Can anyone explain what the hell happened w/SCOTUS today?

[ColbertWatcher]

Here is a link http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/05/justice-stevens-reads-police-interrogation-dissent-aloud-from-the-bench/

If someone could explain what the hell happened I'd appreciate it.

Thank you in advance.

[lapfog_1]

1. We should be replacing Scalia with Sotomayor, not Souter. - n/t

[merh]

3. I agree with you on that one.

:thumbsup:

[merh]

2. Do yourself a favor and read the opinion.

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/08pdf/07-1529.pdf

What is happening to the Obama administration is he is being smeared from all directions, the right and the left and the libertarians.

The Montejo ruling is not what it is made out to be and the best way to know what the ruling says is to read it. Also, this case was filed before Obama was elected and the oral arguments before he took office.

I've posted about this in this thread.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5723124

Bottom line is, the Miranda warning is still the same, you have the right to an attorney. The police cannot make you answer their questions if you ask for an attorney.

[solstice]

9. Just curious - If Bush were still pres. would you be defending this?

[polmaven]

11. I would...

Miranda guarantees the right to an attorney and the right to remain silent. It does not guarantee that the police cannot inteerogate, only that you do not have to respond.

I don't car WHO the president is...it isn't ABOUT the president.

[merh]

12. yes

Bush didn't write the opinion. I'm smart that way.

Would it be better that Jackson survived? I suppose that depends on which state you live in, the circuits were split on the interpretation and use of same - that's why SCOTUS decided to hear the pet for cert.

As Scalia explains, Edwards and Peterson provide the protections. The guarantees of the 5th and 6th amendment remain in tact. The accused has the right to remain silent and he/she can ask for a lawyer at any time during questioning and can refuse to answer any questions. Once they ask for an attorney the questioning is to stop. (Actually, the accused can refuse at any time, Edwards was written to discourage the badgering by the cops and Peterson provides safeguards to determine that the waiver was intelligently and voluntarily given.)

All those up in arm seem to overlook what this means for Montejo - poor son-of-a-bitch gets another hearing and further consideration from the Louisiana court and everyone is pissed off. He has another chance to prove that he did not freely and voluntarily write the letter and give the subsequent confession to the cops after he was appointed an attorney. The court did not say - he's guilty now put him to death. What's up with that, don't folks care about the defendant any more?

Although our holding means that the Louisiana Supreme Court correctly rejected Montejo’s claim under Jackson, we think that Montejo should be given an opportunity to contend that his letter of apology should still have been suppressed under the rule of Edwards. If Montejo made a clear assertion of the right to counsel when the officers approached him about accompanying them on the excursion for the murder weapon, then no interrogation should have taken place unless Montejo initiated it. Davis, supra, at 459. Even if Montejo subsequently agreed to waive his rights, that waiver would have been invalid had it followed an “unequivocal election of the right,” Cobb, 532 U. S., at 176 (Kennedy, J., concurring).

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/08pdf/07-1529.pdf

And did you even look at the facts of the case? Montejo confessed on his own, he waived his rights and after questioning by the cops he confessed. (They didn't suspect him of the murder, they thought he was an accomplice until he kept changing his story and eventually confessed.) That initial confession is not the subject of the appeal, he doesn't challenge that confession.

The appeal is based on a letter of apology that Montejo wrote during questioning after his preliminary hearing and the appointment of an attorney (before the attorney had the chance to met with his client). According to the police version, Montejo freely waived his right to his attorney and cooperated with them and wrote the letter to the family. The letter of apology was admitted over defense objection.

SCOTUS ruled

Montejo understandably did not pursue an Edwards objection, because Jackson served as the Sixth Amendment analogy to Edwards and offered broader protections. Our decision today, overruling Jackson, changes the legal landscape and does so in part based on the protections already provided by Edwards. Thus we think that a remand is appropriate so that Montejo can pursue this alternative avenue for relief. Montejo may also seek on remand to press any claim he might have that his Sixth Amendment waiver was not knowing and voluntary, e.g., his argument that the waiver was invalid because it was based on misrepresentations by police as to whether he had been appointed a lawyer, cf. Moran, 475 U. S., at 428–429. These matters have heightened importance in light of our opinion today.

