The U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruled on Thursday that arrested individuals cannot sue police for civil rights violations if they are not read their Miranda rights.
The Miranda warning, or Miranda rights, is the oft-recited reminder by arresting police officers to suspects that they have the right to remain silent and have a lawyer present at questioning.
Since the 1966 SCOTUS decision in Miranda v. Arizona, criminal courts generally do not allow self-incriminating statements made by defendants in police custody into evidence if a Miranda warning had not been given.
The 6-3 decision in Vega v. Tekoh held that a violation of a person’s Miranda rights is insufficient justification for a civil rights lawsuit against an arresting police officer.
The case originated from the 2014 arrest of Terence Tekoh.
Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy Carlos Vega arrested Tekoh for sexual assault. However, Tekoh confessed to the police before being read his Miranda rights.
He later recanted his confession, but it was still allowed to be admitted into evidence at trial. Nevertheless, Tekoh was found not guilty.
Still, after his acquittal, Tekoh sued Vega, believing the officer had violated his civil rights because he was not read his Miranda rights. The case eventually made its way up to the Supreme Court.
Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito reasoned, “[The Miranda precedent] rests on a pragmatic judgment about what is needed to stop the violation at trial of the Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination… [Its] prophylactic purpose is served by the suppression at trial of statements obtained in violation of Miranda and by the application of that decision in other recognized contexts.”
The SCOTUS majority held that since violating someone’s Miranda rights is not in and of itself a violation of the Fifth Amendment, there is no need to “[expand] Miranda to confer a right to sue” based on a civil rights violation.
Justice Elena Kagan wrote the Court’s dissenting opinion.
Kagan claimed that the Court was stripping “individuals of the ability to seek a remedy for violations of the right recognized in Miranda.”
She discussed how someone could ostensibly be wrongly convicted, spend years in prison, get that wrongful conviction overturned, and then be left without a way to seek remedy from police for harm suffered.