Supreme Court holds hard line on Miranda

By JOAN BISKUPIC
Washington Post

WASHINGTON The Supreme Court on Monday spurned Maryland's request to
reinstate the conviction of a suspect who was asked at police headquarters
whether he used drugs before he was warned he had the right to remain
silent.

By declining without comment to take the case, the justices let stand
a decision by the Maryland Court of Appeals, which found that a response to
a standard Prince George's County booking question about drug use could not
be used against a defendant unless he first had been read his Miranda
rights. The Maryland attorney general had argued that the booking question
was not meant to be part of a criminal interrogation, requiring a warning,
but rather was asked for routine administrative purposes.

While the Supreme Court has allowed some exceptions to Miranda, the justices
have declined over three decades to reverse a ruling that requires suspects
in custody to be warned they have the right to remain silent and to have a
lawyer present.

The Maryland case began when Michael Patron Hughes was arrested on suspicion
of distributing illegal drugs. During booking, Hughes was asked standard
biographical questions, but the arrest report form also asked whether he was
a "narcotic or drug user." Hughes answered no.

At trial, the prosecutor used that response, with the judge's consent, to
try to establish that Hughes possessed drugs not for his personal use but to
sell. Hughes was found guilty, but the state appeals court threw out his
conviction, ruling that a question about drug use necessarily would generate
an incriminating answer and could not fall within a Miranda exception for
booking questions. The Supreme Court in 1990 ruled that answers to routine
booking questions, such as a suspect's name, address and date of birth,
could be used without the Miranda warning. But the court cautioned police
against turning the booking process into a pretext for gathering
incriminating information.

In the state's appeal, Maryland Attorney General Joseph Curran Jr. said
confusion exists among lower courts over how to evaluate when a booking
question requires Miranda warnings. The trial court had said the drug
question could have been harmlessly asked to determine whether a person has
a drug problem requiring medication or isolation.

But Hughes' lawyers rejected claims of confusion and said, in Maryland vs.
Hughes, "The question in this case is plainly designed to elicit an
incriminating response and any officer would know that it is likely to
elicit an incriminating response."