CONFESSION CASE FROM THE US SUPREMES; NO IMPACT ON CALIFORNIA
This US Supreme Court win turns out to help us very little. But it introduces a pretty cool term:
"antisuperfluousness canon." That's the rule (aka canon) that statutes shouldn't be construed so as to render language in the statute superfluous.
There's a federal statute requiring that a suspect arrested on a federal crime be brought to a magistrate within 6 hours. In McNabb (318 U.S. 332 (1943)), the Supremes said that even a voluntary confession obtained more than 6 hours after arrest from a suspect had to
be suppressed.
In 1968, the Congress passed a law intended to overrule Miranda (that attempt was rejected in Dickerson, 530 U.S. 428), and they stuck in a provision saying that a confession obtained within the 6 hours didn't have to be suppressed.
The US Supremes here (5-4) say that, yep, a confession within the 6 hours is OK, subject to Miranda and a finding of voluntariness. But a confession obtained after 6 hours
still has to be suppressed. Impact on California law? None. The court makes it clear that this is all federal procedural stuff.
Corley v. U.S.; 2009 DJ DAR 5023; DJ, 4/7/09; US Supremes
