Miranda rights
The Supreme Court is once again trying to clarify what the long-established Miranda rights require the police to do, with the justices on Wednesday agreeing to decide whether officers can interrogate a suspect who said he understood his rights but didn’t invoke them.
The high court agreed to hear an appeal from Michigan prosecutors who had their conviction of Van Chester Thompkins thrown out by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals because police kept talking to Thompkins after reading him his rights—despite Thompkins not verbally agreeing to invoke or withdraw his Miranda rights.
Thompkins was arrested for murder in 2001 and interrogated by police for three hours. At the beginning, Thompkins was read his Miranda rights and said he understood.
The officers in the room said Thompkins said little during the interrogation, occasionally answering “yes,” “no,” “I don’t know,” nodding his head and making eye contact as his responses. But when one of the officers asked him if he prayed for forgiveness for “shooting that boy down,” Thompkins said, “Yes.”
He was convicted, but on appeal he wanted that statement thrown out because he said he invoked his Miranda rights by being uncommunicative with the interrogating officers.
The Cincinnati-based appeals court agreed and threw out his confession and conviction.
“Thompkins’ persistent silence for nearly three hours in response to questioning and repeated invitations to tell his side of the story offered a clear and unequivocal message to the officers: Thompkins did not wish to wave his rights,” the court said.
Michigan prosecutors said that would be a new addition to Miranda rights, and they want the Supreme Court to reinstate Thompkins’ conviction.
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For Michael Ignatieff, September has been the cruellest month, and can’t end soon enough. But the potentially fatal political wounds he has suffered this month are entirely self-inflicted.
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