[Peace-discuss] FW: [police oversight] Obama legal team wants to limit defendants' rights

Fri Apr 24 11:28:09 CDT 2009

I thought some of you might find this interesting, upsetting, and discouraging but important to know.  It certainly gives an indication of how far to the right the political spectrum has shifted when those claiming to be middle of the road to moderately left take positions like this.

From: policeoversight at yahoogroups.com [mailto:policeoversight at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Kelvyn Anderson
Sent: Friday, April 24, 2009 10:20 AM
To: policeoversight at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [police oversight] Obama legal team wants to limit defendants' rights

Obama legal team wants to limit defendants' rights

Supreme Court case is stark example of the White House seeking to limit rights.

The Associated Press

4:08 PM CDT, April 23, 2009

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration is asking the Supreme Court to
overrule long-standing law that stops police from initiating questions
unless a defendant's lawyer is present, another stark example of the
White House seeking to limit rather than expand rights.

The administration's action -- and several others -- have disappointed
civil rights and civil liberties groups that expected President Barack
Obama to reverse the policies of his Republican predecessor, George W.
Bush, after the Democrat's call for change during the 2008 campaign.

Since taking office, Obama has drawn criticism for backing the
continued imprisonment of enemy combatants in Afghanistan without
trial, invoking the "state secrets" privilege to avoid releasing
information in lawsuits and limiting the rights of prisoners to test
genetic evidence used to convict them.

The case at issue is Michigan v. Jackson, in which the Supreme Court
said in 1986 that police may not initiate questioning of a defendant
who has a lawyer or has asked for one, unless the attorney is present.
The decision applies even to defendants who agree to talk to the
authorities without their lawyers.

Anything police learn through such questioning cannot be used against
the defendant at trial. The opinion was written by Justice John Paul
Stevens, the only current justice who was on the court at the time.

The justices could decide as early as Friday whether they want to hear
arguments on the issue as they wrestle with an ongoing case from
Louisiana that involves police questioning of an indigent defendant
that led to a murder confession and a death sentence.

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.

At the same time, the administration acknowledges that the decision
"only occasionally prevents federal prosecutors from obtaining
appropriate convictions."

The administration's legal move is a reminder that Obama, who has
moved from campaigning to governing, now speaks for federal
prosecutors.

The administration's position assumes a level playing field, with
equally savvy police and criminal suspects, lawyers on the other side
of the case said. But the protection offered by the court in Stevens'
1986 opinion is especially important for vulnerable defendants,
including the mentally and developmentally disabled, addicts,
juveniles and the poor, the lawyers said.

"Your right to assistance of counsel can be undermined if somebody on
the other side who is much more sophisticated than you are comes and
talks to you and asks for information," said Sidney Rosdeitcher, a New
York lawyer who advises the Brennan Center for Justice at New York
University.

Stephen B. Bright, a lawyer who works with poor defendants at the
Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, said the administration's
position "is disappointing, no question."

Bright said that poor defendants' constitutional right to a lawyer,
spelled out by the high court in 1965, has been neglected in recent
years. "I would hope that this administration would be doing things to
shore up the right to counsel for poor people accused of crimes," said
Bright, whose group joined with the Brennan Center and other rights
organizations in a court filing opposing the administration's
position.

Former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson and former FBI Director
William Sessions are among 19 one-time judges and prosecutors urging
the court to leave the decision in place because it has been
incorporated into routine police practice and establishes a rule on
interrogations that is easy to follow.

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

Justice Samuel Alito first raised the prospect of overruling the
decision at arguments in January over the rights of Jesse Montejo, the
Louisiana death row inmate.

Montejo's lawyer, Donald Verrilli, urged the court not to do it. Since
then, Verrilli has joined the Justice Department, but played no role
in the department's brief.

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