Dickerson, Charles v. U.S.
Dickerson, Charles v. U.S.
Dickerson, Charles v. U.S.
By: Noelle Straub & Nathan Alderman, Medill News ServiceQuestions presented
Whether the passage of 18 USC section 3501 was an unconstitutional attempt by Congress to legislatively overrule the Supreme Court decision in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436?
Brief
On Jan. 24, 1997, the First Virginia Bank in Alexandria, Va., was robbed of about $876. A witness saw the robber drive away and saw the car's license plate number. The police found that the car was registered to Charles Thomas Dickerson of Takoma Park, Md. Three days later, about 10 FBI agents and an Alexandria police detective went to Dickerson's apartment and asked him to go with them to the FBI field office in Washington, D.C., which he did. Dickerson was not formally placed under arrest.
An agent and the detective questioned Dickerson, who at first said only that he had driven his car to the area of the city near the bank to look at a restaurant. The agent left the room and by telephone obtained a warrant to search Dickerson's apartment for evidence of a bank robbery. The agent then told Dickerson that his apartment was about to be searched.
At some point after that, Dickerson made a statement to the authorities, but the timing of the statement is disputed. The FBI agent and detective say Dickerson was advised of his Miranda rights and waived them in writing before he made his statement. Dickerson says he was not read his Miranda warnings until after he gave his statement.
Miranda rights or warnings were established in the 1966 Supreme Court case, Miranda v. Arizona. In that case, the Court held that police interrogation is by its very nature coercive, and that protective safeguards must be used so that suspects know they truly have free choice to make a statement or not.
According to Miranda, unless other fully effective means are devised to inform suspects of their rights, the following measures are required: prior to questioning, suspects must be warned that they have the right to remain silent, any statement they make may be used as evidence against them, they have the right to the presence of an attorney, and if they cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for them.
In his statement, Dickerson admitted to being the getaway driver in a series of bank robberies and identified Jimmy Rochester as the actual robber. Dickerson was then placed under arrest. During the search of Dickerson's apartment, officers found a handgun, dye-stained money, a bait bill from another robbery or robberies, amunition, and masks.
Dickerson was indicted by a federal grand jury on one count of conspiracy to commit bank robbery, three counts of bank robbery, and three counts of using a firearm during the robberies.
On May 17, 1997, Dickerson filed a motion to suppress the statements he made at the FBI field office and the evidence found as a result of his statements. The district court agreed, finding that he had not been read his Miranda rights or signed the waiver until after he made his statements, based on the times noted on the warrant (issued at 8:50 p.m.) and on the waiver (executed at 9:41 p.m.).
The government moved to reconsider and included the affidavit of the detective present during Dickerson's interview. The detective said Dickerson had been read his Miranda warnings and signed the waiver before talking about his activities with Rochester the day of the robbery. The government also argued that even if the Miranda warnings were not read, the statements were voluntary and therefore admissable under a law passed by Congress in 1968 and known as "section 3501" for its place in the federal code of laws.
Section 3501 says that in any criminal prosecution, "a confession shall be admissible in evidence if it is voluntarily given." To determine whether a confession is voluntary, the trial judge should take into consideration all the circumstances surrounding the giving of the confession.
Those circumstances include the time elapsed between arrest and arraignment of the suspect, whether the suspect knew the nature of the offense he was suspected of, whether the suspect was advised or knew he could remain silent and statements could be used against him, and that he had the right to counsel, and whether the suspect had such counsel when giving the confession.
The court denied the motion, saying the government had failed to offer evidence that was unavailable at the time of the suppression hearing. The court did not address section 3501.
The government appealed to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, but did not bring up section 3501 because the Department of Justice prohibited the U.S. Attorney's Office from doing so. Professor Paul Cassell of the University of Utah College of Law filed a friend of the court brief on behalf of the Washington Legal Foundation, a nonprofit public interest law group, arguing that section 3501 governed Dickerson's confession.
The appeals panel reversed, 2-1. The panel held that "Congress enacted section 3501 with the express purpose of legislatively overruling Miranda and restoring voluntariness as the test for admitting confessions in federal court." The court noted that the Justice Department has refused to enforce the provision and said, "Fortunately, we are a court of law and not politics. Thus, the Department of Justice cannot prevent us from deciding this case under the governing law simply by refusing to argue it."
The court found that Dickerson's statements were admissible under section 3501, despite the absence of prior Miranda warnings. The court said that the federal law, not the judicially created rule of Miranda, governed the admissability of confessions in federal court.
Dickerson sought a rehearing en banc, or with all the active judges of the 4th Circuit, but the court of appeals denied the rehearing by an 8-5 vote.
After Dickerson appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Clinton administration declined to defend the federal statute. The U.S. filed a brief signed by Attorney General Janet Reno, arguing that section 3501 should not be applied because Congress may not legislate a rule contrary to the Supreme Court's Miranda decision.
The Washington Legal Foundation filed a brief arguing that section 3501 is a valid an act of Congress that wrongly "continues to be all but ignored" by many courts.
Can Congress supersede the Supreme Court's Miranda decision, and authorize the admission of an unwarned, but voluntary, statement? The question rests on whether Miranda is consitutionally required or not. Congress does not have the authority to supersede a Supreme Court decision based on the Court's interpretation of the Constitution. However, Congress can supersede rules of evidence and procedure created by the Supreme Court if they are not required by the Constitution.
In this case, the argument is over the 5th Amendment's provision that "No person shall be ... compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself."