We do not venture to resolve these issues ourselves, not only because we are a court of final review, “not of first view,” Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U. S. 709 , n. 7 (2005), but also because the relevant facts remain unclear. Montejo and the police gave inconsistent testimony about exactly what took place on the afternoon of September 10, 2002, and the Louisiana Supreme Court did not make an explicit credibility determination. Moreover, Montejo’s testimony came not at the suppression hearing, but rather only at trial, and we are unsure whether under state law that testimony came too late to affect the propriety of the admission of the evidence. These matters are best left for resolution on remand.

I don't like Scalia, not just because a good many of his opinions suck, but because of who he is, the disrespect he has shown the court and his position. But that being said, his opinion in the case does not disturb me - I find it amazing that they gave the defendant another chance and pointed his counsel in the direction as to what to pursue before the lower court.

I see the battle between him and Stevens to be about egos, Stevens wrote Michigan v. Jackson and it is rare for the court to overturn a decision of a justice that is still on the bench (it's disrespectful as all hell)

So yes, even if Bush was in office, I'd feel the same way. I hate to agree with Scalia but he does have his moments. His published dissent in Sorich actually offers hope to folks like Siegelman. That's the remarkable thing about the justice system of ours - adversaries can agree, can find they are on the same side - the side of justice - Montejo's been offered that justice, some folks just don't like how the court got there.

[elleng]

4. NY Times article:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday made it easier for the police and prosecutors to question suspects, lifting some restrictions on when defendants can be interrogated without their lawyers present.

In a 5-to-4 ruling, the court overturned its 1986 opinion in a Michigan case, which forbade the police from interrogating a defendant once he invoked his right to counsel at an arraignment or a similar proceeding.

That 1986 ruling has not only proved “unworkable,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority, but its “marginal benefits are dwarfed by its substantial costs” in that some guilty defendants go free. Justice Scalia was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.

In an angry dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote the 1986 decision, said that contrary to the majority’s assertion, that decision protected “a fundamental right that the court now dishonors.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/us/27scotus.html?ref=politics

[ColbertWatcher]

6. Thank you for your explanation and lack of editorialism. n/t

[elleng]

7. You're welcome.

:hi:

[sendero]

8. It's amazing how readily...

... these "strict constructionists" will throw the constitution under the bus.

[elleng]

10. They've been 'planning' to deep-six Miranda

for a long time.

[merh]

14. They didn't deep six Miranda - they won't deep six miranda

I wish people would stop relying on the damned media and read the opinion. They specifically state:

It is worth emphasizing first what is not in dispute or at stake here. Under our precedents, once the adversary judicial process has been initiated, the Sixth Amendment guarantees a defendant the right to have counsel present at all “critical” stages of the criminal proceedings. United States v. Wade, 388 U. S. 218, 227–228 (1967) ; Powell v. Alabama, 287 U. S. 45, 57 (1932) . Interrogation by the State is such a stage. Massiah v. United States, 377 U. S. 201, 204–205 (1964) ; see also United States v. Henry, 447 U. S. 264, 274 (1980)

See the discussion up thread
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5733772&mesg_id=5734667

[elleng]

16. I know what they've done, and I believe I know what they intend to do.

I'm an attorney, and I've followed the matter closely.

They eat away around the edges at the precedent they're interested in 'attacking,' as in definitions of things like 'critical stages,' thus minimizing the circumstances of its applicability, and also conflating 5th and 6th Amendment rights. The following is somewhat lengthy, but far from complete. Please check the references for more.


Interrogations and the Guiding Hand of Counsel: Montejo, Ventris, and the Sixth Amendment's Continued Vitality
INTRODUCTION

The Supreme Court recently heard arguments in two cases that implicate the Sixth Amendment right to counsel: Montejo v. Louisiana<1> and Kansas v. Ventris.<2> Although each case presented a relatively narrow Sixth Amendment right to counsel issue, the subtext of both oral arguments suggests that the Court is rethinking the scope of the Sixth Amendment core values themselves. Since holding that the Fifth Amendment provides for a right to counsel in custodial interrogations, the Court has conflated the Fifth Amendment<3> prophylactic rule with the Sixth Amendment right to counsel.<4> The resulting jurisprudential disorder has prompted several Justices to consider a wholesale collapse of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel at interrogations into the Fifth Amendment Miranda<5> framework.<6> This short essay explains why the Court should resist the temptation to do so.

