Because it's been some time since I've bored you all with what I learn in Law School.
First up is Missouri v. Seibert, a case that was heard in the Supreme Court in 2004.
Patrice Seibert's 12-year-old child died in the night due to cerebral palsy. She became worried she would be charged with neglect, as the child was covered in bedsores. She decided to burn the body in a mobile home to make the death look like an accident. She also decided to leave Donald Rector, a mentally handicapped teenager that lived with the family, in the mobile home as well, to avoid the appearance that it looked like the child was unattended. Seibert's son Darian and a friend set fire to the mobile home, and Donald died. The police were alerted to the suspicious actions when Darian had to be treated for burns.
There had been various decisions from the court that had allowed the state to use confessions that were obtained after Miranda warnings had been given, even if accidental confessions were obtained before the Mirana warnings were given (i.e., the Fruit of the Poisonous Tree doctrine did not apply to Miranda. Previous statements that were made in violation of Miranda did not bar the state from introducing subsequent confessions that were made after the Miranda warnings could be properly administered). Because of this, the police decided to consciously withhold telling Mrs. Seibert of her Miranda rights and interrogated her. After a questioning session that lasted almost an hour, she admitted incriminating statements that were evidence she knew about the plot to burn Donald alive. She was given a 20-minute coffee and cigarette break, and then informed of her Miranda rights, and asked if she’d repeat her statements. She did so.
The Supreme Court eventually tossed out this evidence due to the fact that the police conduct purposefully undermined the efficacy of Miranda warnings. They found the statement by Mrs. Seibert to be one long, continuous statement under custodial interrogation, despite the break. Therefore the Miranda warnings did not adequately convey her 5th Amendment right to remain silent, or that her previous statements were unusable by the police due to their purposeful questioning without giving a Miranda warning. What kills me is that she decided to cover up a neglect charge, which would have been a fine, by committing FIRST DEGREE MURDER.
Now Miranda v. Arizona was the case where the Supreme Court came up with the Miranda rule we all know and love ("You have the right to remain silent, you have a right to an attorney"), which is designed to inform suspects of their 5th Amendment rights when they are in a custodial interrogation (before this, many police stations had pamphlets on how to interrogate suspects in rather unscrupulous ways to produce a confession). When the case was first decided, it produced a backlash. Many people were concerned that the Miranda rule would unjustifiably throw out voluntary confessions on a technicality. President Nixon ran on a platform railing against Miranda, and two years after Miranda was decided Congress passed The Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, which effectively overruled Miranda by offering an alternative method to control custodial interrogations. He also appointed Justices Scalia and Rehnquist primarily for their anti-Miranda stance.
However, the court could never rule on this matter, because the Attorney General’s office refused to invoke the 1968 act (also known as § 3501) as a part of their Miranda cases. By exercising prosecutorial discretion, the Executive branch has the ability to nullify some provisions of the law through the failure to prosecute. The court can’t rule on a theory that’s not brought up in the case, and so § 3501 went unused and ignored.
In a 1994 case, Davis v. United States, Justice Scalia argued vehemently in his opinion for someone, ANYONE to bring up § 3501, as he felt the Supreme Court was finally positioned to overturn Miranda. Finally, six years later in 2000, Scalia got his wish with Dickerson v. United States. What was odd about this was that the Department of Justice still refused to make a § 3501 argument, and would not send any lawyers to argue the case, so a law professor was brought in to argue for the State. Scalia, who had been begging and pleading for someone to bring a case so he could finally overturn Miranda, was completely trounced as the Supreme Court decided in a rare 7-2 opinion to uphold Miranda and elevate it to a Constitutional Rule, and ruled that § 3501 was unconstitutional. What’s even MORE bizarre is that Chief Justice Rehnquist, who had been brought in by Nixon for the specific purpose of destroying Miranda, was the one who authored the opinion in support of Miranda.
Justice Scalia was so furious about the way the ruling turned out that he claimed he would not follow the opinion in the future, and that he would still apply the § 3501 test whenever a Miranda issue presented itself. Because rulings by the Supreme Court have the weight of law, this effectively was a Supreme Court Justice saying, “I’m not going to follow the law.” He has since backed down from the position, at least for outward appearances.
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