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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 11, 2003)
SPORIS THE BATTALION may i deal Id Sky Sports News, am’s father, Ted, here he would like his iy- int him to stay ti er United,” he said, am’s future has tk of speculation foi Another Spanish cl, sirid, and the Mat AC Milan and male also have beet a possible sale, am has helped er United win six of league titles in 11 nd the Europeat is Cup in 1999. He at Manchester Uniled t 13 years, incluif earns. Tuesday’s announce :kham had told the eles Times he was stay at Manchesiei t had never said he lain there for good, m is paid a reported a week at Manchesiei e is worth $79.5 rail- ■ding to a recent stir- tain’s richest people iday Times. 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Mexander and gen- e near the Rockets' m. s ready to succeed ing his agent com- n assistant coaches “We had a lot of opening was trying as assistants, then have a first-round caching position is issistant with the with the Knicks, ik there’s a lot of ; might be in the under contract. 1 econd-round draft r contract through •thella Harrington coach who gives improve the team /ery intense guy. i and to win and that on the other Opinion The Battalion Page 5 • Wednesday, June 11, Read him his rights Police not fully complying with Miranda rights, violating Fifth Amendment L ast month. Supreme Court justices agreed to hear Missouri v. Seibert, a 2002 case involving the use of Miranda. Made famous in crime-related tel evision programs and in movies, Miranda is the reading of a sus pect’s rights, typically beginning with: “You have the right to remain silent.” The issue at question is whether police have the privilege of interrogating suspects before reading them their rights, or “Mirandizing” them, a privilege that undermines the Fifth Amendment. The Supreme Court must uphold Missouri’s lower court rul ing which declared this type of interrogation illegal and unconstitutional. The case involves a woman, Patrice Seibert, who was accused of setting a fire to cover up the accidental death of a 17-year-old male. She was initially convicted of trying to cover up the death, but it was discovered by the defense that police intentionally and unlawfully failed to read her rights to her properly. According to the Missouri Attorney General’s Frontline Report, a police newsletter, “The murder conviction was reversed and her confession suppressed because it was obtained illegally and in a direct attempt to avoid the Miranda requirements.” It is horrific to think that police officers, attempting to encourage convictions, would willfully violate federal law and the Fifth Amendment, which gives people the right to not incriminate themselves. Unfortunately, this is exactly what is happen- ning in Missouri. Siebert’s interrogating officer testified that he had been trained to seek confessions before reading suspects their rights, a training tech nique that is not only unethical, but illegal. “The investigator feared if he Mirandized the defendant, she might not volunteer informa tion,” according to the Frontline Report. What this means is that some police officers clearly don’t want suspects to be fully aware of their rights as U.S. citi zens. This can only be described as a corruption of justice. There is a loophole that many police officers use to avoid Miranda requirements, but it is extremely problematic. Suspects being con fronted by police sometimes immediately incriminate themselves, either through speech or actions, or waive their Miranda rights by claiming to know them already. These impromptu confessions, called “excited utter ances,” are admissable in court, according to The Springfield News-Leader. However, how many criminals actually know their Miranda rights word-for-word? Likely, very few. And it is easy to see how someone who is not of sound mind and body could con fess to a crime he did not committ, simply so police can have a conviction. Miranda rights must be read completely before any actual interrogating takes place, regardless of these “excited utterances.” Police must learn to seek justice over convictions. When this loophole fails police, there is another to turn to. Missouri police have been using a multi-step Miranda process consisting of an interrogation, the reading of Miranda and then another interrogation. According to the Frontline Report, “The technique assumes the second Mirandized confession can be used because it comes after a Miranda warning.” However, this assumption is false and ille gal. Seeking a confession before a suspect is aware of his rights, only to read his rights to him and again seek the confession, is highly unethical and unprofessional. One may never know how many of these illegally-obtained confessions have gone unchallenged and resulted in convictions. Why are police inten tionally breaking the law and using illegal interrogation techniques? These actions, by anyone’s definition, are criminal. We live in a country where police are given excessive power and authority, privileges they sometimes abuse, as in the case of Seibert. As such, America must work to keep its system of checks and balances in place and not allow police to define federal law as they see fit. Willfully obtaining illegal confessions does more to encourage crime than to avert it, and police officers, just like everyone else, must be held accountable. George Deutsch is a senior journalism major. Graphic by Radhika Thirunarayanan. GEORGE DEUTSCH FCC rulings only obstruct capitalism I magine yourself as the owner of a local movie theater. One night you awake to a phone call; a friend tells you to drive down to your business immedi ately because you have to wit ness what is happening for yourself. Taking his advice, you drive over and see that somebody else is selling tick ets to the late-night mob. The stranger stationed at your box office counts the huge wad of cash he has just acquired and, seeing you, smiles and hands you one of the bills he’s col lected, pocketing the rest. What would you do in this situation? Call the police? What if they tell you that they knew about it — in fact, they encouraged it, saying, “You weren’t using the theater at the time, why should you have exclusive rights to it? He paid you, it’s legal, and we’re not going to do a thing about it.” As crazy as it sounds, this fictional transaction is happen ing to the Bell companies, and the criminal perpetrator is the Federal Communications Commission. The Bell companies, com posed of BellSouth Corp., SBC Communications, Verizon Communications and Qwest Communications, have been tinder federal mandate for the past seven years to lease parts of their systems to competitors, according to The Associated Press. But not only must they rent out their lines, towers and equipment to major companies such as’Sprint and AT&T — they must do so at undisclosed discounted rates. Because their competitors didn’t have to put in the thousands of dollars to survey sites or construct lines and towers, this allows them to undercut Bell prices. