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New York v. Quarles and the Public Safety Exception | |
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< | In New York v. Quarles, the Supreme Court held that our 5th Amendment Miranda_ right is subject to a public safety exception: when there is a need to protect the public or police from any immediate danger, pre Miranda statements–and evidence gathered on their basis–are admissible evidence against the accused. | >
> | In New York v. Quarles, the Supreme Court held that our 5th Amendment Miranda right is subject to a public safety exception: when there is a need to protect the public or police from any immediate danger, pre Miranda statements–and evidence gathered on their basis–are admissible evidence against the accused. | | | In my first draft, I argued that Quarles reflects a worrisome trend of excessive deference to police discretion in our constitutional law; and that one major cause of such a trend is the overrepresentation of prosecutors relative to public defenders in the federal judiciary. I re-evaluate these assertions in this draft.
Troubling Implications of Quarles | |
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< | There are several ways in which the Quarles decision might be problematic. First, it potentially weakens the Miranda protection by making it less categorical, suggesting to law enforcement officers that so long as they can come up with some sort of threat, intrusive questioning is justified. Indeed, there are some cases in which the Quarles exception is applied in questionable circumstances where the threat seemed far-fetched. For instance, in United States v. Brady, the "objectively reasonable threat" used to justify questioning the defendant about guns in his car's (presumably locked) trunk was that someone in the crowd witnessing the arrest might attempt to grab a weapon from the trunk, despite another officer being present to guard it. Cases like Brady seem to be the outliers, however: Most post-1984 Miranda cases make no mention of the Quarles public safety exception, and the vast majority of cases that do apply Quarles involve quite obvious threats (e.g. asking a suspect where the gun was as he reached towards his waistband or where he discarded his gun shortly after shooting someone. It thus does not appear that Quarles has crucially undermined Miranda. | >
> | There are several ways in which the Quarles decision might be problematic. First, it potentially weakens the Miranda protection by making it less categorical, suggesting to law enforcement officers that so long as they can come up with some sort of threat, intrusive questioning can incriminate suspects. Indeed, there are some cases in which the Quarles exception is applied in questionable circumstances where the threat seemed far-fetched. For instance, in United States v. Brady, the "objectively reasonable threat" used to justify questioning the defendant about guns in his car's (presumably locked) trunk was that someone in the crowd witnessing the arrest might attempt to grab a weapon from the trunk, despite another officer being present to guard it. Cases like Brady seem to be the outliers, however: Most post-1984 Miranda cases don't even mention the Quarles public safety exception, and the vast majority of cases that do apply Quarles involve quite obvious threats (e.g. asking a suspect where the gun was as he reached towards his waistband or where he discarded his gun shortly after shooting someone. It thus does not appear that Quarles has crucially undermined Miranda. | | | | |
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< | My second critique was that the decision serves a damaging expressive function by endorsing police’s ability to act on their instincts, noting in dictum that their decision will “free [officers] to follow their legitimate instincts.” It is now well established that the instincts of police officers are often incorrect: they operate on various heuristics that correlate poorly with the presence of an actual threat, such as race. The court effectively downplays the deep problems with policing in America and shifts public opinion away from much needed reform. People outsource their judgments to some extent: if a credible appearing actor makes a certain assessment, we may accept the truth of this assessment. While clear evidence to the contrary might prevent us from following its lead, many people are not presented with such clear evidence of the fact that excessive police discretion might be an issue. The decision of an institution that they believe to be a bastion of detached, objective decisionmaking, such as the Supreme Court, could therefore be enough to sway the opinions of the ambivalent. It is unlikely, however, that the Quarles decision would have such an impact. First, it is limited to the context of police discretion in terms of whether there is a threat once the suspect has been apprehended; this is different from a wholesale endorsement of police officers’ abilities more generally. Second, and more importantly, it seems far-fetched that dictum, buried in page 11 of a 42 page opinion, would make a significant impact on the general public’s perception of policing. | >
> | My second critique was that the decision serves a harmful expressive function by endorsing police’s ability to act on their instincts, noting in dictum that their decision will “free [officers] to follow their legitimate instincts.” It is now well established that the instincts of police officers are often incorrect: they operate on various heuristics that correlate poorly with the presence of an actual threat, such as race. The court effectively downplays the deep problems with policing in America and shifts public opinion away from much needed reform. People outsource their judgments to some extent: if a credible appearing actor makes a certain assessment, we may accept the truth of this assessment. While clear evidence to the contrary might prevent us from following its lead, many people are not presented with such clear evidence of the fact that excessive police discretion might be an issue. The decision of an institution that they believe to be a bastion of detached, objective decisionmaking, such as the Supreme Court, could therefore be enough to sway the opinions of the ambivalent. It is unlikely, however, that the Quarles decision would have such an impact. First, it is limited to the context of police discretion in terms of whether there is a threat once the suspect has been apprehended; this is different from a wholesale endorsement of police officers’ abilities more generally. Second, and more importantly, it seems far-fetched that dictum, buried in page 11 of a 42 page opinion, would make a significant impact on the general public’s perception of policing. | | |
Will A More Balanced Judiciary Undermine Quarles? |
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