Police Relived By SCOTUS Miranda Ruling

0
507
police

This particular decision on Miranda warnings is a win for police and a huge loss for predatory civil rights attorneys. SCOTUS blew liberal minds from coast-to-coast with three separate rulings published all at once. None of them are the big Roe v. Wade disaster for progressives which we’ve all been expecting. A steady trickle of annoying rulings has been like waterboarding torture to Democrats.

Police don’t have to worry

Police across America can breathe a heavy sigh of relief, now that the Supreme Court “limited the ability to enforce Miranda rights.” If a cop forgets to read someone their rights, then the statements can’t be used in the criminal trial and that’s the end of it. There isn’t any sort of extra ongoing damages which a suspect can get rich on later, with the help of the right shyster attorney.

The ruling issued June 23 says “that suspects who are not warned about their right to remain silent cannot sue a police officer for damages under federal civil rights law even if the evidence was ultimately used against them in their criminal trial.

The anti-law enforcement left see the decision as a way to “cut back on an individual’s protections against self-incrimination by barring the potential to obtain damages.” That argument doesn’t hold water, SCOTUS says. The only thing that matters is the testimony in the criminal case and whether it can be used or not.

Police still have to read the card. If they mess up and forget, it’s not the end of their financial life personally. Failure “to administer the warning will not expose a law enforcement officer to potential damages in a civil lawsuit.

The Miranda warning is vitally important and it does protect a constitutional right. The court spelled it out that even so, “the warning itself is not a right that would trigger the ability to bring a civil lawsuit.” Police need protection, too. CNN’s resident legal analyst, Steve Vladeck, notes that “today’s ruling doesn’t get rid of the Miranda right but it does make it far harder to enforce.

Under this ruling, the only remedy for a violation of Miranda is to suppress statements obtained from a suspect who’s not properly advised of his right to remain silent. But if the case never goes to trial, or if the government never seeks to use the statement, or if the statement is admitted notwithstanding the Miranda violation, there’s no remedy at all for the government’s misconduct.

police

Another 6-3 decision

Six of our Supreme Court Justices, the conservative ones, have been ganging up on the three liberals with one landmark ruling after another. Justice Samuel Alito wrote this majority opinion. Two thirds of the court agree that a violation of the Miranda right “is not itself a violation of the Fifth Amendment,” so they “see no justification for expanding Miranda to confer a right to sue.

Elena Kagan and the other pair of police hating liberals see the majority ruling as stripping “individuals of the ability to seek a remedy for violations of the right recognized in Miranda.” Criminals should be able to cash in if an arresting officer makes a perfectly human mistake.

The minority don’t care if police officers are allowed to protect their personal lives from on duty omissions or not. “The majority here, as elsewhere, injures the right by denying the remedy,” Kagan wrote.

The whole controversy started when “Terence Tekoh, a hospital worker who was accused of sexually assaulting an immobilized female patient at a local hospital in 2014.” He beat the rap and tried to sue the arresting officer. He was found not guilty even after the jury heard his improperly obtained confession. He claims the officer coerced him into confessing to a crime he didn’t commit. The jury agreed.

The thing his lawyers missed but the Supreme Court didn’t is the Miranda rule doesn’t extend beyond the criminal case as far as the police are concerned.

As the Court explained, the landmark Miranda decision establishes an important prophylactic rule protecting the Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination.” Even so, “the failure to give a Miranda warning does not automatically equate to a violation of the Fifth Amendment.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here