In a major loss for individual rights vis-a-vis the police, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that prosecutors could use a person’s silence against them in court if it comes before he’s told of his right to remain silent. The prosecutors used the silence of Genovevo Salinas to convict him of a 1992 murder. Because this was a non-custodial interview, the Court ruled that the prosecutors could use his silence even though citizens are allowed to refuse to speak with police. It is of little surprise that the pro-police powers decision was written by Samuel Alito who consistently rules in favor of expanding police powers.
The case began on the morning of December 18, 1992 when two brothers were shot and killed in their Houston home. A neighbor told police that someone fled in a dark-colored car. Police recovered six shotgun shell casings at the scene. Police inteviewed Salinas who was a guest at a party that the victims hosted the night before they were killed. He owned a dark blue car. While this was a noncustodial interview and Salinas answered questions by the police, he stopped answering when a police officer asked whether his shotgun “would match the shells recovered at the scene of the murder.” The record states that, rather than answering “petitioner ‘[l]ooked down at the floor, shuffled his feet, bit his bottom lip, cl[e]nched hishands in his lap, [and] began to tighten up.'” Notably, there was insufficient evidence to charge him with the crime. However, a statement later by another man (who said that Salinas admitted to the killings) led to the charge.
Salinas did not testify at trial, so prosecutors used his silence against him.
In 1976, in Doyle v. Ohio, the Court held that the prosecution may not comment on a suspect’s silence when he was under arrest and had been given Miranda warning. Here Salinas was using his right to remain silent that belongs to every citizen. However, because the police did not move to arrest him, the prosecutors are allowed to achieve the prejudicial impact addressed in Doyle.
The prosecutors also served to undermine the right not to take the stand. In Griffin v. California, the Court ruled that prosecutors could not comment on an individual’s decision not to take the stand and testify. Yet, here the prosecutors succeeded in magnifying the impact of this failure to testify by directing the attention of the jury to his decision to remain silent in the pre-custodial interview.
Of course, now the police need only to ask questions before putting some into custody to use their silence against them. What is particularly troublesome is how subjective this evidence is. To use the silence and demeanor of a suspect on this question is highly prejudicial and equally unreliable. Yet, now the refusal to answer questions (which is your right) can now be used against you. You can imagine how this new rule can be used any time someone wants to speak with a lawyer or a family member. Police can now recount how they did not assist them or volunteer information.
Citizens will now be able to have protected silence only after being placed in custody. Of course you had that right before that point, but silence would now be incriminating. That gives police every incentive to delay custody — an incentive that already exists due to other rules like Miranda.
In his dissent, Justice Breyer stressed the danger:
the need to categorize Salinas’ silence as based on the Fifth Amendment is supported here by the presence, in full force, of the predicament I discussed earlier, namely that of not forcing Salinas to choose between incrimination through speech and incrimination through silence. That need is also supported by the absence of any special reason that the police had to know, with certainty, whether Salinas was, in fact, relying on the Fifth Amendment—such as whether to doubt that there really was a risk of self-incrimination, see Hoffman v. United States, 341 U. S. 479, 486 (1951), or whether to grant immunity, see Kastigar, 406 U. S., at 448. Given these circumstances, Salinas’ silence was “sufficient to put the [government] on notice of an apparent claim of theprivilege.” Quinn, supra, at 164. That being so, for reasons similar to those given in Griffin, the Fifth Amendment bars the evidence of silence admitted against Salinas and mentioned by the prosecutor.
Unfortunately, my prediction that Alito would show an overwhelming bias in favor of police powers has been realized. This ruling will likely open up an entire area of new prosecutorial arguments using silence as evidence of guilt. It is a major blow to the rights of citizens — and a telling addition to the troubling judicial legacy of Alito.
Ironically, I was at CNN in case of a “major” ruling and was telling producers why the media has missed this “sleeper” case which will have sweeping impact on citizens in their relation to police. In my view, it was one of the most significant rulings of the term. (Of course, given the result, it was “significant” in a negative way — the way that the Hindenburg was a “significant” moment for airship travel).
Here is the decision: 12-246_1p24
The only purpose for “their” supreme court is to justify every Treason passed by our “employees” It is their reason for establishing this Treason justifying arm of their government. It all has no standing in Common Law. And why they use “their” supreme treason justifiers court of corporate maritime law. ALL COURTS OF OUR “employees”/government are not courts of the people as set by our founders and found in MY Constitution
Defs. Right to Remain Silent attaches only when arrested. This is why there is mention of the “non-custodial” type of questioning. Had he been arrested, the 5th amendment would attach. This is still SCRAY as well. So much can be interpenetrated from silence alone.
