According to the recent United States Supreme Court
decision, criminal suspects cannot sue police officers who fail to give Miranda
warnings before custodial interrogations. Vega v. Tekoh, No. 21-499, 2022 WL
2251304 (U.S. June 23, 2022). SCOTUS reversed the Ninth Circuit’s decision,
maintaining the standard that a violation of Miranda is not necessarily a
violation of the Fifth Amendment.
Terence Tekoh, a medical worker accused of sexually
assaulting a patient, signed a confession during an interrogation conducted by
LA County Sheriff’s Deputy Carlos Vega. Vega did not inform Tekoh of his rights
under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436. During Tekoh’s trial, his signed
confession was admitted against him, but the jury returned a verdict of not
guilty. Tekoh then sued Deputy Vega under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violating his
constitutional rights.
42 U.S.C. § 1983 states that a person acting under color of
state law who “subjects… any citizen of the United States… to the deprivation
of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws,
shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law…” Tekoh argued that a
violation of Miranda constituted a violation of the Fifth Amendment right
against compelled self-incrimination. In agreement with Tekoh, the Ninth
Circuit held that the use of an un-Mirandized statement in a criminal
proceeding may support a § 1983 claim against the officer who obtained the
statement. However, the United States Supreme Court disagreed and reversed the
Ninth Circuit’s ruling.
In the years following the Miranda decision, the Court has
characterized Miranda rules as “prophylactic,” meaning that they are a tool
used to safeguard a person’s constitutional Fifth Amendment right. The Miranda
rules are not themselves a constitutional right. “Miranda did not hold that a
violation of the rules it established necessarily constitute a Fifth Amendment
violation. That makes sense, as an un-Mirandized suspect in custody may make
self-incriminating statements without any hint of compulsion.” Id. at *1.
Failing to provide a Miranda admonishment legally differs
from violating the Fifth Amendment. The biggest difference between treatment of
Miranda violations and Fifth Amendment violations are that the Miranda cases
involve a cost-benefit analysis to define the scope of Miranda. For example, an
un-Mirandized statement can be used to impeach a defendant’s testimony, but an
involuntary statement in violation of the Fifth Amendment cannot. Harris v. New
York, 401 U.S. 222, 224-226 (1971). Similarly, an error in administering
Miranda is not “irremediable” in the same way that police infringement of the
Fifth Amendment is. Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298, 309 (1985) (holding that
the Fifth Amendment does not require the suppression of a confession made after
Miranda warnings, solely because the police had obtained an earlier unwarned
admission). The cost-benefit analysis also determines the limit of the Miranda
rules’ scope. For instance, courts do not allow post-warning silence as
evidence against defendants who invoke their Fifth Amendment rights. Overall,
suppression of evidence due to violations of Miranda should occur only when its
benefits outweigh its costs, whereas suppression of evidence due to violations
of the Fifth Amendment always applies.
The Court found that the benefit of allowing Miranda claims
under § 1983 does not outweigh the substantial costs. Such claims would impair
judicial economy because it would require a federal judge to determine whether
there was a Miranda violation after a state court had already determined that
fact. This type of double-adjudication would also create procedural issues
between federal and state court systems. Therefore, the negative impact to the
court system is too great to justify the extra civil proceedings.
“Because a violation of Miranda is not itself a violation of
the Fifth Amendment, and because we see no justification for expanding Miranda
to confer a right to sue under § 1983, the judgment of the [Ninth Circuit]
Court of Appeals is reversed.” Vega 2022 WL 2251304 at *10. Thus, police
officers are not civilly liable for damages that criminal suspects sustain due
to Miranda violations.
