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Analysis: Tilting Miranda toward the police

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 11:09:20 -0700

SCOTUSblog - By Lyle Denniston - Jun. 01 (News Analysis) - More than four decades after the Supreme Court ordered police to warn suspects about their rights before questioning them, the actual day-to-day practice has not turned out to be a simple ritual under clear ground rules. Encounters in interrogation rooms still and often are a test of wills, with detectives trying to get answers and suspects trying to avoid talking themselves into deeper trouble. As a result, the Court often has had to reinterpret its 1966 decision in Miranda v. Arizona. It did so again on Tuesday, and this time the result decisively tilted the warnings procedure toward the police. By a 5-4 vote, the Court for the first time made two things clear about Miranda rights: first, if a suspect does not want to talk to police — that is, to invoke a right to silence — he must say so, with a clear statement because it is not enough to sit silently or to remain uncooperative, even through a long session; and, second, if the suspect finally answers a suggestive question with a one-word response that amounts to a confession, that, by itself, will be understood as a waiver of the right to silence and the statement can be used as evidence.

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The “Kennedy Court,” only more so

Sat, 10 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

SCOTUSblog - By Lyle Denniston - Apr. 10 (News Analysis) - If it has been so that the Supreme Court could properly be called the “Kennedy Court,” because of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s grip on a tie-breaking vote much of the time, that may well be even more so when the Justices open a new Term next October.

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The personhood of corporations

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0800

SCOTUSblog - By Lyle Denniston - Jan. 22 (News Analysis) - Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens may have had his tongue in his cheek, or perhaps wanted merely to taunt the majority, when he wrote in Thursday’s opinion on the role of corporations in national politics: “Under the majority’s view, I suppose it may be a First Amendment problem that corporations are not permitted to vote, given that voting is, among other things, a form of speech.” It is a tantalizing notion.

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The Dynamic of the Nomination of Sonia Sotomayor

Tue, 26 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

SCOTUSblog - By Tom Goldstein - May. 26 (Opinion) - A cottage industry – literally an industry, given the sums of money raised and spent – now exists in which the far left and right either brutalize or lionize the President’s nominees. Because the absence of controversy means bankruptcy, it has to be invented by both sides, whatever the cost to the nominee personally and to the integrity of the judiciary nationally.

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Court gives detainees habeas rights

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 07:50:01 -0700

SCOTUSblog - By Lyle Denniston - Jun. 12 (Opinion) - In a stunning blow to the Bush Administration in its war-on-terrorism policies, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign nationals held at Guantanamo Bay have a right to pursue habeas challenges to their detention. The Court, dividing 5-4, ruled that Congress had not validly taken away habeas rights. If Congress wishes to suspend habeas, it must do so only as the Constitution allows -- when the country faces rebellion or invasion.

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Court switches, will hear detainee cases

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 08:55:05 -0700

SCOTUSblog - By Lyle Denniston - Jun. 29 (Opinion) - In a startling turn of events in the legal combat over the war on terrorism, the Supreme Court on Friday agreed to reconsider the appeals in the Guantanamo Bay detainee cases. It vacated its April 2 order denying review of the two packets of cases. The Court then granted review, consolidated the cases, and said they would be heard in a one-hour argument in the new Term starting Oct. 1. Such a switch by the Court -- from denial to rehearing and new argument and decision -- may not have occurred since 1947, in Hickman v. Taylor, 329 U.S. 495, legal sources said Friday.

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Court decides endangered species, religion, student speech, campaign finance cases; four new grants

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 07:55:03 -0700

SCOTUSblog - By Lyle Denniston - Jun. 25 (Opinion) - Amid several 5-4 rulings on the merits, the Supreme Court on Monday granted four cases for review next Term, including a significant test case on the use of references to the O.J. Simpson not-guilty verdict to help persuade an all-white jury to impose a death sentence on a black defendant. Other granted cases include a test of state power to regulate commercial shipments of tobacco and other products harmful to childrren and a case involving states' authority to allow damage claims against makers of medical devices approved by federal authorities. In the fourth granted case, the Court indicated it will sort out a conflict among lower courts on the deductibility of expenses for trusts and estates.

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Court rules on Sentencing Guidelines

Thu, 21 Jun 2007 12:21:57 -0700

SCOTUSblog - By Lyle Denniston - Jun. 21 (News Report) - The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that a federal criminal sentence within the Guidelines may be presumed to be reasonable when the case is on appeal. However, it said that such a presumption is not binding.. Although the Court was divided in some respects, the vote on the result was 8-1 with only Justice David H. Souter dissenting in Rita v. U.S. (06-5754).

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Court rules on two patent cases, and on high-speed chase

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 10:50:23 -0700

SCOTUSblog - By Lyle Denniston - Apr. 30 (News Report) - The Supreme Court, in a major victory for Microsoft Corp., ruled by a 7-1 vote on Monday that U.S. patent law does not bar foreign making of copies of digital code to be installed in computers made and sold abroad. Current patent law does not reach that far, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the Court. If patent law is to be adjusted to account for "the realities of software distribution," that is up to Congress, the Court said. Justice John Paul Stevens was the lone dissenter; Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., took no part in the ruling. The case was Microsoft Corp. v. AT&T (05-1056).

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Court upholds federal abortion ban

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 08:34:21 -0700

SCOTUSblog - By Lyle Denniston - Apr. 18 (Opinion) - Dividing 5-4, the Supreme Court on Wednesday gave a sweeping -- and only barely qualified -- victory to the federal government and to other opponents of abortion, upholding the 2003 law that banned what are often called "partial-birth abortions."

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