Supreme Court Weakens Miranda Rights

“The right to remain silent” now requires you to speak: The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 on Tuesday that criminal suspects must explicitly tell police interrogators that they wish to remain silent in order to receive Miranda protections. Previously, that right had been a given. The decision split the court along its familiar conservative-liberal fault line. Writing the dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that the decision “turns Miranda upside down . . . suspects will be legally presumed to have waived their rights even if they have given no clear expression of their intent to do so.”