WTF?

[pasithea]

Uh. Mr. Obama.... What the Hell are you thinking?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090423/ap_on_go_su_co/us_obama_defendants__rights/print

This is the kind of bullshit we expected from Bush. Don't do shit like this. Don't sell us out. :(

Comments

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

You're awful foolish if you think the police wouldn't completely abuse this. They're a bunch of vicious thugs.

For people who're well-off and can hire a decent lawyer, this won't change a thing for them. For the poor or frightened, it's very dangerous.

Presently you say, "I want a lawyer" and the police can badger you if they want, but they can't use the information they get from it.

If this were changed, they could badger you, delay on getting you legal counsel, and use various forms of psychological abuse to get what they want out of you. A good lawyer could fix that: "You got this information under duress." A poor person with a court-appointed defendant... Then it's the word of 'some junkie' vs the word of 'an officer'. It creates extra work load for already overloaded public defenders and means it's less likely they're going to be able to do their job effectively.

Consider it this way: In the present system, the police mirandize people as soon as possible so they can use information if it's willingly given or be required to wait for lawyers if it's not forthcoming.

Without this, where is the incentive for the police to mirandize someone immediately? They might not know their rights. They might be panicked and not think to ask for a lawyer and in that mistake, they might 'give up' some useful information to the police. So. No reason to mirandize them quickly.

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

Well, the good news here is that Obama doesn't get a lick of say in the matter. This is the Supreme Court's baby. Alito may be talking about overturning Michigan v. Jackson, but I don't think it's anything more than grandstanding -- Stevens wrote that opinion and I'm giggling just imagining him backhanding Alito across the SCOTUS chamber. (I exaggerate. Stevens is a temperate guy, but it is terribly, terribly bad form to talk about overturning an opinion penned by a sitting Justice. OTOH, if we were talking about Scalia here, all bets are off.)

This one is worth following, but the thing to watch is whether SCOTUS decides to even consider arguments related to Michigan v. Jackson in the case at hand. Which, I note, the AP doesn't actually identify. Reporter FAIL.

[centauress.livejournal.com]

Whatever.

The point is they picked up an indigent man, he was cooperating, but since he'd been a suspect they couldn't follow questions up right then and there where they thought they could get more evidence before it was lost. And so they did. And now a case hangs in the balance that they asked questions of someone who was cooperating instead of waiting for a lawyer.

I don't see it as a slippery slope, merely the other side of a coin. If you opt to waive your rights, why must the police still wait?