Opinion ID: 6984366
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: bey

Text: The majority rests its decision on the proposition that “[o]fficers who intentionally violate the rights protected by Miranda [[by] insistence ... on questioning after, invocation of the right to silence and unequivocal requests for counsel] must expect to have to defend themselves in civil actions.” Op. at 1050. Plaintiff James Bey was interrogated on March 8, 1991, by Officers Raymond Bennett and Michael Crosby. On February 6, 1991, one month earlier, a panel of this court decided Cooper v. Dupnik, 924 F.2d 1520 (9th Cir.1991) (Cooper I), rev’d en banc, 963 F.2d 1220 (9th Cir.1992) (Cooper II). Cooper had brought a § 1983 action against police officers and others alleging various violations of his constitutional rights in connection with his interrogation while in custody. The opinion states that “Cooper contends that his continued interrogation, following his clear and unequivocal request to contact his attorney is a patent violation of the constitution.” Id. at 1526. It then goes on to firmly reject this contention, reversing the denial of qualified immunity, stating: Although there is no case on point from our circuit, all out-of-circuit cases hold that a plaintiff may not, as matter of law, maintain a section 1983 action based upon the failure by the police to issue Miranda warnings. [Citations omitted.] ... These cases are not precisely on point, since in the instant case the police gave the Miranda warnings but refused to allow Cooper to exercise his rights. But the reasoning of these cases does apply-since Miranda requirements are not a constitutional prerequisite, their violation cannot form the basis of a section 1988 suit.... Cooper can cite to no case allowing a section 1983 suit under the circumstances of his case. Id. at 1527-28. 1 Moreover, the Supreme Court had repeatedly held prior to March 1991 that Miranda’s warning requirement is not a dictate of the Fifth Amendment. Thus, in Connecticut v. Barrett, 479 U.S. 523, 107 S.Ct. 828, 93 L.Ed.2d 920 (1987), the Court said: It remains clear, however, that this prohibition on further questioning-like other aspects of Miranda-is not itself required by the Fifth Amendment’s prohibition on coerced confessions, but is instead justified only by reference to its prophylactic purpose. [Citation omitted.] By prohibiting further interrogation after the invocation of these rights, we erect an auxiliary barrier against police coercion. Id. at 528, 107 S.Ct. 828. See also Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U.S. 433, 444, 94 S.Ct. 2357, 41 L.Ed.2d 182 (1974) (finding “these procedural safeguards were not themselves rights protected by the Constitution but were instead measures to insure that the right against compulsory self-incrimination was protected”); New York v. Quarles, 467 U.S. 649, 653 & n. 3, 104 S.Ct. 2626, 81 L.Ed.2d 550 (1984) (because Miranda is only a “prophylactic” rule, the Court considered a threat to public safety and acknowledged some “limited circumstances where the judicially imposed strictures of Miranda are inapplicable”); Duckworth v. Eagan, 492 U.S. 195, 201-03, 109 S.Ct. 2875, 106 L.Ed.2d 166 (1989) (telling a suspect that an attorney will only be appointed if and when the suspect goes to trial does not render the notice constitutionally inadequate because the warnings mandated by Miranda are “procedural safeguards” and “prophylactic,” not requiring administration in any exact form); Michigan v. Harvey, 494 U.S. 344, 350-51, 110 S.Ct. 1176, 108 L.Ed.2d 293 (1990) (admitting a statement made without counsel and “not subject to proper Miranda” for impeachment purposes because the violations alleged “relate only to procedural safeguards”). Similarly, the Ninth Circuit prior to March 1991 did not recognize Miranda warnings as a cognizable constitutional right. “Miranda violations do not abridge the Fifth Amendment constitutional privilege against self-incrimination, but instead involve prophylactic standards laid down to safeguard that privilege.” United States v. Patterson, 812 F.2d 1188, 1193 (9th Cir.1987). In declaring that “continued interrogation after a defendant invokes his Miranda right to counsel does not violate the Fifth Amendment,” Cooper, 924 F.2d at 1528, and “that a violation of Miranda rights is not itself a violation of the constitution,” Id. at 1527, the opinion in Cooper I was consistent with prior Supreme Court and Ninth Circuit law as it stood in 1991. Thus, the rationale of the majority opinion-that the officers violated a clearly established constitutional right by questioning Bey after he invoked his right to silence-cannot stand. 2 Bey argues, however, that this case is not about violation of the Miranda rules, but about coercion in violation of the Fifth Amendment. The question remains whether in 1991 there was clearly established law that the officers’ interrogation violated the Fifth Amendment, i.e., when they continued the interrogation despite the suspect’s repeated attempts to invoke his Miranda rights, asserted that they could not use his statements in court, and claimed that they possessed incriminating physical evidence. Op. at 1045-46. It is not enough for the court simply to say that such interrogation tactics may be found to be coercive; for qualified immunity to be overcome, the law to that effect must be clearly established. The majority’s reliance on the Miranda rules on this issue is a bootstrap argument for, as noted, those rules do not establish a constitutional right. The Court’s statement in Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 is apposite: “[I]f the test of ‘clearly established law’ were to be applied at this level of generality, it would bear no relationship to the ‘objective legal reasonableness’ that is the touchstone of Harlow [v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982)].” Id. at 639, 107 S.Ct. 3034. Anderson requires that “in the light of pre-existing law the unlawfulness must be apparent.” Id. at 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034. Because there was no such law in 1991, defendants’ qualified immunity motion as to Bey’s claims should have been granted.