The government argues that Miranda implements and protects consitutional rights. The Justice Department brief asserts, "The Court in Miranda clearly rested its holding on the 5th Amendment... Because Miranda is of constitutional dimension, it cannot be superseded merely by legislation."
The Washington Legal Foundation argues that Miranda's rules are "prophylactic," put forth as recommended procedural safeguards, but not compelled by the Constitution. According to its brief, Miranda was a "policy decision to bolster the 5th Amendment's right against self-incrimination with an additional layer of prophylactic protection."
Part of the confusion over Miranda comes from a line of cases after Miranda in which the Court ruled that in certain circumstances statements may not automatically be thrown out because they were unwarned. For instance, information that police discover based on what they learned from an unwarned statement may sometimes be used in court.
The government argues that Miranda has been absorbed into police practices, judicial procedures, and the public understanding for years, and should not be changed now that it is so ingrained. The Justice Department said: "In our view, Miranda has come to play a unique and important role in the nation's conception of our criminal justice system: it promotes public confidence that the criminal justice system is fair. Overruling Miranda -- at this juncture, more than three decades after it was announced and after law enforcement has accommodated to its basic requirements -- would thus tend to undermine public confidence in the fairness of that system."
The Washington Legal Foundation argued that the failure to enforce section 3501 may have resulted in the acquittal or the failure to prosecute many dangerous felons, enabling them to continue committing crimes. "Many dangerous criminals are escaping justice in the teeth of a federal statute that would permit their successful prosecution," it said.
On Dec. 6, 1999, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari, limited review to the question presented above, allowed Dickerson to proceed in forma pauperis, and appointed Paul Cassell of Salt Lake City, Utah on behalf of the Washington Legal Foundation to defend the federal law, a position typically represented by the Justice Department.
On June 26, 2000, the Court held that its landmark 1966 decision in Miranda v. Arizona was a constitutional decision of the Court, and as such, "may not be in effect overruled by an Act of Congress.
"We decline to overrule Miranda ourselves," added Chief Justice William Rehnquist in beginning the opinion he wrote for a 7-2 majority.
Rehnquist firmly asserted the Court's power to overrule Congress on Constitutional matters, citing examples in the text of Miranda and in its application in other cases that proved Miranda was originally intended to rule on a point of constitutional law.
According to the opinion, 18 U.S.C. "3501 was a deliberate attempt by Congress to subvert Miranda. It imposed a "totality of circumstances" test to determine whether or not a confession was voluntary and could therefore be admitted in court. But in Miranda, according to the opinion, the court ruled that such tests were too likely to allow coerced confessions to be admitted, and specifically instated the Miranda rules to protect a suspect's rights under the 5th Amendment.
Responding to the 4th Circuit's judgment that subsequent Court rulings had undermined and contradicted Miranda, Rehnquist conceded that "there is language in some of our opinions that supports the view taken by that court," however he reconciled the matter by saying that "these decisions illustrate the principle--not that Miranda is not a constitutional rule--but that no constitutional rule is immutable."
The opinion continued: "Our subsequent cases have reduced the impact of the Miranda rule on legitimate law enforcement while reaffirming the decision's core ruling that unwarned statements may not be used as evidence in the prosecution's case in chief."
In conclusion, Rehnquist addressed head-on the question of whether the Court should now reverse Miranda. "We do not think there is such justification for overruling Miranda. Miranda has become embedded in routine police practice to the point where the warnings have become part of our national culture," the opinion stated.
Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, blasted the Court's ruling in a dissent, writing that the majority opinion gave needless protection to "foolish (but not compelled) confessions."
Arguing the Court was contradicting previous decisions by upholding Miranda, Scalia wrote that while Constitutional rules can be changed by Court decisions, "they must make sense. The requirement that they do so is the only thing that prevents this Court from being some sort of nine-headed Caesar, giving thumbs-up or thumbs-down to whatever outcome, case by case, suits or offends its collective fancy."
Scalia wrote that the Court was giving itself the power "not merely to apply the Constitution but to expand it, imposing what it regards as useful 'prophylactic' restrictions upon Congress and the States. That is an immense and frightening antidemocratic power, and it does not exist."
"Today's judgment converts Miranda from a milestone of judicial overreaching into the very Cheops' Pyramid (or perhaps the Sphinx would be a better analogue) of judicial arrogance," the dissent continued. "In imposing its Court-made code upon the States, the original opinion at least asserted that it was demanded by the Constitution. Today's decision does not pretend that it is-and yet still asserts the right to impose it against the will of the people's representatives in Congress. Far from believing that stare decisis compels this result, I believe we cannot allow to remain on the books even a celebrated decision-especially a celebrated decision-that has come to stand for the proposition that the Supreme Court has power to impose extraconstitutional constraints upon Congress and the States. This is not the system that was established by the Framers, or that would be established by any sane supporter of government by the people."
"This is a sad day for crime victims and law abiding Americans," said Paul Cassell, lawyer for the U.S., in a press release within hours of the ruling. "The Court's ruling will allow violent criminals to go free even when they have voluntarily confessed to their crimes. It is particularly surprising that the Court has struck down an Act of Congress, reflecting the will of the people. The result is a rigid, constitutional straitjacket on our nation's criminal justice system that will block the search for truth in our nation's courtrooms and prevent experimentation with best ways of regulating police questioning."
James Hundley, who represented Dickerson, disagreed. "We couldn't have asked for a better ruling," he said. "It's clear-cut, it's concise, (and) it says in no uncertain terms that 3501 is unconstitutional and that the Court is not going to reverse Miranda." Hundley said that, in the wake of the Supreme Court's ruling, he expected Dickerson's case would be sent back to the state courts for a new trial.