Supreme Court Narrows Requirements for Miranda Rights Warning

Sotomayer gave her usual skewed opinion of an issue. This woman has a tendency to out-think herself, which is generally a male trait. She believes she is impressing someone with her profound opinions, but, in truth, she simply condemns herself to irrelevancy on this all important Court. Yes, it was a mistake to affirm her appointment to the SCOTUS. We now have an untold number of decades to suffer under her misguided rulings.

If you never been in this situation you should not speak. Waive your own Miranda right sort of speak and keep it to your self. I say this from experiencing a run in with the Feds, Even if you understand your right and remain silent they will still insist in talking to you some other way in a more like friendly tone or ask you questions about a beach or some other landmark near by to break you so you can talk. It is reverse pchsycology tactics that they try to impose; it is a game for them even if your innocent they don't care.

Isn't it a shame that you know the outcome of all supreme court decisions...before
they even rule. Makes you want to cry.

I read Sotomayor's dissent. I guess I understand her point, but disagree with her interpretation of the events. Thompkins did indeed have the right to remain silent. I don't think the right to remain silent means that questions can't be asked. It means he doesn't have to answer them. When answering the question "...if he prayed to God for forgiveness for "shooting the boy down," and responding "yes" it seems an unambiguous waiver to me. If he wanted to invoke the right he could have simply not answered. Thompkins does not claim that he never made the statement, just that it couldn't be used. Think Sotomayor is barking up the wrong tree on this one.

I'm not sure why in this day and age interrogations aren't taped or recorded to avoid some of the points Sotomayor raises.

"Criminal suspects must now unambiguously invoke their right to remain silent - which counter-intuitively, requires them to speak," she said.

As predicted, simple thoughts from a simple mind.

Sotomayor is exactly right -- it makes no sense to require a person suspected of a crime to be told they have the right to remain silent "and that anything you say can be used against you in a court of law" and then to require that person to break their silence in order to say words to the effect that they wish to remain silent. Will the words they say to invoke their right to remain silent then be used against them in a court of law? Under the US Supreme Court decision US v Hale (1976), the fact that a person suspected of a crime remained silent cannot be used as evidence against him. What about the words said to invoke the right of silence? For example, "I want to remain silent because I was nowhere the scene of the crime." Can that statement be used as evidence at trial? Or what if the person remains mute, thus (under this new interpretation) not invoking their right to remain silent? Can silence in this situatio be used as evidence of guilt? It appears to me that this decision is very inconsistent with the Constitutional principles underlying prior Supreme Court decisions and will generate a new line of cases chipping away at the Miranda warning rights -- which are grounded in the Constitutional right of a person not to be required to incriminate themselves.

What's the big deal over this Supreme Court ruling? The police DID advise the defendant of his Miranda rights, which, among other provisions, clearly informs all defendants that: "Anything You Say "CAN BE USED AGAINST YOU" In A Court Of Law. In this case the defendant, when asked if he prayed to God for forgiveness for "shooting the boy down," responded "yes." BINGO! That's an admission of guilt! NEXT CASE.

Sotomayer's argument is ridiculous. Proclaiming an understanding of what has just been told to them does not incriminate them one bit and makes it clear that they do not wish to speak without a lawyer.