WASHINGTON – If there is one protection of the Constitution familiar to anyone with a television set, it is the familiar warning called for in the Supreme Court’s 1966 decision in Miranda v. Arizona.
But the constitutional status of Miranda warnings has long been disputed and remains unclear, as a Supreme Court argument on Wednesday vividly illustrates. In considering whether police officers can be sued for failing to issue the warning, judges debated whether the Miranda decision created a constitutional right or something less tangible.
The question arose in a civil rights case brought by Terence B. Tekoh, a hospital orderly accused of sexually abusing an immobilized patient who was receiving an emergency MRI. Mr. Tekoh was questioned at length by Carlos Vega, a Los Angeles Deputy Sheriff.
The two men gave wildly different accounts of the nature of the questioning, but it was undisputed that Mr. Vega had not given the Miranda warning that Mr. Tekoh had signed a confession admitting the assault that a state court admitted his confession as evidence or that a jury acquitted him.
Mr. Tekoh then filed a lawsuit against Mr. Vega under an 1871 federal civil rights statute known as Section 1983, which allows citizens to sue state officials, including police officers, for violating constitutional rights.
The case of Vega v. Tekoh, #21-499, was complicated by factual disputes as to whether Mr. Tekoh was of the type of confinement that required a warning or was subjected to coercion. In a brief to the Supreme Court, Mr Vegas’ lawyers said Mr Tekoh was contrite and repentant and wrote his confession without being prompted.
An attorney for Mr. Tekoh, Paul L. Hoffman, gave a very different account on Wednesday. “Mr. Tekoh says he’ll be put in a closed room for an hour,” Mr. Hoffman said. “He’s being verbally abused by an officer with his hand on a gun and basically threatened with deportation.”
The judges considered whether Mr Tekoh could sue, even if he could prove his version of events. That went against Miranda’s constitutional status, which was the subject of much criticism and a congressional effort to overturn it in the 1980s and 1990s.
The debate was largely ended in the Dickerson v. United States case, a 7-to-2 decision in 2000. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, himself a longtime critic of Miranda, wrote for the majority that the warnings were “embedded in routine police practice” and had “become part of the national culture.”
Because the Miranda decision “announced a constitutional rule,” a law it sought to overrule is itself unconstitutional.
But Roman Martinez, an attorney for Mr Vega, said a constitutional rule is distinct from a constitutional right. “Dickerson gives Miranda constitutional status, but it doesn’t say Miranda creates a Fifth Amendment right.”
Judge Elena Kagan said the court should be careful in limiting the scope of the Dickerson decision.
“If we get in your way, it’ll undermine Dickerson,” she told Mr. Martinez.
And that, in turn, she continued, “would have a kind of troubling effect, not only on people’s understanding of the criminal justice system, but also on people’s understanding of the court itself and the legitimacy of the court and the way the court works.” works and how it works the court does what it says.”
Mr. Martinez responded that he was not asking the court to overrule Miranda or Dickerson, only to say that they had not established the type of right whose violation could give rise to a civil rights lawsuit.
Judge Amy Coney Barrett said it was significant that Chief Justice Rehnquist’s opinion in Dickerson did not characterize Miranda’s warning as a constitutional right. “It seemed very carefully worded to say ‘constitutional rule’ or ‘constitutionally required,'” she said.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said his predecessor, for whom he served as clerk, chose his words carefully. “He didn’t say Miranda was in the Constitution,” Chief Justice Roberts said. “He talked about constitutional foundations, constitutional foundations.”
There was a second issue in the case, one raised by Vivek Suri, a federal government attorney who argued in Mr Vega’s favour. What the Miranda decision guaranteed, he said, was that confessions obtained without the necessary warnings could not be used in court.
“Miranda has recognized a constitutional right, but it is a procedural right regarding the exclusion of evidence in a criminal proceeding,” he said. “There is no substantive right to receive the warnings from Miranda herself.”
“A police officer who fails to properly issue the Miranda warnings does not himself violate constitutional law,” Mr. Suri said, “nor will he be legally responsible for any violations that might arise later in the process.”
Mr. Hoffman, who is representing Mr. Tekoh, asked the judges to allow his client to hold Mr. Vega accountable.
“His life was destroyed by these actions,” Mr. Hoffman said. “He will be acquitted. When the whole story comes out, he claims the officer set him up for it and basically installed the prosecutor and the court as well. What cure does he have?”