I. Confusing the Issue: The Court's Conflation of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments

The Fifth Amendment right to counsel recognized in Miranda is a prophylactic guarantee designed to protect an individual's right against "compelled self-incrimination."<7> The Miranda/Edwards<8> rule requires the police to inform an individual in custody that she has the right to an attorney and the right to remain silent. It further provides that once an individual asks for counsel during a custodial interrogation, the police should not ask any more questions. In these ways, the Miranda/Edwards rule attempts to stop individuals from unwittingly waiving their Fifth Amendment rights—its goal is not only to prevent self-incrimination, but also to ensure the voluntariness of any self-incriminating statements. The rule is a judge-made shield positing that counsel at the interrogation stage is necessary to protect the constitutional right against self-incrimination.<9>

The Fifth Amendment Miranda/Edwards rule first infected the Court's Sixth Amendment analysis in Michigan v. Jackson.<10> In Jackson, the Supreme Court held that once a defendant asserts her Sixth Amendment right to counsel at an arraignment or similar proceeding, any waiver of that right at a subsequent police-initiated interrogation is invalid.<11> Jackson exemplifies the confusion surrounding the Fifth and Sixth Amendments.<12> On one hand, the Court based its opinion on the parallel Fifth Amendment Edwards decision,<13> where the Court reaffirmed that "The Fifth Amendment right identified in Miranda is the right to have counsel present at any custodial interrogation."<14> On the other hand, it recognized that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel is broader than the Fifth Amendment prophylactic rule: "he reasons for prohibiting the interrogation of an uncounseled prisoner who has asked for the help of a lawyer are even stronger after he has been formally charged with an offense than before."<15>

Fifteen years later, in Texas v. Cobb,<16> Justice Kennedy, joined by Justices Scalia and Thomas, authored a concurring opinion that questioned "the underlying theory of Jackson."<17> Kennedy conveyed the particular worry that Jackson rendered all statements made at a (post-attachment) police-initiated interrogation inadmissible, even where the defendant's cooperation with police was voluntary.<18> This attention to the scope of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel, and the voluntariness of a defendant's post-attachment statement, reemerged a few weeks ago at the oral argument in Montejo v. Louisiana.<19> . . . .


II. Defining the Scope of the Sixth Amendment Right to Counsel and Untangling it From the Fifth Amendment Miranda Right

If the Sixth Amendment merely protects against involuntary or compelled statements, then the move toward a voluntariness rule would make sense—even the defendant Ventris concedes that the statement he gave while in custody was not coerced.<29> But the Sixth Amendment also protects the adversarial process; thus, a police officer's surreptitious recording of a defendant after the adversarial process had been initiated is akin to "taking a pretrial deposition . . . one side isn't represented."<30> In that instance, any use of such statement, even if limited to rebuttal purposes, involves the court in the constitutional transgression.<31>

Although it would be much easier for the government to secure convictions if voluntariness became the sole harbinger of admissibility, the Constitution's Framers specifically provided for the right to counsel when "'the government has committed itself to prosecute'" and a defendant "'finds himself faced with the prosecutorial forces of organized society.'"<32> The Supreme Court has long recognized that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel is more than just a "trial right," and that it provides protection at all critical stages of a prosecution.<33> There are three reasons the Court should resist the temptation to equate the Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights and why it should not permit admission of all "voluntary" statements made during interrogation: (1) the Sixth Amendment's textual commitment to the right to counsel supports categorical protections throughout all stages of prosecution; (2) the goal of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel is broader than the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination; and (3) policy considerations suggest different results in the Fifth and Sixth Amendment contexts. . . .

