If you’ve ever seen any American crime show, you’re quite familiar with Miranda rights, you have the right to remain silent, anything you say can be used against you in a court of law blah blah blah. Yesterday, the US Supreme...
If you’ve ever seen any American crime show, you’re quite familiar with Miranda rights, you have the right to remain silent, anything you say can be used against you in a court of law blah blah blah. Yesterday, the US Supreme Court ruled however that in order to invoke your right to remain silent, you must say so. Huh?
The 5-4 ruling upheld the murder conviction of a Texas man who bit his lip and sat silently when a police officer asked him about the shotgun shells that were found at the scene of a double slaying. They had been traced to the suspect’s shotgun. At his trial, prosecutors pointed to the defendant’s silence as evidence of his guilt. In affirming the conviction of Genovevo Salinas, the court’s majority admitted that some suspects might think they had a right to say nothing. “Popular misconceptions notwithstanding,” the Constitution “does not establish an unqualified ‘right to remain silent,’” said Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. Rather, he said, the 5th Amendment says no one may be “compelled in any criminal case to be witness against himself.” Since the Miranda decision in 1966, the court has said police must warn suspects of their rights when they are taken into custody. But the Miranda decision covers only suspects who are held in custody and are not free to leave. In the Texas case, Salinas was asked to come to the police station, and he agreed to do so. “All agree that the interview was noncustodial,” Alito said, so the police were not required to read him his rights under the Miranda decision.
Via
