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You shouldn't care. Because not reading someone under arrest the Miranda warning is constitutionally irrelevant in and of itself. It only acquires relevance i

You shouldn't care. Because not reading someone under arrest the Miranda warning is constitutionally irrelevant in and of itself. It only acquires relevance if the government seeks to have the statements admitted at trial. Discussing the similar case of Faisal Shahzad, who attempted to bomb Times Square, Orin Kerr, a law professor who is an expert on the 4th Amendment wrote: "Importantly, though, it would not have violated Shahzad’s constitutional rights to not read him his Miranda rights. A lot of people assume that the police are required to read a suspect his rights when he is arrested. That is, they assume that one of a person’s rights is the right to be read their rights. It often happens that way on Law & Order, but that’s not what the law actually requires. Under Chavez v. Martinez, 538 U.S. 760 (2003), it is lawful for the police to not read a suspect his Miranda rights, interrogate him, and then obtain a statement that would be inadmissible in court. Chavez holds that a person’s constitutional rights are violated only if the prosecution tries to have the statement admitted in court. See id. at 772-73. Indeed, the prosecution is even allowed to admit any physical evidence discovered as a fruit of the statement obtained in violation of Miranda — only the actual statement is excluded. See United States v. Patane, 542 U.S. 630 (2004). So while it may sound weird, it turns out that obtaining a statement outside Miranda but not admitting it in court is lawful." Oops, link: http://www.volokh.com/2010/05/05/shahzad-and-miranda-rights/ http://www.volokh.com/2010/05/05/shahzad-and-miranda-rights/

