a crime,” said Antkowiak, a former assistant U.S. attorney and defense attorney.
Miranda appealed to the Arizona Supreme Court, which upheld his conviction. Miranda’s case then went to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The highest court in the land overturned the Arizona ruling by a 5-4 vote.
Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote the landmark opinion.
“The principles announced today deal with the protection which must be given to the privilege against self-incrimination when the individual is first subjected to police interrogation while in custody at the station or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way,” Warren wrote.
It’s the system created that made Miranda such an important case, to the point in which Congress in 1968 tried to sidestep the majority justices’ intent through a national crimes law.
The Miranda practice
A Miranda warning takes effect after a person is in “custodial interrogation,” either when an arrest occurs or when a “reasonable person” would feel their freedom had been restricted in any significant way.
“Miranda warnings do not have to be given every time a police officer talks to a citizen. That is just a first-class myth,” Antkowiak said.
Logan Township police have a written policy on interviews and interrogations.
“It is the policy of the Logan Township Police Department that all officers understand and follow this policy in order to observe due process rights of suspects and to guard against any charges of police coercion or intimidation during interrogation,” the policy states.
Noncustodial situations in which Miranda is not required include investigatory stop and frisk; questioning during a routine traffic stop, even DUI stops until a custodial interrogation begins; and when information or statements are made spontaneously, voluntarily and without prompting by police.
“Was a person in custody? Were they free to leave? That’s where there are problems,” Beyer said. “There are situations when police officers start questioning a person in their home. One officer is standing by the door, another by the exit. Is that person in custody? I say that clearly you are, but the courts haven’t always seen it that way. This is the problem with Miranda; the gray areas cause problems for defense attorneys but, all in all, Miranda works.”
When in doubt, the warning should be given, but “it is dangerous and damaging” to give Miranda warnings when they are not required, Logan’s policy states.
“If you give the warning in a circumstance where it’s not required, the person may take it the wrong way and stop talking,” Logan Police Chief Ron Heller said.
Township officers are given a Miranda warning card to read to suspects. They are not permitted to ad lib the warning or recite it from memory.
“Otherwise, they can’t testify to what they actually said in the warning to a suspect,” Heller said.
Another public myth about Miranda is that if the warning is not given, the arrest is no good and the case must to be thrown out, Antkowiak said.
“If the police do not want to interrogate someone, if they arrest someone and really don’t want to talk to them about what happened — they know what happened — it’s a case where they’re perfectly willing to prosecute the case without any kind of statement from the guy, they don’t have to give Miranda warnings,” he said.
Courts since Miranda
Miranda is a constitutional principle that Congress can’t overturn with its own law, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice William Rehnquist ruled.
In a 1968 crime bill, Congress outlined its own Miranda principles as to whether a confession was voluntary and admissible in court. A Miranda warning was one of several factors courts need to consider.
An error in any of the four steps approved by Congress didn’t necessarily mean the confession should be tossed out.
“During the time I was an assistant U.S. attorney, I never knew of any federal prosecutor who brought it up in court,” Antkowiak said.
The provision was used in Dickerson v. U.S., a 2000 case before the Supreme Court. Dickerson claimed that he was not read his Miranda rights in a timely manner during a bank robbery investigation.
Police weren’t allowed to search Dickerson’s apartment, but officers saw a large amount of money while there. He submitted to voluntary questioning but confessed after he was told police received a search warrant for his apartment.
A U.S. District Court agreed with Dickerson and tossed out the confession and evidence, but the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals used the 1968 law to overturn the lower court ruling.
The Reinquist ruling stated that there is no justification for overturning Miranda.
Four years after Dickerson, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in U.S. v. Patane that evidence obtained from information received in an improper interview is admissible in court, Antkowiak said.
Pennsylvania courts take Miranda one step further than the federal courts with the “Massachusetts Rule.”
Even if a judge rules that a confession may be used at trial, the jury can make its own determination whether the confession was voluntary without coercion, Antkowiak said.