http://www.law.northwestern.edu/lawreview/colloquy/2009/18/



KANSAS v. VENTRIS

Argued January 21, 2009—Decided April 29, 2009


Respondent Donnie Ray Ventris and Rhonda Theel were charged withmurder and other crimes. Prior to trial, an informant planted in Ventris’s cell heard him admit to shooting and robbing the victim, but Ventris testified at trial that Theel committed the crimes. When the State sought to call the informant to testify to his contradictory statement, Ventris objected. The State conceded that Ventris’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel had likely been violated, but argued that the statement was admissible for impeachment purposes. The trial court allowed the testimony. The jury convicted Ventris of aggravated burglary and aggravated robbery. Reversing, the Kansas Supreme Court held that the informant’s statements were not admissible for any reason, including impeachment.

Held: Ventris’s statement to the informant, concededly elicited in violation of the Sixth Amendment , was admissible to impeach his inconsistent testimony at trial. Pp. 3–7.

(a) Whether a confession that was not admissible in the prosecution’s case in chief nonetheless can be admitted for impeachment purposes depends on the nature of the constitutional guarantee violated. The Fifth Amendment guarantee against compelled self-incrimination is violated by introducing a coerced confession at trial, whether by way of impeachment or otherwise. New Jersey v. Portash, 440 U. S. 450 . But for the Fourth Amendment guarantee against unreasonable searches or seizures, where exclusion comes by way of deterrent sanction rather than to avoid violation of the substantive guarantee, admissibility is determined by an exclusionary-rule balancing test. See Walder v. United States, 347 U. S. 62 . The same is true for violations of the Fifth and Sixth Amendment prophylactic rules forbidding certain pretrial police conduct. See, e.g., Harris v. New York, 401 U. S. 222 . The core of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel is a trial right, but the right covers pretrial interrogations to ensure that police manipulation does not deprive the defendant of “ ‘effective representation by counsel at the only stage when legal aid and advice would help him.’ ” Massiah v. United States, 377 U. S. 201 . This right to be free of uncounseled interrogation is infringed at the time of the interrogation, not when it is admitted into evidence. It is that deprivation that demands the remedy of exclusion from the prosecution’s case in chief. Pp. 3–6. . . .


http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-1356.ZS.html

[merh]

17. Why provide me language prepared before the ruling?

Prove to me in the ruling where the edges were eaten away. Stick to the Montejo case.

The criminal lawyers I know concede that Michigan v. Jackson was convoluted. Many judges will tell you it was hard to follow and that they relied on other cases that were handed down since Michigan v. Jackson and that better explain the safeguards and rights as found in Michigan v. Jackson.

What type of law do you practice? Do you focus on criminal law?

If so, don't you think it is terrific that they didn't just slam the door on Montejo? I mean, it really isn't that often they rule the trial court did not commit error and still remand the case to the lower court for further hearing to determine if the Defendant's rights were properly protected and/or waived.

Personally, I think the lawyers did a bad job on the case. Did they even try to get the original confession tossed out or to prove that Montejo wasn't capable of waiving his rights? (You do realize he waived his rights each time he was questioned, don't you?)

What do you want me to garner from the Ventris case? I mean if you are going to go off topic at least tell me what topic you are going to go to.

[elleng]

18. I 'want' you to garner what you will.

I hope that ColbertW and others who have expressed an interest will learn something about the important matters at issue.

[merh]

19. You didn't answer any of the questions I put to you.

Why is that?

Does it not phase you that SCOTUS did not simply uphold the conviction after overturning Michigan v. Jackson? I mean they could have slammed the door shut and said to hell with his rights.

Kansas v. Ventris did not create new law, it relied upon the case of Oregon v. Hass, 420 U.S. 714 (1975).

When a suspect in police custody has been given and accepts the full warnings prescribed by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, and later states that he would like to telephone a lawyer, but is told he cannot do so until reaching the station, and he then provides inculpatory information, such information is admissible in evidence at the suspect's trial solely for impeachment purposes after he has taken the stand and testified to the contrary knowing such information had been ruled inadmissible for the prosecution's case in chief. Harris v. New York, 401 U. S. 222. Pp. 420 U. S. 720-724.

