The Supreme Court's New Miranda Rules - Perhaps a Boon for Defendants?

I was going to write about this shiny, new SCOTUS ruling as soon as I got home from work, but I just saw that Shani O. Hilton wrote most of what I wanted to say.

About the ruling:

Want to invoke your right to remain silent? You'll have to speak up.

In a narrowly split decision, the Supreme Court's conservative majority expanded its limits on the famous Miranda rights for criminal suspects on Tuesday – over the dissent of new Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who said the ruling turned Americans' rights of protection from police abuse "upside down."

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion, said a suspect who goes ahead and talks to police after being informed he doesn't have to has waived his right to remain silent . . .

A right to remain silent and a right to a lawyer are at the top of the warnings that police recite to suspects during arrests and interrogations. But Tuesday's majority said that suspects must break their silence and tell police they are going to remain quiet to stop an interrogation, just as they must tell police that they want a lawyer.

Holder Continues the Obama Administration's War on Law

It has been clear from the beginning of the Obama Administration that this government simply does not agree that we are a nation of laws, not men (you know our founding principle?). From the willingness to give different trials based on likelihood of conviction to the willingness to assassinate our own citizens, it has become constantly clear that the Administration believes that in the name of combating terror, laws do not matter. Additionally, the whole "look forward, not back" for political elites, means that generally, they are exempt from the rule of law, meaning that we are, either by calling something terror-related, or by immunizing elites, a nation under the rule of not law, but men. (That's what I mean when I say that if Obama says so, we can operate essentially as a temporary monarchy.)