NCJ Number
182289
Journal
Prosecutor Volume: 34 Issue: 1 Dated: January/February Pages: 35-39
Date Published
2000
Length
5 pages
Annotation
When the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the decision in United States v. Dickerson, the stage was set for one of the most important criminal procedure decisions by the Court in recent memory; at issue is whether a purely voluntary confession can be suppressed because of a technical "Miranda" violation.
Abstract
"Dickerson" arose from a bank robbery investigation in northern Virginia in which a joint investigation by FBI agents and State law enforcement officers resulted in the arrest of a serial bank robber named Charles Dickerson. After the agents talked to Dickerson for about an hour, they obtained incriminating statements from him about his involvement in the robberies. At a later suppression hearing, however, there was a dispute about exactly when he had received his Miranda warnings. The district court, citing an ambiguous time reference on the waiver of rights form, sided with Dickerson and suppressed the confession. Prosecutors then provided to the district court a series of affidavits and other documents that corroborated the FBI agents' testimony, but the district court refused to look at this new information. The Fourth Circuit reversed the district court's decision, concluding that Federal law did not permit the suppression of a purely voluntary confession. Since the Fourth Circuit's ruling, defense attorneys and their allies have argued that Dickerson was wrongly decided and that the U.S. Supreme Court should preserve the rule than an "un-Mirandized" statement must automatically be excluded, regardless of how clear the evidence that the police treated the defendant fairly and that the defendant spoke voluntarily. The arguments against the Fourth Circuit's decision rest on a series of false claims. This article reviews these false claims and urges that the Supreme Court affirm the Fourth Circuit's ruling. 12 notes