I'm just not getting your point through all of this. Have you ever practiced criminal law or had to appeal a criminal case. The findings in these cases are not unusual or contrary to existing case law.

[elleng]

20. You can read what I've provided and learn a good amount,

which includes a skeletal summary of what the Court has said related Miranda recently and what it might do, or you can contact me privately and pay me $60/hour for a more specific and lengthy recital.

I practiced criminal law briefly, with others, many years ago; most of my career was in administrative law, concerning mergers of major railroad systems.

[merh]

21. What it might do?

What it might do?

What about what it has done for the rights of this Defendant?

Do the rights of the Defendant in this case, the rights of Montejo, mean that little to you. Is it your opinion that SCOTUS should have maintained Michigan v. Jackson? If so, they would have then affirmed the Louisiana conviction and simply sent him straight on to death row.

Wow, I've never known of any civil rights advocate who got upset when SCOTUS doesn't affirm the defendants conviction and when it remands the case for further hearings on potential violations of the accused's constitutional rights. Especially when the case is a capital case. Talk about a friggin alternate universe.

What they might do?

Tell me, do you know what they did in Arizona v. Gant? If not, you may want to read it as it is just another decision that weakens the claim that SCOTUS is diluting the rights of the accused.

BTW - the hourly comment was a cheap shot and not even close to clever. This is just a message board, if you don't want to discuss the topics then don't involve yourself in the discussion.

[elleng]

22. I discussed the topic, and you seem not to be satisfied

with the information I've provided.

[merh]

23. You never discussed the actual opinion.

You only quoted from or referenced the writings of others and sadly, you actually referenced writings of others about the case before the case was decided.

You made bold statements about the "eroding of Miranda" while ignoring the language in the Montejo case that emphasizes the importance of the constitutional rights of the defendant. You ignore the most vital effect that this opinion has - it allows the defendant the right to further hearings to determine that his rights were not violated. It was not a rubber stamped affirmation of the Louisiana court that left this man sitting on death row. They even say that the Louisiana court was correct in suppressing the letter under Michigan v. Jackson and had they upheld Michigan v. Jackson, they would have had to affirm the case.

Providing information is never discussing the topic, it is just providing information. And in this sitution (our discussions), it is simply parroting the thoughts of others. "Here, this is what these people say and it works for me."

[Journeyman]

5. What happened today? George W. Bush became President for a 2nd Term in 2005. . .

Elections matter, and in 2004 the Supreme Court was the main prize. And so here we are -- and will be for some time to come.

[annabanana]

13. Do you think C. Thomas enjoys his job?

Cause he'll leave before Scalia...

[Saboburns]

15. I can't wait for that fascist Dickhead Scalia to die.

He's nearly as bad for this country as Dick Cheney.

[elleng]

24. NYT Editorial:

Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia argued essentially that since Mr. Montejo had been read his Miranda rights, his continued answers were a valid waiver of counsel. Justice Scalia explicitly revoked the court’s 1986 ruling in Michigan v. Jackson that a prisoner could waive his rights to counsel only in the presence of the lawyer, or by initiating contact with the police.

That ruling recognized that many prisoners cannot knowingly relinquish their right to counsel unless a lawyer helps them understand the protections they are giving up and the jeopardy they face. Without any real evidence, Justice Scalia dismissed this approach as unworkable and wrote that “its marginal benefits are dwarfed” by the possibility that the guilty might go free.

An array of former state and federal law enforcement officials and judges, including both Republican and Democratic appointees, have reached the opposite conclusion. In an amicus brief, they said that the Jackson ruling “has done far more to promote effective law enforcement than to undermine it” and warned that abandoning its bright-line standard would make it harder to ensure that a defendant’s constitutional rights are respected.

In an angry dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the 1986 opinion, which he wrote, was designed to ensure the right to counsel at every critical stage of prosecution. THE COURT HAS NOW PUT THE FAIRNESS, INTEGRITY AND CREDIBILITY O9F THE JUSTICE SYSTEM AT UNNESSARY RISK. (emphasis mine)



http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/30/opinion/30sat3.html?th&emc=th