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Wednesday, November 27, 2002 |
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney, and to have an attorney present during any questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be provided for you at government expense."
- - The Miranda Rights
RHINO HERE:
The times are strange indeed. We never know who'll be the next villain and who the next hero. Ya know who the ACLU has hired to champion individual privacy issues? Would you believe Bob Barr & Dick Armey?
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/23/politics/23ACLU.html
I wonder if they'll go after Rear Adm. John Poindexter, former national security adviser to President Reagan, (convicted on five counts of misleading Congress and making false statements during the Iran-Contra investigation) who's developing the "Total Information Awareness Program"; the massive database the government plans to use to monitor every purchase made by every American claiming it's a necessary tool in the war on terror. http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,70992,00.html
Interesting tidbit - the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (home of the Pentagon's brightest thinkers who originally built the Internet) will be in charge of trying to make the system work technically.
Most everyone in the U.S. knows the phrase, "You have the right to remain silent..." The infamous words uttered by law enforcement when making arrests. But a case originating just down the road from where I live; Oxnard, CA, is being considered by the U.S. Supreme Court, which has the potential of overturning the 33 year old "Miranda Decision".
It seems ironic that it was just a few months ago that John P. Frank died at age 84. He was the constitutional scholar, professor, lawyer & civil libertarian whose defense of Ernesto Miranda before the U.S. Supreme Court helped etch those words into the vocabulary of arresting officers, assuring the civil rights of all criminal suspects. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/obituaries/134535969_obit15.html
Now, along with so many other pillars of liberty being sledge hammered by shrub & company, the Miranda Rights may crumble too. The L.A. Times article excerpted below tells the tale. Since The Times site requires registration to access it, I've linked to The Denver Post which also ran the article.
So let me get this straight: They can study our banking, buying and communicating habits. Then if they suspect us of being a "terrorist" (defined by them), they can imprison us without reading us our rights, without an actual arrest, without a trial, and they can keep us locked up (dare I say disappeared) indefinately. What country did you say that was?
8:02:58 AM 
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OXNARD, Calif. - Maybe you don't have a right to remain silent after all. The Supreme Court told police in its famous 1966 Miranda ruling that they must respect the rights of people who are held for questioning. Officers must warn them of their right to remain silent and, equally important, honor their refusal to talk further.
But that widely known rule is about to be reconsidered in the Supreme Court in the case of a man shot five times after a brief encounter with police in Oxnard. Legal experts say the case has the potential to reshape the law governing everyday encounters between police and the public.
As Oliverio Martinez lay gravely wounded, a police supervisor pressed him to talk, to explain his version of the events. He survived, paralyzed and blinded, and sued the police for, among other things, coercive interrogation. But the Oxnard police assert that the Miranda ruling does not include a "constitutional right to be free of coercive interrogation," but only a right not to have forced confessions used at trial.
Bush administration lawyers have sided with the Oxnard police in the case. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Dec. 4. Police can hold people in custody and force them to talk, so long as their incriminating statements are not used to prosecute them, U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson and Michael Chertoff, the chief of the Justice Department's criminal division, say in their brief to the court. It "will chill legitimate law enforcement efforts to obtain potentially lifesaving information during emergencies," including terrorism alerts, if police and FBI agents can be sued for coercive questioning, they add.
Legal experts on the other side say they foresee far-reaching effects if the Oxnard police prevail. "This will be, in essence, a reversal of Miranda," said Susan Klein, professor of law at the University of Texas...
THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IS POSTED AT:
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%257E23827%257E1012023,00.html
Reprinted under the Fair Use doctrine of international copyright law ( http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html ).
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7:56:51 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Gary Rhine.
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