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 is the loathsome decree that forced this leas ing in a mockery of free trade and property rights — core values of the capitalist economy our freedom and prosperity rest on. Earlier this year, Verizon sought deregula tion to push for new invest ment and advancement in high speed Internet and local phone services. With hat in hand, the industry giant pleaded with the government to allow it to do its job. For the third time since the act came into existence, the FCC turned Verizon away. “In the long haul,” remarked Tom Tauke, senior vice president of public policy and external affairs for Verizon. “These rules hurt consumers, who are denied the benefits of robust competition and more investment; they hurt workers, who continue to lose their jobs in the commu nications industry; and they hurt the economy by thwarting the investment and innovation in networks that can deliver great advancements in produc tivity to our nation.” Why would the government tie ropes that bind the legs of prosperity and progress? The Telecommunications Act of 1996 is a more subtle type of antitrust law, which claims to promote competition and elim inate the possibility of an emerging monopoly through government intervention. A common misconception is that the government has to protect its citizens from big business through the prevention of monopolies. This is complete ly unnecessary in a capitalist economy. Any company that manages to drive away compe tition cannot set prices as high as it likes. Were a company foolish enough to raise prices excessively, a free society allows for the emergence of new competition that is encouraged to charge a fair price, meeting immediate suc cess by providing a cheaper alternative to the abusive monopoly. Even if such a built-in safe guard did not exist, one must ask about the cost of enacting anti-monopoly legislation. Would it be moral to let the government intervene on a sit uation in fear that a company that has sole reign in a market will act oppressively? In his essay, “Antitrust,” Alan Greenspan writes, “The effec tive purpose, the hidden intent, and the actual practice of the antitrust laws in the United States have led to the condem nation of the productive and efficient members of our soci ety because they are produc tive and efficient.” America boasts the fact that it is a country in which its citi zens are free to work hard to achieve their goals, dreams and happiness. Is there some sort of “fine print” on the Declaration of Independence that says the pursuit of liberty and happiness exists for every body but a successful busi nesses? Instead, it says only a few lines afterward “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destruc tive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.” Evil is not to be tolerated in a just society, and if our government allows economic success to be a punishable offense, it is the public’s priv ilege and obligation to alter the government by pushing for the abolishment of such legislation. Mike Walters is a junior psychology major. MIKE WALTERS Cell ban ridiculous (U-WIRE) LOS ANGELES — For having such a laid-back reputation, California likes to pass legislation that is oddly restrictive of a laid-back lifestyle. It all started with the infamous ban on smoking in restaurants and bars, which was signed into law in 1994 and took full effect Jan. 1, 1998. The bill, which forces bar patrons to dash outdoors to get their nicotine fix, wasn’t intended to criminalize smoking, but instead to protect bar and restaurant employees from lung cancer and other respiratory illnesses. Though it clearly was well intended, the bill gave those individuals who were allegedly used to not having a care in the world something to worry about: Losing a prized bar spot to a pesky non- smoker. Definitely an inconvenience. And to make matters worse, the imposition on an individual’s freedom to light up became contagious. Delaware followed suit last year and approved a comparable ban, and New York Gov. George Pataki signed a similarly stringent anti-smoking bill into law in late March. I suppose that the whole bandwagon effect left the California legislature feeling empowered. Copying a law passed in New York last June, California has officially subscribed to the Pataki school of thought that progressive legis lating necessitates lots of rules. Recent legislation written by Assemblymen Dario Frommer, D-Glendale and Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, would ban drivers from talking on their hand-held cell phones while cruising down California streets. The bill passed the Assembly in a 49-27 vote and will head to the Senate for a vote this week. Now honestly, gentlemen, do you really think this is going to work? How else do you expect us to entertain ourselves while sitting solo on the freeway in bumper-to-bumper rush-hour traffic? Or to make last-minute reservations on the way to dinner? Or for the directionally challenged, to get ourselves “un-losf ’ in the labyrinth of California streets by opting for the most efficient possible remedy: Phoning a friend. And most importantly, do you know how much self-control it takes to ignore a ringing cell phone? The apparent intention of the legislation is to reduce a potential distraction to the already stress-laden activity of driving across town. So why isn’t the legislature seeking to regulate other typical distractions? Should the Assembly give consideration to a bill fining drivers for applying mascara while waiting at a traffic light? Or a ban on changing the radio station or fiddling with the CD player? In March, the California Highway Patrol published statistics on the alleged causes of 491,000 accidents that occurred last year. Of the 5,677 accidents blamed on distracted driv ers, cell phones contributed to 11 percent, while a whopping 67 percent fell into a catego ry called “other,” which included day-dream ing and reading street signs. For some reason, placing a ban on day-dreaming may be diffi cult. Regulating the act of reading street signs would just be counterintuitive. Those members of the Assembly opposing the ban on cell phones rather accurately labeled the proposition as one characteristic of a “nanny government.” The government should assume that the majority of California drivers are competent. Most of those on the road technically passed the state driving test (or another state’s driving test) and are official ly licensed to drive. If the government can entrust individuals to handle heavy machinery like an automobile, these same licensed indi viduals will no doubt be able to safely operate smaller, less intractable devices, such as cell phones. This ability applies even while driving — walking and chewing gum at the same time is not that difficult of a feat. The California Senate will hopefully consid er the full ramifications of imposing the ban on hand-held cell phones before approving the bill and attempting to baby-sit California drivers. Call your senator and tell him or her what you think — and do it from your car. Ashley Schneider is a columnist at the University of Southern California.
