Losing your rights, ‘Miranda’, not the USA I grew up in
‘Miranda’ Dealt One-Two Punch by High Court
Tony Mauro
The National Law Journal
February 25, 2010
It has not been a good week for the famed Miranda warning at the hands of the Supreme Court.
In decisions issued on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Court ruled that confessions should be admitted at trial even when police interviewed suspects in circumstances that lower courts viewed as Miranda violations.
The Court on Wednesday issued Maryland v. Shatzer (pdf), establishing new, more permissive rules for police who want to question a suspect for a second time after the suspect invokes Miranda’s right to remain silent.
The Maryland case came down a day after the justices decided Florida v. Powell (pdf), in which a 7-2 majority Court said that Florida’s alternative wording of the Miranda warning is acceptable, even though it does not explicitly state that a suspect has a right to have a lawyer present during questioning.
Stanford Law School professor Jeffrey Fisher said the rulings continue the Court’s trend of “extreme hostility toward constitutional rules that require the exclusion of evidence — especially confessions and the product of illegal searches — from criminal trials.” Fisher, who heads a National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers committee that files amicus briefs at the high court, said, “In short, this Court sees the costs and benefits of rules designed to curb police overreaching entirely differently than the Court did a generation ago. ”
Sidley Austin partner Jeffrey Green, who also assists NACDL and other defense lawyers in high court arguments, added, “At this rate, what’s left [of Miranda] will be only what we see on TV.”
But Lauren Altdoerffer of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which supports law enforcement officials in Miranda cases, said the rulings don’t weaken constitutional protection against compelled self-incrimination. “The Court is allowing states and police to draft rules that fit their needs but still fit the requirements of Miranda.” She added that the crucial question is whether the interview of the suspect is compelled or voluntary.
In the Maryland case, which was argued on the first day of the Court’s term last October, the ruling weakens the so-called Edwards v. Arizona rule, which states that, once a suspect invokes Miranda, any subsequent waiver of the right triggered by a police request is deemed involuntary — making further police questioning improper.
July 2009 federal regulators saved Toyota at least $100 million
Toyota Motor Corporation President and CEO Akio Toyoda
Diego M. Radzinschi/NLJ
Lawmakers grill Toyota execs over lobbyists, liability
David Ingram
February 24, 2010
Lawmakers fired questions Wednesday at two Toyota executives about whether the company’s lobbyists are too cozy with government regulators and whether those relationships slowed down the response to complaints about the automaker’s safety record.
The hearing, the second on Capitol Hill this week, also served as a forum for lawmakers to debate proposals related to the U.S. tort system. One Democrat warned Toyota Motor Corp.’s president, Akio Toyoda, that the automaker should expect significant losses as a result of products liability lawsuits.
“You will be called upon under our system to pay compensation,” said Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.). Customers, he added, cannot “just forgive these companies and let them kill our people.”
Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) pressed Toyoda and a second company executive, North American president Yoshimi Inaba, about whether the company would pay the medical bills of people injured in accidents. Inaba replied, “We will leave it to our legal counsel.”
The two executives did not otherwise address the potential losses or the investigations into the company being conducted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Instead, they asked for forgiveness from consumers and echoed earlier testimony from an executive with Toyota’s U.S. subsidiary, James Lentz, who said Toyota had mismanagement and communication problems.
The executives did, however, respond to concerns about Toyota’s lobbying in Washington. Lawmakers cited a slide show produced for internal Toyota use and obtained by investigators for the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The slide show from July 2009 says that company officials “negotiated” with federal regulators over a recall related to sudden acceleration in Camry engines, saving Toyota at least $100 million.
Members of both parties expressed outrage that Toyota officials were able to negotiate the extent of recalls with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. “Toyota’s own internal documents indicate that a premium was placed on delaying or closing NHTSA investigations, delaying new safety rules and blocking the discovery of safety defects,” said Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), chairman of the oversight committee.
Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.) asked the executives, “How could you possibly put this in writing?” The slide show, he said, has “done a great injustice” to U.S. car dealers and others who rely on the company’s leadership.
Inaba said that lawmakers misinterpreted the slide show. He said another Toyota employee created the document shortly after Inaba assumed his current position in June 2009 in order to familiarize Inaba with U.S. operations. “Our staff wanted to give me orientation material,” Inaba said.
“Negotiation,” Inaba said, is not a precise word for the company’s interaction with safety regulators. “There’s a good discussion, yes,” he said. And he denied that the company’s officials have a relationship with regulators that is too “cozy.”
