Summary
A later Supreme Court decision construed and redefined interrogation, the word that has the utmost significance in Sawyer.22 In Rhode Island v. Innis,23 law enforcement officers arrested the defendant on suspicion of armed robbery.24 The officers gave the defendant the Miranda warnings, and the defendant informed the officers that he understood his rights and asked to have the assistance of an attorney.25 While transporting the defendant to the police precinct, one of the officers spoke of the possibility of a child finding the gun used in the robbery and hurting himself or herself, prompting the defendant to tell the officers that he would direct them to the location of the weapon.26 The Court reasoned that although placing a defendant in custody was inherently compulsive, any interrogation enhanced the compulsion level of being in custody in and of itself.27 The Innis Court refined and expanded the Miranda Court's definition of custodial interrogation28 by concluding that interrogation includes either express questioning or its functional equivalent.
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Extract
Criminal Law-State V. Sawyer: Tennessee Supreme Court Holds That a Police Officer Cannot Read an Affidavit to a Person in Custody Without Giving Miranda Warnings
Nearly forty years after the landmark United States Supreme Court decision Miranda v. Arizona,1 the Tennessee Supreme Court wrestled with the same "restraints society must observe consistent with the ... Constitution in prosecuting individuals for crimes."2 The protection of persons accused of crimes from unjust and unfair interrogations had its origins hi the English criminal justice system.3 The enactment of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution illustrates the importance of this civil liberty in American jurisprudence. The Self-Incrimination Clause of the Fifth Amendment states "[n]o person . . . shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself."4 Pursuant to the Self-Incrimination Clause, the Supreme Court has articulated principles and procedures to which government officials must adhere when interrogating individuals accused of crimes.5
In State v. Sawyer,6 the Tennessee Supreme Court upheld the trial court's...See the full content of this document
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