Reading Case Law Depresses Me
So, being a younger attorney and not having the bulk of criminal case law memorized like my awesome mentoring attorneys, I frequently find that I have to go look things up. As I'm quickly learning, reading the law can be a rather depressing experience. Today's to-do involved researching whether or not statements made to law enforcement after arrest but before you were taken to see a judge were admissible.
I start off pretty excited, picking through the Supreme Court's recent opinion in Corley v. United States. There, the Supremes reversed a conviction because after arresting Mr. Corley, federal agents then took him aside and interrogated him rather than promptly presenting him to a magistrate as required by law. Mr. Corley, of course, gave both an oral and written confession, and a mere 29 hours later, he was finally taken to see a judge (to be fair to the agents, they did let him take a rest before he penned his written confession). No, no, said the court. You really do have to take people to see a judge rather than interrogating them in secret. This is America, after all.
Excited that the law appears to be on my side, I begin plotting my motion to suppress. I decide to check and see if Texas law carries a similar provision, and to my delight, it does. Code of Criminal procedure 15.17 requires that after arrest, the officer shall, without unnecessary delay, present the person to a magistrate. This language seems pretty straightforward to me, so the officer's decision to stop at the station and interrogate my client before taking him to a judge appears to be a no-no.
Not so, says the depressing Texas case law. Despite the fact that this law is on the books to prevent that exact abuse, every case I read says the defendant must show a nexus between the confession and the delay. And if they read you your Miranda rights, then it's totally cool. As one of the Supreme Court justices pointed out in Corley, this is not a constitutional issue. It's an issue of fundamental fairness and what kind of justice system we want to have - whether it's done openly or whether we allow people to be secretly interrogated before they get to talk to a judge. In this area, Texas gets an "F" for choosing the latter.
I start off pretty excited, picking through the Supreme Court's recent opinion in Corley v. United States. There, the Supremes reversed a conviction because after arresting Mr. Corley, federal agents then took him aside and interrogated him rather than promptly presenting him to a magistrate as required by law. Mr. Corley, of course, gave both an oral and written confession, and a mere 29 hours later, he was finally taken to see a judge (to be fair to the agents, they did let him take a rest before he penned his written confession). No, no, said the court. You really do have to take people to see a judge rather than interrogating them in secret. This is America, after all.
Excited that the law appears to be on my side, I begin plotting my motion to suppress. I decide to check and see if Texas law carries a similar provision, and to my delight, it does. Code of Criminal procedure 15.17 requires that after arrest, the officer shall, without unnecessary delay, present the person to a magistrate. This language seems pretty straightforward to me, so the officer's decision to stop at the station and interrogate my client before taking him to a judge appears to be a no-no.
Not so, says the depressing Texas case law. Despite the fact that this law is on the books to prevent that exact abuse, every case I read says the defendant must show a nexus between the confession and the delay. And if they read you your Miranda rights, then it's totally cool. As one of the Supreme Court justices pointed out in Corley, this is not a constitutional issue. It's an issue of fundamental fairness and what kind of justice system we want to have - whether it's done openly or whether we allow people to be secretly interrogated before they get to talk to a judge. In this area, Texas gets an "F" for choosing the latter.
posted by Marjorie Bachman at
3:00 PM
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