Toyoda, who said he was not familiar with the document, downplayed its importance. “The substance and contents of such documents does not affect the entire company in a way to cause drifting of the company itself,” Toyoda said through a translator.
Lawmakers did not publicly identify any of the lobbyists who advocated for the company before the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. But Bloomberg News reported this month that two former employees of the regulator helped to end at least four investigations into unintended acceleration in Toyota engine speeds. The report named Christopher Tinto, vice president for regulatory affairs in Toyota’s Washington office, and Christopher Santucci, who works for Tinto. They joined Toyota directly from NHTSA — Tinto in 1994 and Santucci in 2003.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who oversees NHTSA, faced questions from lawmakers about the agency’s interaction with lobbyists. He touted rules in the Obama administration limiting the hiring of former lobbyists into policy jobs.
Rep. Diane Watson (D-Calif.) said she still couldn’t understand how “negotiation” with safety regulators might be allowed under government ethics rules. “Can you tell us more about that?” Watson asked LaHood.
“Not on my watch, Ms. Watson,” replied LaHood, who became transportation secretary in January 2009. “We take this work very seriously, and we do what’s in the interest of the people who own these automobiles, particularly as it relates to safety.”
Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) said he was concerned about the role played by former regulators who now work in the private sector. “The appearance is what the people are very concerned about,” Burton said.
Since the public revelations about Toyota’s safety problems, and two recalls of more than 8 million vehicles, the company has hired additional lobbying and public relations help. Its outside advisers have included Washington’s Glover Park Group and, until a week ago, Quinn Gillespie & Associates. Toyota spent $5.2 million on its in-house lobbying shop in 2009, according to federal disclosure records. It spent another $1 million on contract lobbyists, including those from Brown Rudnick and Greenberg Traurig.
The latest Toyota hearing took place just hours after the FBI raided the offices of three auto parts suppliers, at least one of which supplies Toyota. U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman Gina Talamona said that antitrust investigators are looking at “the possibility of anti-competitive cartel conduct of automotive electronic components suppliers.”
A third congressional hearing on Toyota’s safety record is scheduled for March 2 before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee. A witness list has not been released.
David Ingram can be contacted at dingram@alm.com.
What happened to Japanese Honor? by readthisor.wordpress.com
According to recent news, I must ask: What happened to Japanese Honor?
In ancient days, those responsible for something like the recent auto deaths, then bragged that they actually saved money by cheating the families effected, would commit “Seppuku”. (What were the Japanese pilots expected to do in the line of duty?) I’m not saying anybody should but they could forfeit all they own.
In America it is just another black eye for Corporate America and the D.O.T.
Taken as a whole with events of the last few years, I am reminded that every great civilization in history has fallen when the citizens revolt and eliminate those that take perverted advantage of the public.
I never want to witness that but simply ask will history repeat itself?
I want to know how the American Head Representative of this import, can look at his own wife, kids and parents and think he can justify the decisions that killed or injured MORE people AFTER the problems were not only reported but addressed by our government.
And why not hold our government complicit in the cover-up?
Maybe if those convicted big shots that now reside in special privileged prisons or are ordered to stay home under house arrest… maybe if we took the guilty and hung them on crosses, next to freeways for everyone to see for 48 hours before returning them to jail… just maybe other big shots and politicians would see that they are no better than you or I.
They too, should be subjected to discomfort that they cannot buy their way out of. They should realize that they personally have to feel some effect for the decisions they make.
Golden parachutes, Bonuses…where is the downside or risk in anything they do? They feel no pain.
Enron execs; millions of dollars await them after they spent a few months in jail. I think I would trade my life for theirs under those circumstances, they are not in some filthy dangerous prison.
When Top Execs see there is no real personal price to pay for conviction or the cost/risk analysis of spending 5 years in a vacation jail, they see the risk as well worth it. Let’s put a stop to it now. I’d much rather that happen than see our country dissolve.
I want to say, I do love the Japanese people.
I hate greed and disregard for the public, from any source.
When I owned businesses, I felt the successes or failures of my decisions in my wallet and in my life. Why should corporations insulate careless leaders?
Lets not forget that there are tens of thousands of Americans that will lose jobs related to this importer, through no fault of their own. Those families deserve an award of ten years severance pay. God bless them.
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readthisor.wordpress.com 2/24/2010 7pm pst
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