Police Who Don’t Confirm ‘Right To Remain Silent’ When Making Arrests Can’t Be Sued, Supreme Court Rules

Topline

Criminal suspects now have less legal recourse if police officers fail to read them their Miranda rights—that they have the “right to remain silent” and to an attorney—as the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that law enforcement cannot be sued for violating Americans’ civil rights if they fail to inform people of their Miranda rights, even if it leads to the suspect incriminating themselves.

Key Facts

“Miranda rights,” which the Supreme Court first established in a separate 1996 case, are read to criminal suspects when they’re arrested, informing them of their rights and that “anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”

The court ruled 6-3 Thursday against a man who was questioned by law enforcement after being accused of sexual assault and was not read his Miranda rights, which resulted in him then issuing a written statement apologizing for the crime that was used against him at trial.

Justices held that Terence Tekoh could not sue the police officer who interrogated him, Carlos Vega, for allegedly violating his Fifth Amendment rights against “compelled self-incrimination” by not reading him his Miranda rights.

Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the court’s majority, ruled that violating the court’s previous ruling that established Miranda rights is not the same thing as violating the Fifth Amendment, and so Vega not reading Tekoh his rights didn’t violate a civil rights law that lets people sue over “the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws.”

The ruling doesn’t mean that law enforcement will stop having to read suspects their Miranda rights, but means that it’s harder to enforce the law and hold them accountable legally if they don’t.

Alito noted that statements obtained by suspects who haven’t been read their Miranda rights can still be suppressed during trial—which the judge still denied in Tekoh’s case when it went to trial—but argued that letting suspects also then sue law enforcement “would have little additional deterrent value.”

Chief Critic

“By denying people whose rights are violated the ability to seek redress under our country’s most important civil rights statute, the Court further widens the gap between the guarantees found in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the people’s ability to hold government officials accountable for violating them,” Brett Max Kaufman, a senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement in response to the ruling Thursday.

Key Background

Tekoh was charged with “unlawful sexual penetration” after being accused of sexually assaulting a female patient at the medical center where he worked in March 2014, but was ultimately found not guilty in court. He sued Vega after his acquittal, seeking damages over the alleged violation of his constitutional rights. A district court jury ruled in Vega’s favor that the police officer had not “improperly coerced or compelled” Tekoh into giving a statement admitting to the crime, but an appeals court then found Tekoh’s Fifth Amendment rights had been violated, after which the Supreme Court decided to take up the case. After first establishing Miranda rights in the 1996 case Miranda v. Arizona, the Supreme Court previously upheld them in 2000 in the case Dickerson v. United States. That case found that being read Miranda rights is a “constitutional rule” that Congress cannot pass a law to overrule.

Further Reading

An argument over suing police officers contains a warning about the future of Miranda rights (SCOTUSblog)

Supreme Court limits ability to enforce Miranda rights (CNN)