rayiner 13y ago
It only seems weird if you think of Miranda (and various other procedural protections) as a "gotcha" to hinder police efforts, instead of what it is: a way to keep people ignorant of their 5th amendment rights from incriminating themselves. That's the alpha and the omega of Miranda. It's not a search and seizure protection at all, which is why evidence obtained as a result of a Miranda-less interrogation is nonetheless admissible. Unfortunately, too many people conceive of the 4th and 5th amendment protections entirely as roadblocks to hinder police for the sake of hindering the police, instead of the targeted checks on police behavior that they are. In doing so they read important parts of the amendments (e.g. "unreasonable" or precisely what a protection applies to, or precisely what sorts of activity a protection prohibits) completely out of the text of the Constitution.
- AnthonyMouse 13y ago
  So what's the "public safety exception" about then? We're starting from the position that, absent a public safety concern, the defendant's right to know his rights is greater than the law enforcement interest in not encouraging the defendant to exercise them, and if the cops don't read the Miranda rights then the statements aren't admissible. Now throw in a public safety issue -- the cops have to interrogate this guy or some people could get hurt. Why does that change the result? If the public safety issue is more important than reading the defendant his rights, then it's also more important than allowing the police to use the defendant's statements in court, since we've already decided as between those things which is more important. So the consistent outcome should be for the cops to interrogate the defendant and resolve the public safety issue, but for them not to be able to use any of those statements in court. Is there some non-obvious reason for it to not work that way?
  - rayiner 13y ago
    The public safety exception exists so police don't have to decide, before the fact in a dangerous situation, whether to immediately interrogate the suspect and give up the possibility of using what he says to convict him or to read him his Miranda rights and risk harm to the public.
    - ryguytilidie 13y ago
      What does it take to read someone their Miranda rights? 20 seconds? The dude has been in custody for hours and they simply said he won't be read them at all. It's not a safety issue at all.
      - newbie12 13y ago
        No, Miranda means they don't have to answer questions and they can have a lawyer present.
        statictype 13y ago
chacham15 13y ago
Miranda is very complicated. It generally means that the person cannot be interrogated. The penalty for violating the rule is that anything said is inadmissible. That is an important difference. If, for example, the witness isnt read his Miranda rights but just chooses to say something, that is fair game because he wasnt being interrogated. (Further, this is also a simplification, the full extent of Miranda is complicated, so this is just a perhaps overly broad taste)
cynicalkane 13y ago
The public safety exception seems to be for when a Miranda warning would be impractical: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_warning#Public_safety_exception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_warning#Public_safety_... I'm not sure if having a reasonable opportunity to read someone their rights, then choosing not to, is in the spirit of the public safety exception. Public danger alone can't be the reason, since the whole reason for criminal law in the first place is to protect the public from danger. Interested if an actual lawyer could clarify.
- jwilliams 13y ago
  I think it comes down to the quote in the OP "So while it may sound weird, it turns out that obtaining a statement outside Miranda but not admitting it in court is lawful." Your assuming the motivation is to violate the suspect's rights. It might not be -- there might be a clear and reasonable aim to find out if there are others involved. The authorities probably has a lot of evidence & a strong case without the interrogation. That they want to question the suspect about other parties or networks seems reasonable. It's a tactic, but perhaps their primary motivation isn't to interrogate to get a conviction -- it's to garner a wider net of information. In that case, the Miranda & having the suspect clam up would be a hinderance.
- rhizome 13y ago
  Since this is the first time I can remember hearing of law enforcement announce that Miranda was not given tells me that he's already said something and they're just getting ahead of the cycle by putting the rationale out there.
  - dfc 13y ago
    It seems that your rationale requires that you have heard of a lot of similar cases. Can you recall the other similar cases you have heard of where LEOs did not mention mirandizing the suspect?
    - rhizome 13y ago
      Yes: all of them. That's what makes this one stick out to me.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
tantalor 13y ago
Several other comments contradict you, and indicate that the pre-miranda admissions would be admissible.
lbarrow 13y ago
Being read your Miranda rights also serves as an explicit acknowledgement by the state that you have those rights. Most of the time, this isn't really important, but in this case it would have served a very important purpose. The Bush administration systematically created a legal netherworld for people they captured on suspicion of terrorism -- people usually referred to as "enemy combatants". They weren't arrested per se, so they weren't entitled to a trial, lawyers, or even the basic rights we associate with a criminal trial such as protection against self-incrimination (i.e. the right to remain silent). On the other hand, the administration argued they weren't prisoners of war either, so the Geneva Convention didn't apply to them. By defining enemy combatants in this negative way -- in terms of what they are not -- the Bush administration pushed enemy combatant status into a grey area where no pre-existing legal rules seemed to apply. That's how they argued that torture was legal: they said that laws prohibiting torture only applied to prisoners of war or people charged with crimes, and that because enemy combatants weren't either of those things, they could legally be tortured. If they had read this guy his Miranda rights, the Obama administration would have made it clear that they would treat his future as a police matter and that they were rejecting the enemy combatant framework in this case. They failed to do that, and I think it's a wasted opportunity. (By the way, when justifying drone strikes and the courtroom procedures at Guantanamo Bay, the Obama administration has continued the enemy combatant framework that Bush's lawyers established.)
- mtgx 13y ago
  That's some really twisted mental gymnastics there. Torture is bad, because it's torture. It doesn't matter if you're a criminal or a human-monkey. How can they get away with it for so long? At least they didn't say torture is legal "because he's not a white guy", but their logic here is not that far off from that.
  - pyre 13y ago
    They are also getting away with it because the torture isn't of the "strap electrodes to his genitals" variety, which most people would immediately reject. Stuff like "loud music," "putting a holy book in a toilet," or "make him think he's drowning," don't evoke the same sort of immediate reaction. If the administration were openly performing at "Inquisition" levels of torture, there would be massive public outcry.
VikingCoder 13y ago
> It only acquires relevance if the government seeks to have the statements admitted at trial. Or any evidence that those statements lead them to, if I'm not mistaken.
dreamdu5t 13y ago
This isn't correct. The public safety exemption to Miranda rights DOES allow the results of questioning to be used as evidence. That is what is happening here. This exception stems from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_v._Quarles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_v._Quarles
glesica 13y ago
If it doesn't matter, then why don't they just read him his rights? If reading the rights is just a formality, then why all the effort and trouble to avoid doing it? The problem really isn't this case specifically, the problem is what this says about the attitude of the government toward the rights of people who are accused of crimes. The government seems to be sliding toward the position that accused people do not have rights, and this is troubling. Basically, it is an important to ask whether the government should be allowed to have whatever it is that the government believes it is gaining by not reading the suspect his rights in this case.
- dllthomas 13y ago
  > Basically, it is an important to ask whether the government should be allowed to have whatever it is that the government believes it is gaining by not reading the suspect his rights in this case. Supposedly, the government believes it is gaining "no bombs more bombs exploding people in Boston" as they get the opportunity to evacuate and/or defuse, if there are any more bombs in the first place. I don't think we should deprive them of that, precisely...

