Fourth and Fifth Amendment Decisions Paper Example

Constitutional Amendments that Would Relate to this Situation

The situation illustrated in the case study relates to the Fifth Amendment. This amendment is included in the US Bill of Rights, and it safeguards people against being constrained to witness against their criminal cases. The Fifth Amendment safeguards individuals against self-incrimination prohibit double jeopardy and warrant the right to a grand jury (Thomas, 2018). The Amendment indeed confirms the right to remain silence especially when the defendant feels that he or she, is likely to incriminate themselves in regards to a criminal matter. Therefore, the state may not force an individual to incriminate themselves. According to this amendment, the state should for that reason not compel an individual to waive their constitutional rights; however, the state should warn the individuals of their rights (Thomas, 2018). In this line, officer Martinez read the Miranda warnings to the suspect under arrest and then asked the suspect if he or she would make a statement. The Fifth Amendment also applies to the defendant in custody. Now, to protect the constitutional rights of a suspect in custody, and who is supposed to be interrogated, the police must again read the Miranda rights to the defendant. In the case study, the detective again read the Miranda warning to the suspect in custody before proceeding with the interview. According to this Amendment, if the defendant would at any moment, before or during the questioning, indicates that he would wish to remain silent then the interrogation should stop (Thomas, 2018). If a suspect is not warned of his or her constitutional rights during investigations, then the concession acquired will be disqualified from the prosecutor`s case. Like the Fourteenth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment guarantee suspects that their right to liberty, life, to own property will not be deprived without due law process.

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How Edwards rule is related to this situation

Authorities seized Robert Edwards for burglary, robbery, and murder. He waived his rights and agreed to talk and confessed. However, he later changed his mind and sought help from a counsel. The Supreme Court in Edwards v. Arizona ruling painted a new picture which is a separate initiation test for establishing if a defendant who has revoked his or her rights to an attorney can be guaranteed another chance for interrogation (Kraus, & Stevens, 2015). The Supreme Court approach on the Edwards case defines circumstances under which a waiver to the constitutional rights and subsequent confession would be regarded as voluntary, knowing and intelligent. For the Edwards cases, the authorities read the Miranda warnings to him before his admission under a similar scenario of the suspect in the case study. Edwards later asserted his right to counsel. Now, the Supreme Court ruled that despite that fact he confessed, he would be once interrogated since he sought the help of counsel (Kraus, & Stevens, 2015). The Court claimed that Edwards would have lacked the ability to withstand the pressures of interrogation and thus sought for lawyer`s help (Slobogin, 2017). So, in the case study, the suspect had earlier indicated that he would want a lawyer to represent him. Therefore, even after confessing to the detective, in the view of Edwards rule, the suspect can still seek for re-interrogation where a lawyer would represent him or her. Just like in the case of Edwards, the suspect in custody may have lacked the ability to withstand the pressures while the detective was interviewing him or her.

Determination if the suspect's confession to the detective is admissible

In my opinion, the admission of the suspect in custody is not acceptable. Even after the police officer viewed the in-store camera, about the alleged shop-lifting incidence, that is not enough evidence to confirm that the suspect indeed involved in the criminal act. A grand justice system is still required to justify whether the suspect indeed engaged in the shoplifting. Again, even though confessions are an efficient method of crime investigation, one risk of lying too much in the interrogations is false confessions. For instance, the poor and the less educated are more likely to be vulnerable to pressure and trickery, and the result could be false confession (Slobogin, 2017). Constitutionally, interrogations are fashioned to ensure that confessions form part of the fair trial procedure, and not police pressure, therefore, it is unreasonable to judge whether the disclosure by the suspect in the case study was a product of fair and substantial trial procedure and are not due to police coercion.

A good case study that reveals how police coercion can compel the suspects to give the wrong confession is brutal murder and rape of Michelle Moore-Bosko in Norfolk, Virginia where Daniel Williams, the neighbor, was the critical suspect (Leo, 2017). During the interrogations, Williams was severally accused of committing the murder. The investigators yelled at him; carried out polygraph examination and gave him wrong results that asserted he committed the offense. They even gave him a false DNA result. Additionally, they threatened him of capital murder charges if he did not confess; however, they promised him lesser charges if he would admit. Surprisingly, months later, forensic results revealed that William`s DNA did not match the sperm, blood and other genetic substances (Leo, 2017).

Therefore, since the interrogation circumstances in the case study are not precise; it not apparent how the detective interviewed the suspect, and hence I deem it reasonable for the suspects to be represented by a lawyer.

References

Kraus, L. L., & Stevens, R. L. (2015). Fourth and Fifth Amendment Decisions: Students and Constitutional Rights.

Leo, R. A. (2017). Police Interrogation and Suspect Confessions: Social Science, Law and Public Policy.

Slobogin, C. (2017). Manipulation of Suspects and Unrecorded Questioning: After Fifty Years of Miranda Jurisprudence, Still Two (or Maybe Three) Burning Issues. BUL Rev., 97, 1157.

Thomas, J. G. (2018). THE FIFTH AMENDMENT ACT OF PRODUCTION DOCTRINE AND THE COLLECTIVE ENTITY RULE: A Primer. Criminal Justice, 33(2), 22-26.