Every American citizen’s right to receive due processes as well as being treated fairly within the court system is provided by both the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. As a result, in the event of an arrest, the law enforcement responsible for the apprehension spell out to a suspect their right to remain silent as well as make it known to them that the court of law will can charge them concerning anything they say. Also, suspects are reminded that if they cannot afford a lawyer, they will be provided with legal representation in a bid to uphold the rights of the suspect in accordance to the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. This means that suspects have the right to remain silent during police investigations until they get counsel or legal representation that will advise the suspects on how to go about providing their statements. Some of the times suspects utter incriminating words during interrogations, which leaves courts in a dilemma in as far as upholding the interpretations of certain amendments such as in the Berghuis V. Thompkins case.
The Berghuis V. Thompkins is a case that involved Mary Berghuis, the petitioner, and Van Chester Thompkins, the defendant, which was decided by Robert’s Court. The case was granted on 30th September 2009, argued on the 1st March 2010 and decided on 1st June 2010 at the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ( Berghuis v. Thompkins . 560 US 370 (2010). The defendant, Thompkins was convicted by a Michigan state court of first-degree murder, several firearms-related charges as well as assault with the intent to kill. Thompkins’ petition for habeas corpus relief at a Michigan federal district court was denied ( Berghuis v. Thompkins . 560 US 370 (2010). In an attempt to appeal, the defendant argued that his confession was obtained in a manner that violated the rights provided by the Fifth Amendment as well as being denied effective counsel trial.
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The Sixth Circuit held that the findings of the Michigan Supreme Court’s that Thompkins waived the right provided by the Fifth Amendment as unreasonable. The Sixth Circuit’s argument on the findings being unreasonable was based on the idea that the defendant refused to sign an acknowledgment of being informed of his Miranda rights ( Berghuis v. Thompkins . 560 US 370 (2010). The Sixth Circuit also held that there was an improper determination of prejudice by his Counsel when it failed to request a limiting instruction in conjunction with his co-defendant’s testimony, which was separately tried, by the Michigan Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court’s act of reversing the Sixth Circuits decision and holding that the state court’s decision to reject Thompkin’s Miranda claim was correct ( Berghuis v. Thompkins . 560 US 370 (2010). For the majority, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote the Court’s reasoning that the defendant’s failure to invoke his Miranda right to remain silent as well as to counsel since he did not do so “unambiguously.” The court was also of the opinion that the defendant waived his Miranda right when he answered yes to a question by the police, making him knowingly and voluntarily making an incriminating remark. However, Justice Sotamayor voiced Justice John Paul Stevens’, Ruth Ginsburg’s and Stephen G. Breyer’s dissent. The three were of the opinion that the majority did not correctly interpret the definition of the Miranda right since they believed that a suspect could not waive his/her rights by merely uttering a “one-word response” since the only word Thompkins uttered during the three-hour interrogation was “yes.”
The decision by the court on the Berghuis V. Thompkins case as well as the fact that 75% waive their Miranda rights impacts law enforcement in a way that can be interpreted in two ways ( Berghuis v. Thompkins . 560 US 370 (2010). The first is that it gives police the ability to violate the citizens’ Fifth Amendment and the second is that it creates an instance in which law enforcement might stand a chance of facing indictment for wrongfully obtaining evidence, thus throwing cases (Cassell & Fowles, 2017).
References
Berghuis v. Thompkins . 560 US 370 (2010)
Cassell, P. G., & Fowles, R. (2017). Still Handcuffing the Cops: A Review of Fifty Years of Empirical Evidence of Miranda's Harmful Effects on Law Enforcement. BUL Rev. , 97 , 685.
