As the Attorney General John Ashcroft schemes to remove judicial oversight over police agencies via Patriot Act II, the Supreme Court is busy giving it away. The Supreme Court ruled at the end of May that an Oxnard, California police officer did not violate the 5th amendment rights of Oliverio Martinez by interrogating him without informing him of his right to remain silent--all while Martinez was awaiting treatment for the five bullet wounds police gave him.
The Los Angeles Times, obviously ill-informed about current police interrogation tactics, still managed to draw the correct conclusion:
"While Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas labored to justify the bullying interrogation of a farm worker whom an Oxnard police officer had just gravely wounded, Justice John Paul Stevens, dissenting, called the inquisition what it was: 'the functional equivalent' of torture. Thomas' majority opinion rolls back decades of constitutional procedures and all but invites the backroom rough-em'-up police tactics of old.
"Oliverio Martinez is blind and partly paralyzed from the five bullets that police pumped into his body after they stopped him in connection with an investigation of possible drug sales in his Oxnard neighborhood. Although Martinez initially complied with orders to dismount from his bike, a scuffle resulted when the officers discovered he was carrying a knife and Martinez was shot.
"Paramedics arrived and carted away Martinez, bleeding and screaming, to a hospital. For nearly an hour, as Martinez waited for medical treatment and then as doctors treated him, the officers pressured him to confess to starting the fight."(1)
Martinez' case is particularly brutal, but police tactics aimed at skirting people's right to remain silent are neither old nor exceptional. Anybody who has been arrested or has seen trashy cop shows like "NYPD Blue" and "Law and Order" knows that cops will try all sorts of dirty tricks to squeeze self-incriminating information out of arrestees before they "lawyer up."
MIM gives the pigs credit: they're good at what they do. That's why we encourage people to give cops as little information as possible before and after they are arrested; don't try and beat the professionals at their own game.
An ACLU "friend of the court" brief quoted at length from a police training video describing techniques to get information from arrestees even after they have invoked their right to remain silent. It ends with the smug observation that in practice cops can break the rules with impunity. "'Won't I get sued in civil court for violating his civil rights?' Well just ask yourself, have you ever seen hundreds--hundreds and hundreds--of published cases where court found a ... violation. Did any of those officers get sued? Zero."(2) The Supreme Court's ruling endorsed this practical impunity.
Some people say the police can't fight crime if their "hands are tied" by regulations protecting those they interrogate. These people miss the point. Civil liberties like the right to remain silent protect against corrupt and dishonest people in government.
Cops and prosecutors have a careerist self-interest in arresting and convicting as many people as possible. They look great to the "tough-on-crime" yahoo majority when they pressure scared kids into confessing to a rape they did not commit. And ten years later, when the truth comes out, it's not like the cops and prosecutors will be sent to jail for their lies and incompetence.
Under socialism a.k.a. the dictatorship of the proletariat, high standards for public servants like police and prison guards will be maintained through stiff penalties. Thought-reform personnel will be held to especially high standards, expected to be some of the most self-sacrificing people there are in their concern for all people. Such personnel will not run camps or prisons to take perverse or sadistic pleasure with internees--or profit from them. Even abuses like stealing pens and paper (currently commonplace in Amerikan prisons) will be punished.(3)
Furthermore, the "tough-on-crime" crowd fail to notice that their approach does not reduce crime. You can thank capitalism for the persistence of the drug trade, prostitution, etc. Make something illegal and you make it more profitable; where there is profit to be made you will find those who will take the risk.
Notes:
1. Los Angeles Times, 28 May 2003.
2. supreme.lp.findlaw.com/supreme_court/briefs/01-1444/01-1444.mer.ami.aclu.pdf
3. For more discussion on prison and thought reform under the dictatorship of the proletariat, see: www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/wim/cong/freespeech.html.