Sotomayor makes voice heard on first day

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By Sarah Abruzzese

Justice Sonia Sotomayor quickly established her presence on the Supreme Court on the first day of her first term, asking dozens of detailed and specific questions in a case related to whether police can ever seek to question a suspect after he asks to speak with an attorney.

Justice Sotomayor, a former prosecutor used to handling criminal-procedure issues, had questions for both sides and spoke more than three dozen times - joining Justices Antonin Scalia and John Paul Stevens as the most vocal during oral arguments in a case involving the scope of the "Miranda warning."

The specific issue at hand involved the admissibility of incriminating statements made by a convicted child molester years after he had first been questioned in the case. Attorneys for 51-year-old Michael Shatzer argued that a 2006 conviction in Maryland for sexually abusing his son should stay thrown out because he told investigators three years earlier that he was asserting his Miranda rights.

Armed with new evidence, police came back to question Shatzer after that lengthy gap; this time, he waived his rights and talked to police. His attorneys say that even approaching him the second time violated his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination. Maryland's highest court agreed with Shatzer's attorneys and overturned his conviction, a decision the state is appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In other action Monday, the court declined to hear several cases involving hot-button issues, such as priest sexual abuse, the Pledge of Allegiance and pro-life license plates.

In the Maryland case, Justice Sotomayor sharply questioned state Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler about the purpose of a Miranda warning, which she said is to "tell the police they have to stop" questioning a suspect once he asserts his Miranda rights to remain silent and have an attorney present during questioning.

Mr. Gansler said the police aren't required to find an attorney, a point with which Justice Sotomayor agreed, but she continued to press the advocate on how an assertion of Miranda rights limits what police can do.

Several justices, including Justice Sotomayor, reacted incredulously to some of the arguments from Shatzer's attorney, Maryland public defender Celia Anderson Davis.

In answering a question about a hypothetical case posited by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., Ms. Davis said that a person who invoked Miranda rights during questioning related to a joy-riding case during 1999 could not be questioned again without an attorney in relation to a 2009 murder case.

"And you don't think that's a ridiculous application of the rules?" Justice Alito asked.