rayiner 13y ago

It only seems weird if you think of Miranda (and various other procedural protections) as a "gotcha" to hinder police efforts, instead of what it is: a way to keep people ignorant of their 5th amendment rights from incriminating themselves. That's the alpha and the omega of Miranda. It's not a search and seizure protection at all, which is why evidence obtained as a result of a Miranda-less interrogation is nonetheless admissible. Unfortunately, too many people conceive of the 4th and 5th amendment protections entirely as roadblocks to hinder police for the sake of hindering the police, instead of the targeted checks on police behavior that they are. In doing so they read important parts of the amendments (e.g. "unreasonable" or precisely what a protection applies to, or precisely what sorts of activity a protection prohibits) completely out of the text of the Constitution.

AnthonyMouse 13y ago
So what's the "public safety exception" about then? We're starting from the position that, absent a public safety concern, the defendant's right to know his rights is greater than the law enforcement interest in not encouraging the defendant to exercise them, and if the cops don't read the Miranda rights then the statements aren't admissible. Now throw in a public safety issue -- the cops have to interrogate this guy or some people could get hurt. Why does that change the result? If the public safety issue is more important than reading the defendant his rights, then it's also more important than allowing the police to use the defendant's statements in court, since we've already decided as between those things which is more important. So the consistent outcome should be for the cops to interrogate the defendant and resolve the public safety issue, but for them not to be able to use any of those statements in court. Is there some non-obvious reason for it to not work that way?
- rayiner 13y ago
  The public safety exception exists so police don't have to decide, before the fact in a dangerous situation, whether to immediately interrogate the suspect and give up the possibility of using what he says to convict him or to read him his Miranda rights and risk harm to the public.
  - ryguytilidie 13y ago
    What does it take to read someone their Miranda rights? 20 seconds? The dude has been in custody for hours and they simply said he won't be read them at all. It's not a safety issue at all.
    - newbie12 13y ago
      No, Miranda means they don't have to answer questions and they can have a lawyer present.
      - statictype 13y ago

chacham15 13y ago

Miranda is very complicated. It generally means that the person cannot be interrogated. The penalty for violating the rule is that anything said is inadmissible. That is an important difference. If, for example, the witness isnt read his Miranda rights but just chooses to say something, that is fair game because he wasnt being interrogated. (Further, this is also a simplification, the full extent of Miranda is complicated, so this is just a perhaps overly broad taste)

cynicalkane 13y ago

The public safety exception seems to be for when a Miranda warning would be impractical: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_warning#Public_safety_exception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_warning#Public_safety_... I'm not sure if having a reasonable opportunity to read someone their rights, then choosing not to, is in the spirit of the public safety exception. Public danger alone can't be the reason, since the whole reason for criminal law in the first place is to protect the public from danger. Interested if an actual lawyer could clarify.

