One more for the road

In one of the very few recent cases of which I'm aware in which the Supreme Court limited the authority of police, it

ruled 5-4 that police may not under most circumstances deliberately question a suspect twice - the first time without advising suspects of their right to remain silent - in order to elicit incriminating statements,

as reported in the June 29 Christian Science Monitor.

The case involved Patrice Seibert, convicted of second-degree murder for her role in a mobile home fire that killed a man.

Police interviewed Ms. Seibert for an hour before advising of her rights under Miranda. After a coffee break, she was read those rights, and the questioning continued.

Based on her second statement, Seibert was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. The Missouri Supreme Court overturned her conviction, ruling that the detective had violated the Miranda rule.

By a slim majority Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that techniques designed to extract confessions (or at least elicit incriminating comments from suspects) when such suspects may not be fully aware of their right to remain silent and have an attorney present is improper.

Writing with the majority, Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy declared that the double interrogation technique (which is taught at national training sessions for police officers) "undermines the Miranda warning and obscures its meaning."

At the same time, the court left the door open for police to be able to use some confessions obtained after double interviews. Justice Kennedy said that police must be able to prove that the interrogation was not "calculated" to undermine Miranda.

There are two points I find interesting beyond the fact that I'm pleasantly surprised the Court ruled as it did.

One is that the technique, which is designed to elicit possibly incriminating statements without the need for Miranda - that is, it amounts to a means of evading Miranda as far as possible - is taught to police officers. That should tell us something.

The other is the loophole left for police to evade the effect of the decision by saying they "didn't mean to" undermine the necessary Miranda warning. Considering both the enormous leeway given to cops in terms of accepting the truthfulness of their testimony and the experience I'm sure many of us have had (I certainly know I have had) in seeing how easily a cop can lie straight-faced under oath, that loophole potentially looms quite large.