Thanks to Michael for pointing out concerns raised by some about Obama's support for overturning Michigan v. Jackson.
From WaPo:
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 may not 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.
ScotusBlog also has background on the dispute as well as links to amibus briefs with arguments on either side.
The government’s amicus brief can be found here. Siding with a group of states that had argued earlier that the Jackson precedent was no longer necessary to protect the rights of suspects in police custody, Solicitor General Elena Kagan made the same point. The U.S. brief said that the ruling is not needed “given the purposes of the Sixth Amendment and the existence of other strong protections against coercion.”
The brief continued: “Although the Sixth Amendment affords criminal defendants a right to counsel at certain critical pre-trial stages, the Amendment should not prevent a criminal defendant from waiving that right and answering questions from police following assertion of that right at arraignment. Jackson serves no real purpose and fits poorly with this Court’s recent precedent; although the decision only occasionally prevents federal prosecutors from obtaining appropriate convictions, even that cost outweighs the decision’s meager benefits.”
Perhaps the most surprising thing about the Obama Administration so far has been its willingness to continue whittling away at defendant's rights, a trend that has been ongoing for almost three decades:
While President Barack Obama has reversed many policies of his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, the defendants' rights case is another stark example of the White House seeking to limit rather than expand rights.
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 ACLU has been especially disappointed so far. Which makes me wonder whether there's a political calculation here. Is he attempting to minimize the ability of a Republican challenger in 2012 to argue that he is soft on crime?