jwilliams 13y ago
I think it comes down to the quote in the OP "So while it may sound weird, it turns out that obtaining a statement outside Miranda but not admitting it in court is lawful." Your assuming the motivation is to violate the suspect's rights. It might not be -- there might be a clear and reasonable aim to find out if there are others involved. The authorities probably has a lot of evidence & a strong case without the interrogation. That they want to question the suspect about other parties or networks seems reasonable. It's a tactic, but perhaps their primary motivation isn't to interrogate to get a conviction -- it's to garner a wider net of information. In that case, the Miranda & having the suspect clam up would be a hinderance.
rhizome 13y ago
Since this is the first time I can remember hearing of law enforcement announce that Miranda was not given tells me that he's already said something and they're just getting ahead of the cycle by putting the rationale out there.
- dfc 13y ago
  It seems that your rationale requires that you have heard of a lot of similar cases. Can you recall the other similar cases you have heard of where LEOs did not mention mirandizing the suspect?
  - rhizome 13y ago
    Yes: all of them. That's what makes this one stick out to me.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

tantalor 13y ago

Several other comments contradict you, and indicate that the pre-miranda admissions would be admissible.

lbarrow 13y ago

Being read your Miranda rights also serves as an explicit acknowledgement by the state that you have those rights. Most of the time, this isn't really important, but in this case it would have served a very important purpose. The Bush administration systematically created a legal netherworld for people they captured on suspicion of terrorism -- people usually referred to as "enemy combatants". They weren't arrested per se, so they weren't entitled to a trial, lawyers, or even the basic rights we associate with a criminal trial such as protection against self-incrimination (i.e. the right to remain silent). On the other hand, the administration argued they weren't prisoners of war either, so the Geneva Convention didn't apply to them. By defining enemy combatants in this negative way -- in terms of what they are not -- the Bush administration pushed enemy combatant status into a grey area where no pre-existing legal rules seemed to apply. That's how they argued that torture was legal: they said that laws prohibiting torture only applied to prisoners of war or people charged with crimes, and that because enemy combatants weren't either of those things, they could legally be tortured. If they had read this guy his Miranda rights, the Obama administration would have made it clear that they would treat his future as a police matter and that they were rejecting the enemy combatant framework in this case. They failed to do that, and I think it's a wasted opportunity. (By the way, when justifying drone strikes and the courtroom procedures at Guantanamo Bay, the Obama administration has continued the enemy combatant framework that Bush's lawyers established.)

mtgx 13y ago
That's some really twisted mental gymnastics there. Torture is bad, because it's torture. It doesn't matter if you're a criminal or a human-monkey. How can they get away with it for so long? At least they didn't say torture is legal "because he's not a white guy", but their logic here is not that far off from that.
- pyre 13y ago
  They are also getting away with it because the torture isn't of the "strap electrodes to his genitals" variety, which most people would immediately reject. Stuff like "loud music," "putting a holy book in a toilet," or "make him think he's drowning," don't evoke the same sort of immediate reaction. If the administration were openly performing at "Inquisition" levels of torture, there would be massive public outcry.

VikingCoder 13y ago

> It only acquires relevance if the government seeks to have the statements admitted at trial. Or any evidence that those statements lead them to, if I'm not mistaken.

dreamdu5t 13y ago

This isn't correct. The public safety exemption to Miranda rights DOES allow the results of questioning to be used as evidence. That is what is happening here. This exception stems from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_v._Quarles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_v._Quarles

glesica 13y ago

If it doesn't matter, then why don't they just read him his rights? If reading the rights is just a formality, then why all the effort and trouble to avoid doing it? The problem really isn't this case specifically, the problem is what this says about the attitude of the government toward the rights of people who are accused of crimes. The government seems to be sliding toward the position that accused people do not have rights, and this is troubling. Basically, it is an important to ask whether the government should be allowed to have whatever it is that the government believes it is gaining by not reading the suspect his rights in this case.

dllthomas 13y ago
> Basically, it is an important to ask whether the government should be allowed to have whatever it is that the government believes it is gaining by not reading the suspect his rights in this case. Supposedly, the government believes it is gaining "no bombs more bombs exploding people in Boston" as they get the opportunity to evacuate and/or defuse, if there are any more bombs in the first place. I don't think we should deprive them of that, precisely...