Court limits Miranda ruling in five states

INTERACTIVE: Read about the background of the 1966 Miranda vs. Arizona decision

Suspect who confessed without lawyer present loses appeal

January 10, 1999
Web posted at: 1:45 p.m. EST (1845 GMT)

In this story: What the law says Appeals court criticizes Justice Department Supreme Court-bound? RELATED STORIES, SITES

RICHMOND, Virginia (CNN) -- In a case certain to touch off a new Supreme Court battle over the rights of criminal suspects, prosecutors in five states have been told they can bypass the high court's landmark Miranda decision against self-incrimination and use a confession from a suspect who opens his mouth before he has been read his rights.

In a 2-1 ruling, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said a 1968 federal law on voluntary confessions takes precedence over the 1966 Miranda ruling in federal cases.

The ruling, announced on Monday in Richmond, is binding in Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina and West Virginia.

What the law says

The Miranda vs. Arizona decision, known to generations of Americans from TV cop shows, says police must tell suspects of their right to remain silent and warn them that anything they say can be used against them.

Suspects also must be told of their right to a lawyer, and informed that one will be appointed for them if they cannot afford one.

If police fail to recite such warnings, a confession or some other incriminating statement may be ruled inadmissible as evidence.

A 1968 law, passed by Congress in a bid to get around the Miranda decision, said statements given by suspects can be used even when Miranda violations are present, as long as federal judges are sure the statements were voluntary and not coerced.

Appeals court criticizes Justice Department

In its ruling on Monday, the appeals court strongly criticized the Clinton administration for refusing to defend and use the 1968 law. Attorney General Janet Reno, in a letter to Congress two years ago, said the law is unconstitutional.

But the 4th Circuit revived the 1968 law on its own.

"Fortunately, we are a court of law and not politics," Judge Karen Williams wrote in Monday's decision. "Thus, the Department of Justice cannot prevent us from deciding this case under the governing law simply by refusing to argue it."

As a result, the appeals court said that Charles Thomas Dickerson's confession to FBI agents that he had robbed a bank in Alexandria, Virginia, was admissible.

Dickerson said his 1997 confession was given before he was told of his right to remain silent and see an attorney. A lower court agreed and said the confession could not be used because of the Miranda rule.

In seeking to convict Dickerson, the Justice Department appealed that ruling but did not cite the 1968 law. It was that appeal that led to Monday's decision by the 4th Circuit.

The Justice Department's refusal to use the 1968 law "may have produced ... the acquittal and the nonprosecution of many dangerous felons. ... There is no excuse for this," the panel wrote.

Supreme Court-bound?

David Cole, a constitutional scholar at Georgetown University Law Center, said the Supreme Court is certain to review the case. "The (federal appeals court in Richmond) took a position more pro-government than the government," Cole said.

He told USA Today the case is "very troubling because it resurrects the exploitation of inequality and coercion that the Supreme Court was so concerned about in Miranda."

Although limited to five states, the decision could cause chaos nationwide, University of Michigan law professor Yale Kamisar also told USA Today, because other courts may abandon the Miranda warning in similar cases.

"As long as you don't beat someone or threaten someone, you don't have to give the warning anymore" in those five states, Kamisar told the newspaper.

Larry Pozner, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, told the newspaper that Monday's ruling "could take us back to the old days of ambush and trickery by police."

"The problem with a case like this might be, more than the legal precedent it sets, the message it sends to law enforcement officials that in some circumstances there is a way around Miranda," Kent Willis, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Richmond chapter, said Wednesday.

However, the Washington Legal Foundation, a conservative public interest law firm seeking to overturn Miranda, said it was pleased by the 4th Circuit's decision.

The appeals court "carefully read the law and determined that the Department of Justice's position on this issue was simply untenable," senior counsel Shawn Gunnarson told the Washington Post.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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