Miranda will continue to be an accepted legal doctrine, but “exclusionary rule” issues will be where changes occur in the interpretation of the 40-year-old ruling, both in the federal and Pennsylvania courts, Antkowiak said.
The Pennsylvania Superior Court has accepted the Patane doctrine of evidence admissibility, but it has never been considered by the state Supreme Court, which traditionally has sided with the rights of private citizens under Article I, Sections 8 and 9 of the state Constitution.
www.altoonamirror.com/News/articles.asp?articleID=6789
“You have the right to remain silent.”
Asper was read his Miranda rights after his arrest in the second of two southern Blair County vehicle chases. He didn’t have to answer questions from police.
“Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”
Asper spoke to Martinsburg police. He said he recently had returned from Kentucky and was the driver of a vehicle stolen from that state. He also admitted to fleeing from the officer trying to stop him, court documents state.
Asper later invoked his right to remain silent. He said he wouldn’t answer questions that Magisterial District Judge Craig E. Ormsby asked for a bail questionnaire.
“My attorney advised me to decline to answer,” Asper said.
Asper knew his rights of self-incrimination and right to counsel. That might not have been the case 40 years ago.
The Miranda warning today commonly is heard on the streets of America, in movie theaters and on television.
The warning was created after the June 1966 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Miranda v. Arizona, dealing with the admissibility of statements made during “custodial interrogations.”
Protections of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments were at stake in the case. The Fifth Amendment protects against self-incrimination, while the Sixth Amendment gives a person the right to counsel.
The ruling was hailed as a victory for citizens’ rights and viewed as a victory for criminals. A constitutional law professor, an area defense attorney and police, however, say the high court’s ruling protects police and citizens.
The true proof of the success of the ruling is that the Miranda warning is an accepted part of police procedure, said Bruce A. Antkowiak, assistant professor at the Duquesne University School of Law.
But there still are public misconceptions about what Miranda means.
“The people’s rights are protected under Miranda v. Arizona, but there’s still a lot of judicial interpretation of whether a person is actually in custody [before Miranda takes effect],” Ebensburg defense attorney David L. Beyer said.
Miranda also took center stage two weeks ago as an Armstrong County judge tossed out the alleged confession of a woman arrested for cutting a fetus from another woman’s womb. The judge ruled that state police didn’t have enough evidence to take Peggy Jo Conner into custody.
State police said they read Conner her Miranda rights three times before she gave her statement. Conner testified that she didn’t feel she was free to go until she gave her final statement and that troopers told her if she wasn’t guilty, she didn’t need an attorney.
Armstrong County District Attorney Scott Andreassi said he has other evidence, including an apparently blood-covered crowbar, to continue his prosecution.
Landmark case
Miranda v. Arizona came about because of the 1963 arrest of Ernesto Miranda in Phoenix.
Miranda was picked out of a photo lineup by an alleged rape and kidnapping victim. After his arrest, Miranda confessed to the crimes. The officers hadn’t informed Miranda of his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights.
His statement said he was aware of his constitutional right against self-incrimination. An attorney was not present during questioning.
Miranda was found guilty and sentenced to 40 to 60 years in prison.
Before Miranda, courts looked at the totality of the circumstances of each case to determine whether a confession was voluntary, Antkowiak said.
“The concern was the reliability of the confession. The courts have always realized that there are few things in the prosecution more important — or I should say, more devastating — to a defendant than having the prosecution present to a jury his own words confessing to a crime,” said Antkowiak, a former assistant U.S. attorney and defense attorney.
Miranda appealed to the Arizona Supreme Court, which upheld his conviction. Miranda’s case then went to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The highest court in the land overturned the Arizona ruling by a 5-4 vote.
Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote the landmark opinion.
“The principles announced today deal with the protection which must be given to the privilege against self-incrimination when the individual is first subjected to police interrogation while in custody at the station or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way,” Warren wrote.
