[Infowarrior] - SCOTUS Ease Rules on Questioning

[Richard Forno]

May 26, 2009
Justices Ease Rules on Questioning
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 12:32 p.m. ET

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/05/26/us/AP-US-Supreme-Court-Lawyer-Request.html?_r=2&hp=&pagewanted=print

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court on Tuesday overturned a long- 
standing ruling that stopped police from initiating questions unless a  
defendant's lawyer was present, a move that will make it easier for  
prosecutors to interrogate suspects.

The high court, in a 5-4 ruling, overturned the 1986 Michigan v.  
Jackson ruling, which said police may not initiate questioning of a  
defendant who has a lawyer or has asked for one unless the attorney is  
present. The Michigan ruling applied even to defendants who agreed to  
talk to the authorities without their lawyers.

The court's conservatives overturned that opinion, with Justice  
Antonin Scalia saying ''it was poorly reasoned.''

Under the Jackson opinion, police could not even ask a defendant who  
had been appointed a lawyer if he wanted to talk, Scalia said.

''It would be completely unjustified to presume that a defendant's  
consent to police-initiated interrogation was involuntary or coerced  
simply because he had previously been appointed a lawyer,'' Scalia  
said in the court's opinion.

Scalia, who read the opinion from the bench, said the decision will  
have ''minimal'' effects on criminal defendants because of the  
protections the court has provided in other decisions. ''The  
considerable adverse effect of this rule upon society's ability to  
solve crimes and bring criminals to justice far outweighs its capacity  
to prevent a genuinely coerced agreement to speak without counsel  
present,'' Scalia said.

The Michigan v. Jackson opinion was written by Justice John Paul  
Stevens, the only current justice who was on the court at the time. He  
and Justices David Souter, Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg  
dissented from the ruling, and in an unusual move Stevens read his  
dissent aloud from the bench. It was the first time this term a  
justice had read a dissent aloud.

''The police interrogation in this case clearly violated petitioner's  
Sixth Amendment right to counsel,'' Stevens said. Overruling the  
Jackson case, he said, ''can only diminish the public's confidence in  
the reliability and fairness of our system of justice.''

The Obama administration had asked the court to overturn Michigan v.  
Jackson, disappointing civil rights and civil liberties groups that  
expected President Barack Obama to reverse the policies of his  
Republican predecessor, George W. Bush.

The Justice Department, in a brief signed by Solicitor General Elena  
Kagan, said the 1986 decision ''serves no real purpose'' and offers  
only ''meager benefits.'' The government said defendants who don't  
wish to talk to police don't have to and that officers must respect  
that decision. But it said there is no reason a defendant who wants to  
should not be able to respond to officers' questions.

Eleven states also echoed the administration's call to overrule the  
1986 case.

The decision comes in the case of Jesse Jay Montejo, who was found  
guilty in 2005 of the shooting death of Louis Ferrari in the victim's  
home on Sept. 5, 2002.

Montejo was appointed a public defender at his Sept. 10, 2002 hearing,  
but never indicated that he wanted the lawyer's help. Montejo then  
went with police detectives to help them look for the murder weapon.  
While in the car, Montejo wrote a letter to Ferrari's widow  
incriminating himself.

When they returned to the prison, a public defender was waiting for  
Montejo, irate that his client had been questioned in his absence.  
Police used the letter against Montejo at trial, and he was convicted  
and sentenced to death. He appealed, but the Louisiana Supreme Court  
upheld the conviction and sentence.

The Supreme Court sent the case back for a determination of whether  
any of Montejo's other court-provided protections, like his Miranda  
rights, were violated.

The case is Montejo v. Louisiana, 07-1529.