Thaindian News

By Meena Kar
Salt Lake City, Utah, June 2, (THAINDIAN NEWS) The Supreme Court on Tuesday brought changes to the decades old Miranda rights that provided a criminal suspect with the right to remain silent and withdrawn the self incriminating statements made by him/her. On Tuesday the Supreme Court justices voted 5-4 to expand the limits of the Miranda right and said that the suspect’s words can be used against him if he fails to invoke his Miranda right and chooses to keep silent or extremely laconic during the interrogation.

The Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy on Tuesday said that the police will not be needed anymore to obtain a “waiver” from the suspect before interrogating him regarding his right to remain silent. Earlier the court had ruled that the “burden rests on the government” to decide whether the suspect has provided the waiver “knowingly and intelligently”. Under the new ruling the police can use the documents and the statements provided by the suspect during the interrogation if the suspect does not invoke his right to remain silent.

The present ruling was given after the case of Van Thompkins. The Michigan police said that it had warned the suspect of his right to remain silent along with his other rights. The suspect on the other hand said that though he understood what was told to him he did not tell the officer that he wanted the interrogation to be stopped. Van Thompkins even did not say that he wanted to speak to a lawyer. However, during interrogation by the police he continued to remain silent for almost three hours and only spoke a single self incriminating word towards end. While some lawyers say that the present ruling is path breaking, others think that it has only made the Miranda Rights logical.