Dickerson v. United States

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Dickerson v. United States
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Argued April 19, 2000
Decided June 26, 2000
Full case nameCharles Thomas Dickerson, Petitioner v. United States
Citations530 U.S. 428 ( more )
120 S. Ct. 2326; 147 L. Ed. 2d 405; 2000 U.S. LEXIS 4305
Case history
PriorUnited States v. Dickerson, 971 F. Supp. 1023 (E.D. Va. 1997); reversed, 166 F.3d 667 (4th Cir. 1999).
Holding
The mandate of Miranda v. Arizona that a criminal suspect be advised of certain constitutional rights governs the admissibility at trial of the suspect's statements, not the requirement of 18 U.S.C.   § 3501 that such statements simply be voluntarily given.
Court membership
Chief Justice
William Rehnquist
Associate Justices
John P. Stevens  · Sandra Day O'Connor
Antonin Scalia  · Anthony Kennedy
David Souter  · Clarence Thomas
Ruth Bader Ginsburg  · Stephen Breyer
Case opinions
MajorityRehnquist, joined by Stevens, O'Connor, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer
DissentScalia, joined by Thomas
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. V; 18 U.S.C.   § 3501

Dickerson v. United States, 530 U.S. 428 (2000), [1] upheld the requirement that the Miranda warning be read to criminal suspects and struck down a federal statute that purported to overrule Miranda v. Arizona (1966).

Contents

Dickerson is regarded as a significant example of a rare departure by the Court from the principle of party presentation. [2] The Court noted that neither party in the case advocated on behalf of the constitutionality of 18 U.S.C. § 3501, [3] the specific statute at issue in the case. Accordingly, it invited Paul Cassell, a former law clerk to Antonin Scalia and Warren E. Burger, to argue that perspective. Cassell was then a professor at the University of Utah law school; he was later appointed to, and subsequently resigned from, a federal district court judgeship in that state.

Background

In Miranda v. Arizona , the Supreme Court held that statements of criminal suspects made while they are in custody and subject to interrogation by police may not be admitted in court unless the suspect first had certain warnings read to them beforehand. By now, these warnings are familiar to most Americans: that the suspect has the right to remain silent during the interrogation, that anything they say to the police may be used against them in a court of law, that they have the right to legal counsel, and that if they cannot afford legal counsel a lawyer will be provided for them.

In 1968, two years after the Miranda decision, Congress passed a law that purported to overrule it as part of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. This statute, 18 U.S.C. § 3501, [3] directed federal trial judges to admit statements of criminal defendants if they were made voluntarily, without regard to whether they had received the Miranda warnings. Under § 3501, voluntariness depended on such things as (1) the time between arrest and arraignment, (2) whether the defendant knew the crime for which they had been arrested, (3) whether they had been told that they did not have to talk to the police and that any statement could be used against them, (4) whether the defendant knew prior to questioning that they had the right to the assistance of counsel, and (5) whether they actually had the assistance of counsel during questioning. However, the "presence or absence of any of" these factors "need not be conclusive on the issue of voluntariness of the confession." [3] Because § 3501 was an act of Congress, it applied only to federal criminal proceedings and criminal proceedings in the District of Columbia.

Charles Dickerson had been arrested for bank robbery and for using a firearm during a crime of violence, both federal crimes. He moved to suppress statements he made to the FBI because he had not received the Miranda warnings before he spoke to the FBI. The district court suppressed the statements, [4] and so the government appealed. The Fourth Circuit reversed the district court, reasoning that § 3501 had supplanted the requirement that the police give the Miranda warnings because Miranda was not a constitutional requirement and therefore Congress could overrule that decision by legislation. [5] The Supreme Court then agreed to hear the case.

Opinion of the Court

Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote the majority opinion, and began by briefly describing the historical backdrop against which the Miranda ruling had emerged. A suspect's confession had always been inadmissible if it had been the result of coercion or otherwise given involuntarily. This was true in England, from where American law inherited that rule.

However, as time went on, the Supreme Court recognized that the Fifth Amendment was an independent source of protection for statements made by criminal defendants in the course of police interrogation. "In Miranda, we noted that the advent of modern custodial police interrogation brought with it an increased concern about confessions obtained by coercion." Custodial police interrogation by its very nature "isolates and pressures the individual" so that he might eventually be worn down and confess to crimes he did not commit in order to end the ordeal. In Miranda, the Court had adopted the now-famous four warnings to protect against this particular evil.

