"I'm good for tonight" doesn't cut itA caricatured staple on TV police procedurals, the Miranda warning has been gradually stripped of its original intentions of protecting naïve suspects and turned into yet another tool of law enforcement.
A ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last week went against that dominant trend. The government has a "heavy burden" to show that a suspect made a clear and unambiguous waiver of his Miranda rights prior to police questioning, the court held in United States v. Jose Rodriguez.
"I'm good for tonight" is too ambiguous of a statement to count as a waiver.
The importance of this case is discussed in detail by Steven Kalar at the 9th Circuit Blog. For more in-depth discussions of Miranda in contemporary police practice, see Richard Leo's Police Interrogation and American Justice and Charles Weisselberg's Mourning Miranda.
No comments:
Post a Comment