Word: suspects
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...refused to let him see his lawyer, who was in the station house trying to see him.* Not only did the court void Danny's confession: it held that every arrested American is now entitled to consult his lawyer as soon as police investigation makes him a prime suspect...
...almost record time the Supreme Court has been forced to face the task of clarifying its own opinion by accepting five new confession cases. They raise six vital issues: 1) When do a suspect's constitutional rights begin? 2) Must police inform him of those rights? 3) Does he need a lawyer to waive them? 4) Are indigents entitled to lawyers in the police station? 5) Does Escobedo retroactively threaten pre-1964 confessions? 6) To what extent does it forbid the whole process of U.S. police interrogations...
...accuser also." Don't abandon "totality of circumstances" in judging whether confessions are free or coerced. Don't assume that "focus" is workable as an objective test. Don't expect judges to reconstruct just when the focus point was reached or whether the suspect really waived his rights when he talked. Don't add such new confusion that ultimately the only solution will be a truly automatic test: no interrogation without a lawyer...
Supreme Swinger. Indeed, the American Civil Liberties Union, as amicus curiae in all of the cases before the Supreme Court, advocates exactly that test. The A.C.L.U. argues that police custody is inherently so coercive that the suspect's privilege against self-incrimination can be protected only by a lawyer, not by mere warnings from the police, who are his adversaries. In this view, the lawyer's function would not be so much to shut up a guilty suspect as to advise him on his best chances-to say nothing of what the presence of lawyers would...
Eternal Satemouths. For police, at least, perhaps the most interesting news is that warnings by no means stop confessions. In Philadelphia last October, police began giving verbal warnings as soon as they suspected anyone of being "involved." After that comes a six-question written warning that detectives carefully read aloud and suspects sign. By last month 76% of all felony suspects had nonetheless made voluntary statements; the confessors ranged from 68.8% of robbery defendants to 82.6% of murder defendants. To the Supreme Court, on the other hand, such statistics may suggest that a suspect who waives his rights to silence...