Congress, in response, enacted § 3501. That statute clearly was designed to overrule Miranda because it expressly focused solely on voluntariness of the confession as a touchstone for admissibility. Did Congress have the authority to pass such a law? On the one hand, the Court's power to craft nonconstitutional supervisory rules over the federal courts exists only in the absence of a specific statute passed by Congress. However, if on the other hand the Miranda rule was constitutional, Congress could not overrule it, because the Court alone is the final arbiter of what the Constitution requires. As evidence of the fact that the Miranda rule was constitutional in nature, the Court pointed out that many of its subsequent decisions applying and limiting the requirement arose in decisions from state courts, over which the Court lacked the power to impose supervisory nonconstitutional rules. Furthermore, although the Court had previously invited legislative involvement in the effort to devise prophylactic measures for protecting criminal defendants against overbearing tactics of the police, it had consistently held that these measures must not take away from the protections Miranda had afforded.

Finally, 34 years after the original decision, the Court was loath to overrule Miranda. Typically, the Court overrules constitutional decisions only when their doctrinal underpinnings have eroded. The Court felt that this was not the case in Miranda. "If anything, our subsequent cases have reduced the impact of the Miranda rule on legitimate law enforcement while reaffirming the decision's core ruling that unwarned statements may not be used as evidence in the prosecution's case in chief." The Miranda rule did not displace the voluntariness inquiry.

Dissent

Justice Scalia, joined by Justice Thomas, disagreed with the majority's decision not to overrule Miranda. He disputed the notion that Miranda was a constitutional rule, pointing to several cases in which the Court had declined to exclude evidence despite the absence of warnings.

Justice Scalia described the majority's decision as an unprincipled compromise between justices who believed Miranda was a constitutional requirement and those who disagreed. He noted that the majority did not state outright that the Miranda warning is a constitutional requirement, but merely that it is "constitutionally based." Justice Scalia further criticized the majority for implying that Congress has no power to override judicially imposed safeguards of constitutional rights ( Marbury v. Madison (1803) having settled that Congress may not override judicial interpretations of the Constitution).

Related Research Articles

<i>Miranda</i> warning Notification given by U.S. police to criminal suspects on their rights while in custody

In the United States, the Miranda warning is a type of notification customarily given by police to criminal suspects in police custody advising them of their right to silence and, in effect, protection from self-incrimination; that is, their right to refuse to answer questions or provide information to law enforcement or other officials. These rights are often referred to as Miranda rights. The purpose of such notification is to preserve the admissibility of their statements made during custodial interrogation in later criminal proceedings. The idea came from law professor Yale Kamisar, who subsequently was dubbed "The father of Miranda."

Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution restricts prosecutors from using a person's statements made in response to interrogation in police custody as evidence at their trial unless they can show that the person was informed of the right to consult with an attorney before and during questioning, and of the right against self-incrimination before police questioning, and that the defendant not only understood these rights but also voluntarily waived them.

The right to silence is a legal principle which guarantees any individual the right to refuse to answer questions from law enforcement officers or court officials. It is a legal right recognized, explicitly or by convention, in many of the world's legal systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968</span>

The Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 was legislation passed by the Congress of the United States and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson that established the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA). Title III of the Act set rules for obtaining wiretap orders in the United States. The act was a major accomplishment of Johnson's war on crime.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ernesto Miranda</span> American criminal and subject of a United States Supreme Court case

Ernesto Arturo Miranda was an American criminal and laborer whose conviction on kidnapping, rape, and armed robbery charges based on his confession under police interrogation was set aside in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Miranda v. Arizona, which ruled that criminal suspects must be informed of their right against self-incrimination and their right to consult with an attorney before being questioned by police. This warning is known as a Miranda warning.

Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004), is a landmark United States Supreme Court decision that reformulated the standard for determining when the admission of hearsay statements in criminal cases is permitted under the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. The Court held that prior testimonial statements of witnesses who have since become unavailable may not be admitted without cross-examination.

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Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279 (1991), was a United States Supreme Court case clarifying the standard of review of a criminal defendant's allegedly coerced confession. The ruling was divided into parts, with various justices voting in different ways on different points of law, but ultimately 1) the defendant's confession was ruled involuntary, 2) the harmless error rule had to be applied, and 3) in this case, use of the confession as evidence was not harmless.