Like my good friend ROBERT FOX is well versed to say, try this out for consideration. At all times I am either under one of two conditions. Either I am under arrest, or I am NOT under arrest. At all times, I have full access to all of my rights. I have the right to speak and the right to not speak. I therefore choose to not speak to you law enforcement officers, according to the 5th Amendment rights I have. (and then stick to that by not talking, even though they will try a myriad of ways to get you to revoke the exercise of that right, by starting to speak again.)
Leave it to a seminarian to get this article out to the masses and also be on the ‘correct’ side!
Shot, stabbed….
What exactly did you expect from a police state that keeps its own cizitens under surveillance – even journalists and soldiers? Why do you keep thinking the United States are any different from Saudi Arabia, China oder the former GDR (that had a secret service called “National Security Department” / “Ministerium fuer Staatssicherheit” fighting enemies of the state by even storing olfactory patterns) ?
When only one freedom right is being limited, terrorists win.
The paranoid western world has already given up on so many freedom rights that they just don’t deserve them any more.
This is the bed you made. So this is the bed you will rest on.
How about not putting yourself in the situation where you need miranda rights said to you. And if they are said to you, you have nothing to hide. Is there something wrong with doing the right thing these days?
How about not putting yourself in the situation where you need miranda rights said to you. And if they are said to you, you have nothing to hide. Is there something wrong with doing the right thing these days?
How many people have been arrested who were not guilty (forgetting those found guilty and later exonerated.)
The right thing is not always the right thing depending on the circumstances.
I used to think the way you do, if you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to hide but I have seen the police, when I have called them about someone harassing me, taking the side of the harasser. When I said to the officer “Please make sure that your report shows that I was the one who called you.” the officer got nasty. “I’ll write what I want to write, you don’t tell me what to do.” I have not seen the report but I would be very surprised if it gave the truth that I was the one who called them. Imagine if this had been about a murder or other heinous crime.
Anonymously Yours:
The Supreme Court set aside Miranda’s conviction, which was tainted by the use of the confession that had been obtained through improper interrogation. The state of Arizona retried him. At the second trial, his confession was not introduced into evidence, but he was convicted again on testimony given by his estranged de facto wife, but only after he sued for custody of their daughter. He was sentenced to 20 to 30 years in prison.
Miranda was paroled in 1972.[4] After his release, he started selling autographed Miranda warning cards for $1.50.Over the next years, Miranda was arrested numerous times for minor driving offenses and eventually lost the privilege to drive a car. He was arrested for the possession of a gun but the charges were dropped. However, because this violated his parole he was sent back to Arizona state prison for another year.
On January 31, 1976, after his release for violating his parole, a violent fight broke out in a bar in Kingman, Arizona. Miranda received a lethal wound from a knife, he was pronounced dead on arrival at Good Samaritan Hospital. Several Miranda cards were found on his person.
I don’t know the author but I’ve also seen it as ” I love my country, it’s the government I’m afraid of. God bless America.”
I will be delighted to answer your questions when they are presented in writing for review by my attorney to assure my efforts are complete and accurate in every detail.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to help the police in this serious matter.
Frank,
Yep….. If I recall… Wasn’t Miranda shot in a Bar?
For your last statement I’ve seen it before…. Can you tell me who originally said it….
The concept of “Miranda rights” was enshrined in U.S. law following the 1966 Miranda v. Arizona Supreme Court decision, which found that the Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights of Ernesto Arturo Miranda had been violated during his arrest and trial for domestic violence. (Miranda was subsequently retried and convicted.)
The Supreme Court did not specify the exact wording to use when informing a suspect of his/her rights. However, the Court did create a set of guidelines that must be followed. The ruling states:
…The person in custody must, prior to interrogation, be clearly informed that he/she has the right to remain silent, and that anything the person says will be used against that person in court; the person must be clearly informed that he/she has the right to consult with an attorney and to have that attorney present during questioning, and that, if he/she is indigent, an attorney will be provided at no cost to represent him/her.
Fast forward from 1966 to 2013, WOW! This opinion hardly made nation news. It certainly is a new legal world as now seen by the Supremes!
“I love my country, it’s the government I’m afraid of.”
If you have to say I am invoking the 5th amendment so that your silence is not held against you it presupposes that everyone knows that this is what they have to say.
(someone had written, sry I cannot quickly find the post, that people don’t care about this kind of thing. I think it is more that they have not heard about it. Absent this post I hadn’t. There is a lot in the ‘news’ that I would be ignorant of without this blog. So much news, so much of it caring more about celebrities and Kate Middleton’s pregnancy, people cannot keep it, even when something important is noted it is often lost within the clatter of all the other crap with which it is surrounded.))
Yep…. And out of the great state of Michigan they did the same thing…. It’s crazy….. Crazy I tell you….
What’s surprising here its a Hispanic and Houston…. At least he made it to trial….. That all…
So, we are at the point now where the term “right” has been redefined as “something that negative consequences can be inflicted on you for doing”. Which, if my dictionary is correct, makes it a synonym for “offence”, or so.