Let’s say a gang-banger is guilty of murder, but is convicted and sent to prison for the wrong murder, because his rights were violated — should he be able to sue the cops?
Yes and no. Yes, if they didn’t give him Miranda warnings, and ignored his request for an attorney. But not because they extracted a confession by lying to him.
“In May of 2013, Art Tobias was sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment after confessing at age 13 to a shooting that he did not commit.” So begins an article in Reason magazine dated May 5, 2021, describing how Los Angeles police detectives railroaded a young teenager to prison (read it here).
Alex Miguel Castaneda, 23, was gunned down on August 18, 2012, in a Hispanic neighborhood in central L.A.; his two companions were wounded. There were two shooters, and it appeared to be a gang assault (details here), possibly by the notorious MS-13 street gang (read about them here).
The shooting was caught on surveillance video. Despite Tobias bearing “little resemblance to the man … on video,” he “was pulled out of school for questioning.” He wasn’t read his Miranda rights at first. When he was, and asked for a lawyer, he was told “You’ll have the opportunity,” and the questioning continued. When detectives showed him the video of the shooting, and he told them “that’s not me,” they came at him with a barrage of lies. These included:
- Somebody “gave him up”
- They had other evidence against him
- His mother identified him as the shooter
None of this was true. But those lies, along with promises of leniency, persuaded this kid to confess to murder. He got 25 years, and served 2 years before being released.
Tobias may not have been an innocent 8th grader caught up in a police dragnet (the 9th Circuit decision said he was fingered by a gang unit detective who had never seen him, see page 7 of the decision here). One of the judges wrote that he participated in a murder the previous evening (page 28 of the decision). If this is true, then it’s tempting to say, “Well, the cops got a gang-banger off the streets, even if you don’t like how they did it.”
Maybe. But the foundation of our legal system, and simple fair play, is that people should be convicted in our courts only of crimes they actually committed, and suspects are entitled to due process in every criminal proceeding against them; in this case, the court ruled, the police violated Art Tobias’ constitutional rights.
Courts have ruled lying to suspects generally doesn’t violate their rights or render a confession “coerced.” More is required to overturn a conviction based on a confession. Threatening the suspect with “less favorable treatment” from the courts if he exercises his rights “is so coercive that it always risks” tainting the confession, the Reason article says, quoting the opinion.
But even when the police violate a suspect’s constitutional rights, resulting in wrongful conviction and imprisonment, that doesn’t mean the victim can sue for financial redress. That’s because of a legal doctrine called “qualified immunity” (overview here). The Reason article says, “The 9th Circuit conceded those interrogation tactics were indeed abusive.” But ultimately, it allowed him to sue the police only for violating his Miranda rights, and barred him from suing them for violating his due process rights because of qualified immunity.
These issues have been around for years. But the murder of George Floyd, coupled with a string of other police killings of black people, laid bare — and brought into public view — the broader issue of police behavior that shocks the conscience, along with calls for broad-based police reforms and demands for greater police accountability.
One of these reforms is tightening, or eliminating altogether, the qualified immunity that shields abusive police from legal consequences. The police reform bill, named for George Floyd, passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in March 2021 would abolish it. Some states are taking action; for example, Washington just passed a package of police reforms that make it easier to sue misbehaving police.
America’s criminal justice system is often described as “broken” (see, e.g., this essay published by the conservative-leaning Cato Institute last year).
If something isn’t working, you fix it. And the system isn’t working if cops are sending innocent people — including kids — to prison for crimes they didn’t commit. The system isn’t working when victims of police abuses have no legal redress. Exactly how to fix those shortcomings in our legal system is a legitimate subject for debate. But the need to fix them isn’t — or ought not be — debatable. As this case illustrates, the current system has serious things wrong with it that society can’t continue to ignore.
There is also an attorney or attornies involved here. You know the Prosecutors office that brings cases to the court, and files them and has an ethical obligation to make sure officers have not overstepped. There was also a decision made here to try a minor as an adult and that decision rest on the Prosecutor not the cops.Of course the Prosecutor enjoys the same immunity the officers do from the same statute or different ones. Is the Prosecutors malfeasance not greater than the officers who may only be guilty of being too gung ho, and carrying lies too far?
You’re assuming the prosecutor knew the circumstances of the confession. But how would the prosecutor know that? How would a prosecutor know a defendant’s Miranda rights were violated, and he was questioned after requesting an attorney? Do you think the cops put this stuff in their reports? Don’t blame the attorneys in the prosecutor’s office. Blame the cops.