By GINA HOLLAND, The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Patrice Seibert was asleep at the hospital bedside of her badly burned teenage son when police came and took her away.
The tactics used in the 3 a.m. arrest and interrogation of the mother of five, suspected of plotting with the injured son to set her trailer on fire, are at the heart of a case that has reached the Supreme Court.
The justices will hear arguments Tuesday and Wednesday in Seibert’s case and two others, and what the court eventually decides will clarify how far police in every community can go to get answers from suspected criminals.
A fourth case to be argued in the spring involves standards for questioning of juveniles.
The cases require the court to sort out practical questions about enforcement of “Miranda” rights.
It’s been nearly 40 years since the court’s landmark Miranda v. Arizona ruling required officers to warn people arrested and questioned that they have the right to remain silent and see a lawyer.
Missouri officers did not immediately read Seibert her rights after arresting her at a St. Louis burn center and taking her to a police station interview room.
It was a gamble, one officer said, to see if she would divulge information about the 1997 fire that killed a teenager who had been staying at the Seibert family trailer in Rolla, Mo., a small farming town in the Ozarks. The officer said he learned the strategy in training sessions.
Police said she arranged to have her home burned to cover up the death of her 12-year-old son, who had cerebral palsy and could not walk, talk or feed himself. She apparently was afraid to report her son’s death and thought authorities would believe she had neglected the boy because he had bedsores, according to the state Supreme Court ruling.
When she was arrested, Seibert was in the hospital with one son and preparing for the funeral the next day of the 12-year-old boy. Court records show she was considered suicidal.
At the police station, before being told of her rights, she gave some incriminating statements during a 40-minute interrogation. Officers allowed her to smoke a cigarette, then turned on a tape recorder, read her Miranda rights, and asked her to repeat what she told them in the first interview.
Seibert, now 45, was convicted of murder, based in part on information she gave officers that morning.
The deliberate double-interview is sneaky and should be stopped, the Supreme Court was told by a group of former prosecutors, judges and law officers, including former FBI Director William Sessions.
They told justices in a filing that it is well-known in law enforcement that the tactics “soften up the suspect and increase the likelihood that she will not invoke her rights once warnings are belatedly given.”
The Bush administration, however, argued officers should have flexibility in their questioning strategy without being second-guessed by judges because those questionings can be successful in, for example, helping locate a kidnapping victim or thwarting a terrorist attack.
Solicitor General Theodore Olson warned that guilty defendants could go free if the court bars the practice.
The Supreme Court has sent conflicting messages on its Miranda views, and it is unclear if justices will be sympathetic to law officers or suspects.
The court reaffirmed Miranda in 2000, but in a surprise ruled this past May that officers cannot be sued for pressuring people to confess if the admission is not used in a prosecution.
Police “are asking to be unleashed, outside and inside the courtroom. They know they can’t attack Miranda head-on. I see this is a backdoor attempt,” said University of Iowa law professor James Tomkovicz, who wrote a brief opposing the government in one of the other Miranda cases.
The other cases involve the timing of the warnings. In one, a man claims he was tricked into talking to officers without a lawyer. The other involves whether police must read warnings to suspects who tell police not to bother telling them their rights.
On the Net:
Supreme Court: www.supremecourtus.gov
The Miranda cases the Supreme Court is reviewing this term:
--Whether police improperly interrogated Patrice Seibert in a 1997 mobile home fire. Police said she arranged to have her home burned, with one of her sons helping light the fire, to cover up the death of her 12-year-old son, who had cerebral palsy. The fire killed a teen who had been living at the trailer in Rolla, Mo., a small farming town in the Ozarks. Seibert’s murder conviction was thrown out.
--Whether police also used an improper double-interview, this one of a man suspected of conspiring to deal drugs. John J. Fellers claims officers in Lincoln, Neb., tricked him into talking about his involvement with narcotics. He said the first questioning, without Miranda rights and without his lawyer present, tainted a later jailhouse interrogation. He was convicted.
--Whether police must always read suspects their rights before seizing drugs or other evidence they plan to use at trial. Samuel Patane told officers he already knew his rights, then told them where to find a gun in his bedroom in Colorado Springs, Colo. He was charged with illegal possession of a gun.
--Whether juveniles who are in police custody must be told their rights before questioning. The cases involves the interrogation of a 17-year-old murder suspect in California in 1995. Michael Yarborough was convicted but won an appeal. Justices are expected to hear arguments in the case next spring.