Fourth Circuit Miranda ruling to be appealed to High Court.

The Fourth Circuit's recent 2-1 ruling that an obscure 1968 federal law trumps the historic Miranda decision will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, according to the criminal defense attorney who handled the case.

A three-judge panel of the circuit found that a criminal suspect's confessions to federal law enforcement officers do not necessarily have to be suppressed just because the warnings required under Miranda v. Arizona (384 U.S. 436 (1966)) were not given. (U.S. v. Dickerson, No. 97-4750, 1999 WL 61200 (4th Cir. Feb. 8, 1999).)

"We find that the admissibility of confessions in federal court is governed by 18 U.S.C.A. [sections] 3501 rather than Miranda," Judge Karen Williams wrote for the majority in the Dickerson case. That section was enacted two years after Miranda. It said the only test of admissibility in a federal prosecution is whether a suspect's confession was given voluntarily. Failure to comply with Miranda would not, by itself, establish lack of voluntariness.

The Fourth Circuit ruling is especially unusual in that two amici curiae, rather than the prosecution, raised the argument that [sections] 3501 supersedes Miranda. The friend-of-the-court briefs were filed by the conservative Washington Legal Foundation and the Safe Streets Coalition.

Fairfax, Virginia, defense attorney James Hundley, whose motion for an en banc rehearing has already been denied, said he will file the petition for certiorari soon. He said the appeals court should not have considered an argument that was not raised by either party in the case.

In the Dickerson decision, Williams chastised the U.S. Justice Department for barring prosecutors from arguing that [sections] 3501 supersedes Miranda.

"The Department of Justice, elevating politics over law, prohibited the U.S. Attorney's Office from arguing that Dickerson's confession is admissible under ... [sections] 3501. The Department of Justice cannot prevent us from deciding this case under the governing law simply by refusing to argue it," she wrote.

The decision affects only those jurisdictions within the Fourth Circuit, which includes federal courts in Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia. On the street level, only federal, not state, law enforcement officers will be faced with deciding whether to continue to read suspects their rights.

Hundley said he doesn't believe Miranda warnings will disappear.

"Everything I've heard is that law enforcement, in their response to this decision, has said unanimously, `We'll still give the warnings--we're not going to stop,'" Hundley said.

Barry Tarlow, a Los Angeles defense attorney, said he believes the Fourth Circuit's decision will have a minimal impact on criminal law.

"In my opinion it was an aberrational decision that hopefully will be remedied by the Supreme Court," Tarlow said. "Those people who are concerned about the protection of individual rights and liberties have not received great comfort from the Supreme Court lately. However, this opinion seems to be both legally and logically wrong, and perhaps even the U.S. Supreme Court will recognize the problem."

Tarlow said that Miranda warnings have "not been a great obstacle" to law enforcement in the 33 years since the Supreme Court ruled on the criminal rights issue.

"Based on the large number of cases in recent years in which innocent people have been wrongly convicted, it would seem that the criminal justice system needs to tighten these protections rather than loosen them," Tarlow said.

Hundley said that while he is convinced the Fourth Circuit's decision is unconstitutional, the ruling could benefit criminal defendants if it were to withstand Supreme Court scrutiny.

"It sort of opens up a Pandora's box," Hundley said, explaining that since the Miranda decision, judges have had to analyze whether the Miranda warnings were given properly. If not, the confession is thrown out. If so, it stays in, Hundley said.

"There's not really a lot of analysis that goes beyond that, but now there could be," he said, explaining defense attorneys could argue that the warnings were given but that the defendant's statement still wasn't voluntary.

"You're going to get judges with varying strike zones of what is voluntary and what isn't. You may get judges out there who say, `I don't care if Miranda warnings were given. I still don't think [the statement was] voluntary.'"

Hundley predicted "long, drawn-out suppression heatings" if the decision is upheld because defense attorneys will raise "every single factor that has anything to do with voluntariness."

Hundley added that the bright-line nature of Miranda is what makes it a fair rule. "It doesn't leave judges open to impose their own political bents or philosophies," he said.