Supreme Court in Miranda case: Suspect must invoke right

WashPost

The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a criminal suspect must explicitly invoke the right to remain silent during a police interrogation, a decision that dissenting liberal justices said turns the protections of a Miranda warning “upside down.”

The court ruled 5 to 4 that a Michigan defendant who incriminated himself in a fatal shooting after nearly three hours of questioning thus gave up his right to silence, and the statement could be used against him at trial.

“Where the prosecution shows that a Miranda warning was given and that it was understood by the accused, an accused’s uncoerced statement establishes an implied waiver of the right to remain silent,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the court’s conservatives.

In a separate case, the justices unanimously agreed that a former prime minister of Somalia who now lives in Fairfax County may be sued in U.S. courts by fellow countrymen who claim he oversaw killings and torture in their former home. Mohamed Ali Samantar was part of the country’s ruling government in the 1980s and early 1990s.

(More here.)