Missouri v. Seibert, 542 U.S. 600 (2004), is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that struck down the police practice of first obtaining an inadmissible confession without giving Miranda warnings, then issuing the warnings, and then obtaining a second confession. Justice David Souter announced the judgment of the Court and wrote for a plurality of four justices that the second confession was admissible only if the intermediate Miranda warnings were "effective enough to accomplish their object." Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in a concurring opinion that the second confession should be inadmissible only if "the two-step interrogation technique was used in a calculated way to undermine the Miranda warning."

In the law of criminal evidence, a confession is a statement by a suspect in crime which is adverse to that person. Some secondary authorities, such as Black's Law Dictionary, define a confession in more narrow terms, e.g. as "a statement admitting or acknowledging all facts necessary for conviction of a crime," which would be distinct from a mere admission of certain facts that, if true, would still not, by themselves, satisfy all the elements of the offense. The equivalent in civil cases is a statement against interest.

Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201 (1964), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the government from eliciting statements from the defendant about themselves after the point that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel attaches.

Colorado v. Connelly, 479 U.S. 157 (1986), was a U.S. Supreme Court case that was initiated by Francis Connelly, who insisted that his schizophrenic episode rendered him incompetent, nullifying his waiver of his Miranda rights.

Garrity v. New Jersey, 385 U.S. 493 (1967), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that law enforcement officers and other public employees have the right to be free from compulsory self-incrimination. It gave birth to the Garrity warning, which is administered by investigators to suspects in internal and administrative investigations in a similar manner as the Miranda warning is administered to suspects in criminal investigations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution</span> 1791 amendment enumerating due process rights

The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution creates several constitutional rights, limiting governmental powers focusing on criminal procedures. It was ratified, along with nine other articles, in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights.

Fellers v. United States, 540 U.S. 519 (2004), is a United States Supreme Court case regarding the Sixth Amendment's right to counsel.

Michigan v. Jackson, 475 U.S. 625 (1986), was a case decided by the United States Supreme Court regarding the Sixth Amendment's right to counsel in a police interrogation. In a decision written by Justice Stevens, the Court held that once an accused individual has claimed a right to counsel at a plea hearing or other court proceeding, a waiver of that right during later police questioning would be invalid unless the accused individual initiated the communication.

Berghuis v. Thompkins, 560 U.S. 370 (2010), is a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court considered the position of a suspect who understands their right to remain silent under Miranda v. Arizona and is aware that they have the right to remain silent, but does not explicitly invoke or waive the right.

New York v. Quarles, 467 U.S. 649 (1984), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court regarding the public safety exception to the normal Fifth Amendment requirements of the Miranda warning.

Illinois v. Perkins, 496 U.S. 292 (1990), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court that held that undercover police agents did not need to give Miranda warnings when talking to suspects in jail. Miranda warnings, named after the 1966 Supreme Court case Miranda v. Arizona, are generally required when police interrogate suspects in custody in order to protect the right not to self-incriminate and the right to counsel under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. However, the Court ruled that potential coercion must be evaluated from the suspect's point of view, and if they are unaware that they are speaking to police, they are not under the coercive pressure of a normal interrogation.

Howes v. Fields, 565 U.S. 499 (2012), was a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that an interrogation of a prisoner was not a custodial interrogation per se, and certainly it was not "clearly established federal law" that it was custodial, as would be required by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA). Instead, the Court said, whether the interrogation was custodial depended on the specific circumstances, and moreover, in the particular circumstances of this case, it was not custodial. This decision overturned the rule of the Sixth Circuit, and denied the prisoner's habeas corpus petition.

References

  1. Dickerson v. United States, 530 U.S. 428 (2000). PD-icon.svg This article incorporates public domain material from this U.S government document.
  2. Frost, Amanda (2009). "The Limits of Advocacy". Duke Law Journal. 59 (3): 447–518.
  3. 1 2 3 18 U.S.C.   § 3501. PD-icon.svg This article incorporates public domain material from this U.S government document.
  4. United States v. Dickerson, 971F. Supp.1023 ( E.D. Va. 1997).
  5. United States v. Dickerson, 166F.3d667 ( 4th Cir. 1999).