Article: Miranda Rights Squashed

May 27, 2009
Justices Ease Rules on Questioning
By DAVID STOUT
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/us/27scotus.html?_r=1&ref=politics&pagewanted=print

WASHINGTON — 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.”

The ruling Tuesday was in the case of Jesse Montejo, who was sentenced to death for the murder and robbery of Louis Ferrari in September 2002. Mr. Montejo was arrested a day after Mr. Ferrari was found dead in his home in Slidell, La. Suspicion focused on Mr. Montejo because he was known to associate with a disgruntled former employee of Mr. Ferrari’s dry-cleaning business.

Mr. Montejo was read his Miranda rights, arising from the landmark 1966 Supreme Court ruling that a defendant must be told of his right to remain silent and to have a lawyer present virtually from the moment he is taken into custody. Under questioning, Mr. Montejo repeatedly changed his story, at first blaming the former employee, then admitting that he had shot the victim during a botched burglary.

At a preliminary hearing, a judge ordered that a public defender be appointed. The timing is in dispute, but at some point Mr. Montejo was read his Miranda rights again and agreed to accompany detectives to locate the murder weapon, which he had indicated that he had thrown into a lake.

During the trip, he wrote a letter of apology to the victim’s widow, using paper and pen provided by the detectives. Only upon his return did Mr. Montejo meet with his lawyer, who was furious that his client had been questioned in his absence, and was further incensed when the letter was admitted as evidence at trial.

Mr. Montejo’s conviction was upheld by the Louisiana Supreme Court, which reasoned in part that the protections of the 1986 Michigan case should not apply to him because, in Louisiana as in many other states, lawyers are assigned automatically to indigent defendants, removing any question of whether Mr. Montejo specifically “requested” counsel at his arraignment.

Tuesday’s ruling was not a total defeat for Mr. Montejo, as the majority sent the case back to the state court, saying he should be allowed to pursue other grounds on which to have the incriminating letter suppressed. Further, the justices suggested, the police as well as the defendant gave inconsistent testimony, and those differences may have to be sorted out by the state court.

The Obama administration, in a stance that disappointed some of its liberal backers, had argued in favor of overturning the 1986 ruling in the Michigan case, as had 11 states that told the Supreme Court that that case was no longer relevant.

Tuesday’s opinion in Montejo v. Louisiana, No. 07-1529, inspired considerable emotion, as displayed by Justice Stevens’s reading of his dissent, which was joined by Justices David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.

Mr. Montejo’s Sixth Amendment right to legal representation, as well as his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination, were damaged by the ruling, Justice Stevens said.

“Such a decision can only diminish the public’s confidence in the reliability and fairness of our system of justice,” he said.