- Negating the Fifth Ammendment
by Rachel Naba
³You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you...² Anyone who has watched a ³reality-tv² police show, been arrested, or is not living under a rock is familiar with the mandatory Miranda warning that law officers are required to recite upon taking a suspect into custody or interrogating him/her. These warnings were designed to protect both the police officers as well as the suspects, and the warnings have been set by the U.S. Supreme court in Miranda vs. Arizona in 1966. Now, however, the U.S. Supreme court is hearing a case that could overturn the Miranda warnings and could affect oneıs fifth amendment rights.
The case involves a farm worker named Oliverio Martinez, who happened to be riding his bicycle past Oxnard, California police officers on November 28, 1997. The officers were reportedly investigating narcotics activity and were questioning a man suspected of selling drugs. They asked Martinez to stop and dismount his bicycle. Officers searched him and found a sheathed knife in his waistband that he used in his farming, and when Martinez tried to run, the police tackled him and tried to handcuff him. Martinez struggled with the officer, and the officer shouted that the ³suspect² had a knife. His partner fired five shots: one hit Martinez near his left eye and exited behind his right eye, another hit his spine and the last three hit his legs.
Patrol supervisor Sgt. Ben Chavez arrived on the scene to find Martinez laying on the ground, bleeding. The Sergeant accompanied Martinez in the ambulance to the hospital, asking him questions during the ride. While emergency workers were treating the wounded farmer, Officer Chavez was trying to elicit a confession from Martinez that he tried to grab the officerıs gun, provoking the struggle that resulted in the shooting. Martinez was never given his Miranda warning.
Officer Chavez continued his interrogation of the seriously injured man in the emergency room. Tapes indicate that Martinez said eight times that he thought he was dying, complained of torturing pain fourteen times, and said at least twice that he did not want to talk any more. From a Los Angeles Times Article:
In agony, Martinez is heard screaming in pain and saying he is choking and dying. ³OK. Youıre dying. But tell me why you were fighting with the police?² Chavez asks. ³Did you want to kill the police or what?² he continues. One officer had said that Martinez tried to grab his gun. In the emergency room, Chavez continued to press Martinez to tell him what happened. ³Did you get his gun?....Did you try to shoot the police?² Martinez in a low voice responds ³I donıt know...I donıt know...². ...²Itıs hurting a lot. Please!² Martinez implores, his words trailing off into agonized screams. Undaunted, Chavez resumes. ³Well, if youıre going to die, tell me what happened.² Silence came only when pain medication took hold, and Martinez faded into unconsciousness.
Martinez asked Chavez to leave him alone several times in the emergency room. Chavez continued to question him, ignoring the protests from the hospital personel and their requests for him to leave. Mr. Martinez was never read his rights, and he was never charged with a crime or placed on trial.
Amazingly, Martinez survived his wounds. Upon his recovery, he sued Officer Chavez for using coercive questioning tactics that were in violation of his constitutional rights. Although a federal judge and a three-judge panel of the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with Martinez, the case has now been brought to the U.S. Supreme Court. Meanwhile, Mr. Martinez is blind and paralyzed. He lives with his father in a one-room trailer in Oxnard, California and wears dark glasses to cover his missing eye. Requests for payment of medical expenses have been denied, and no disciplinary action has been given to the officers involved.
What does it all mean?
Martinez filed suit under 42 U.S. C 1983, alleging that the defendants violated his rights by stopping him without probable cause, using excessive force, and subjecting him to coercive interrogating while he was receiving medical care. The district court denied Chavezıs immunity defense and granted judgement for Martinez on the claim that Chavez violated his fifth and fourteenth amendment rights. Chavez appealed, and Judge Richard Tallman of the Ninth District Court denied the appeal, stating, ³Sgt. Chavez doggedly pursued a statement by Martinez despite being asked to leave the emergency room several times. A reasonable officer, questioning a suspect who had been shot five times by the police and then arrested, who had not received Miranda warnings and who was receiving medical treatment for excruciating, life-threatening injuries... would have known that persistent interrogation of the suspect despite repeated requests to stop violated the suspectıs 5th and 14th amendment right to be free from coercive interrogation.²
Chavez and the city of Oxnard claim that the fifth amendment is a rule that is violated only by the admission of compelled incriminating testimony in trial. They claim that the fifth amendment cannot be violated during interrogation, only during trial. ³There is no right to silence,² Chavezıs lawyer, Lawrence Robbins, states in a brief to the court. The Bush administration, police organizations and the State of California seem to support Chavez and the city of Oxnard.
Charles Weisselberg, a University of California, Berkeley, law professor, is concerned about the outcome of this case. ³To see the (U.S.) solicitor general arguing that thereıs no right to be free from coercive interrogation is pretty aggressive,² he says.
According to University of Texas law professor Susan Klein, if the Supreme Court finds for Oxnard in this case, it would mean a reversal of Miranda. ³Officers will be told Miranda is not a constitutional right. If there is no right, and you are not liable, why should you honor the right to silence? I think it means you will see more police using threats and violence to get people to talk,² she tells a reporter.
Chavez and the city of Oxnard, in claiming that there is no inherent right to remain silent, are admitting that the so-called ³rights² they recite to suspects are, according to them, mere legalities that they must report but do not respect. For now, it is up to the Supreme Court to make a decision on this trial. The possible consequences of this decision may haunt us for years to come. A decision is expected in June 2003.
