Repeat..
A lot of people assume that the police are required to read a suspect his Miranda rights upon arrest. That is, they assume that one of a person’s rights is the right to be read their rights..... It often happens that way on Law & Order, but that’s not what the law actually requires.
The police aren’t required to follow Miranda. Miranda is a set of rules the government can chose to follow if they want to admit a person’s statements in a criminal case in court, not a set of rules they have to follow in every case.
Under Chavez v. Martinez, 538 U.S. 760 (2003), it is lawful for the police to not read a suspect his Miranda rights, interrogate him, and then obtain a statement. Chavez holds that a person’s Miranda rights are violated only if the statement is admitted in court, even if the statement is obtained in violation of Miranda. See id. at 772-73.
Further, the prosecution is even allowed to admit any physical evidence discovered as a fruit of the statement obtained in violation of Miranda — only the actual statement can be excluded. See United States v. Patane, 542 U.S. 630 (2004).
So, contrary to what a lot of people think, it is legal for the government to even intentionally violate Miranda so long as they don’t try to seek admission of the suspect’s statements in court.
Thanks for posting what I was about to say.
The SCOTUS has made the exceptions quite clear in the past. The ACLU is living in a fantasy world.
If the LEO’s have enough physical evidence to convict him, they don’t need to bother admitting his statements for the prosecution. They can grill him for leads to other complicit individuals and those issues aren’t going to be admitted to his own trial.
A prosecutor will often choose physical evidence over statements - the evidence is harder to dismiss or lawyer away, as long as it wasn’t the fruit of an illegal search.