In frustration, Chief Justice Earl Warren announced a broad new rule in Miranda vs. Arizona. He said that because police questioning is inherently coercive, officers must warn suspects of their rights before questioning begins. His opinion and others that followed it described the so-called Miranda warnings as limitations on the police.
But all along, some lawyers and law professors have questioned whether the Miranda warnings themselves are a constitutional requirement.
When Oxnard's lawyers appealed the case of Chavez vs. Martinez to the Supreme Court, they asked a basic question. Is there a constitutional right to be free of coercive police interrogation?
The answer to that question should be no, they said. And they cited a reliable source for their view: Current Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, a frequent critic of Warren's opinion in the Miranda case.
In a 1990 ruling, Rehnquist commented that the right against self-incrimination in the 5th Amendment was a "trial right." Police cannot violate this right when they force someone to talk, since "a constitutional violation occurs only at trial," the chief justice said.
The National Assn. of Police Organizations, the California attorney general's office and the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento all have urged the court to use the Martinez case to make clear that the Constitution does not limit forceful police questioning.
"Contrary to the 9th Circuit's conclusion, there is no 'right to silence,' " said Oxnard's lawyer Alan E. Wisotsky. Since Martinez was not prosecuted for anything he said, his rights were not violated by Sgt. Chavez, he concludes.
The pro-police advocates say that torturing a suspect, or perhaps denying him food and water for an extended period of time, would be unconstitutional. They say that "shocking" or "brutal" police conduct could be punished.
However, "the fact that a federal appellate court has allowed [a lawsuit] for Sgt. Chavez's brief, comparatively benign questioning demonstrates the need to clarify the law," said Charles Hobson of Criminal Justice Legal Foundation.
Klein, of the University of Texas, filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of the National Police Accountability Project.
She argued that innocent people will be particularly vulnerable if the court rules the Constitution does not forbid coercive police questioning. Criminal suspects still can insist their incriminating statements not be used against them at trial.