It’s the system created that made Miranda such an important case, to the point in which Congress in 1968 tried to sidestep the majority justices’ intent through a national crimes law.
The Miranda practice
A Miranda warning takes effect after a person is in “custodial interrogation,” either when an arrest occurs or when a “reasonable person” would feel their freedom had been restricted in any significant way.
“Miranda warnings do not have to be given every time a police officer talks to a citizen. That is just a first-class myth,” Antkowiak said.
Logan Township police have a written policy on interviews and interrogations.
“It is the policy of the Logan Township Police Department that all officers understand and follow this policy in order to observe due process rights of suspects and to guard against any charges of police coercion or intimidation during interrogation,” the policy states.
Noncustodial situations in which Miranda is not required include investigatory stop and frisk; questioning during a routine traffic stop, even DUI stops until a custodial interrogation begins; and when information or statements are made spontaneously, voluntarily and without prompting by police.
“Was a person in custody? Were they free to leave? That’s where there are problems,” Beyer said. “There are situations when police officers start questioning a person in their home. One officer is standing by the door, another by the exit. Is that person in custody? I say that clearly you are, but the courts haven’t always seen it that way. This is the problem with Miranda; the gray areas cause problems for defense attorneys but, all in all, Miranda works.”
When in doubt, the warning should be given, but “it is dangerous and damaging” to give Miranda warnings when they are not required, Logan’s policy states.
“If you give the warning in a circumstance where it’s not required, the person may take it the wrong way and stop talking,” Logan Police Chief Ron Heller said.
Township officers are given a Miranda warning card to read to suspects. They are not permitted to ad lib the warning or recite it from memory.
“Otherwise, they can’t testify to what they actually said in the warning to a suspect,” Heller said.
Another public myth about Miranda is that if the warning is not given, the arrest is no good and the case must to be thrown out, Antkowiak said.
“If the police do not want to interrogate someone, if they arrest someone and really don’t want to talk to them about what happened — they know what happened — it’s a case where they’re perfectly willing to prosecute the case without any kind of statement from the guy, they don’t have to give Miranda warnings,” he said.
Courts since Miranda
Miranda is a constitutional principle that Congress can’t overturn with its own law, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice William Rehnquist ruled.
In a 1968 crime bill, Congress outlined its own Miranda principles as to whether a confession was voluntary and admissible in court. A Miranda warning was one of several factors courts need to consider.
An error in any of the four steps approved by Congress didn’t necessarily mean the confession should be tossed out.
“During the time I was an assistant U.S. attorney, I never knew of any federal prosecutor who brought it up in court,” Antkowiak said.
The provision was used in Dickerson v. U.S., a 2000 case before the Supreme Court. Dickerson claimed that he was not read his Miranda rights in a timely manner during a bank robbery investigation.
Police weren’t allowed to search Dickerson’s apartment, but officers saw a large amount of money while there. He submitted to voluntary questioning but confessed after he was told police received a search warrant for his apartment.
A U.S. District Court agreed with Dickerson and tossed out the confession and evidence, but the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals used the 1968 law to overturn the lower court ruling.
The Reinquist ruling stated that there is no justification for overturning Miranda.
Four years after Dickerson, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in U.S. v. Patane that evidence obtained from information received in an improper interview is admissible in court, Antkowiak said.
Pennsylvania courts take Miranda one step further than the federal courts with the “Massachusetts Rule.”
Even if a judge rules that a confession may be used at trial, the jury can make its own determination whether the confession was voluntary without coercion, Antkowiak said.
Miranda will continue to be an accepted legal doctrine, but “exclusionary rule” issues will be where changes occur in the interpretation of the 40-year-old ruling, both in the federal and Pennsylvania courts, Antkowiak said.
The Pennsylvania Superior Court has accepted the Patane doctrine of evidence admissibility, but it has never been considered by the state Supreme Court, which traditionally has sided with the rights of private citizens under Article I, Sections 8 and 9 of the state Constitution.
www.altoonamirror.com/News/articles.asp?articleID=6789