Law Commons^™

Miranda, Secret Questioning, And The Right To Counsel, Geoffrey S. Corn

Geoffrey S. Corn

Surreptitious police questioning, either through an undercover officer or a prison inmate acting as a government agent, is often an effective tactic to exploit a suspect’s erroneous belief that it is safe to make incriminating statements. The Supreme Court has held that use of this tactic does not implicate the Miranda rights warning and waiver requirement because the suspect’s ignorance that the false friend is in fact a government agent eliminates an essential element of the custodial interrogation trigger for these rights. However, in Edwards and Minnick, the Supreme Court recognized that once a suspect invokes the Miranda right …