Anyone who has seen a police show probably has heard these words: “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have a right to talk to a lawyer before answering any questions, and you have the right to have a lawyer present with you while you are answering any questions.”
A Border Patrol agent reads the Miranda rights to a suspect.
During a three-hour police interrogation about a shooting in 2000, suspect Van Chester Thompkins Jr. stayed mostly silent. Because Thompkins never expressly said he would not speak to the police, though, the police did not interpret his actions as exercising his Miranda rights, which would have required an end to the interrogation. The police continued to question Thompkins until he gave a one-word answer they took as a waiver of his Miranda rights, and as a confession. Thompkins was tried and convicted, but appealed his case, saying that his refusal to speak constituted an invocation of his Miranda rights and that the police had violated them.
In a 5-4 decision (PDF, 284KB), the Supreme Court sided with Thompkins’ conviction. Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy said that suspects must invoke the right to remain silent “unambiguously” — they must clearly state their refusal to talk to the police — just as they must clearly state their desire for an attorney, as decided in Davis v. U.S. Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, calling the decision “an unprecedented step away from the ‘high standards of proof for the waiver of constitutional rights’ this Court has long demanded” — one that “ignores the important interests Miranda safeguards.” (You can read more about the case in this analysis on the SCOTUS blog, a privately run site.)
What do you think of the Supreme Court’s decision? And are there laws similar to the Miranda rights in your country?
