Today the United States Supreme Court let a bit of the 5th Amendment backbone right to silence slip away down the slippery slope. In the case of Salinas v. Texas, with Justice Alito writing for the Court (rarely a good sign), it was held that a criminal defendant's silence can be used against him at trial. This is a stunning decision placing a knife blade in the age old general rule that a defendant's silence cannot be taken against him at trial.

The facts, as laid out in the court's syllabus are as follows:

   Petitioner [Salinas], without being placed in custody or receiving Miranda warn- ings, voluntarily answered some of a police officer’'s questions about a murder, but fell silent when asked whether ballistics testing would match his shotgun to shell casings found at the scene of the crime. At petitioner’'s murder trial in Texas state court, and over his objection, the prosecution used his failure to answer the question as evidence of guilt. He was convicted, and both the State Court of Appeals and Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed, rejecting his claim that the pros- ecution’'s use of his silence in its case in chief violated the Fifth Amendment.

Alito held that petitioner’'s Fifth Amendment claim fails because he did not "expressly" invoke his privilege to silence affirmatively in response to the police officer’'s questions. The upshot is that the word "silence" in "right to silence" does not necessarily mean "silence". This follows a long line of similarly disquieting cases going back to the likes of the 1984 decision in Minnesota v. Murphy to the quite recent decision in Berghuis v. Thompkins, where the Court held that a defendant failed to invoke his Miranda right by remaining silent for nearly three hours.

[snip]

Salinas may, on the surface, seem like an incremental decision, but it has the characteristics of something more, and more dangerous. The concurrence of Thomas and Scalia is a dead give away why. The Roberts Court conservative bloc has a disdain for Miranda, not just as to evidentiary admission, but as to comment on right to silence as well. These are linchpins of a criminal suspect/defendant's constitutional rights, and the chipping away is being accomplished by big hatchets.

I know all 7-11's kinda look alike but I'm pretty sure that's the Calebs Path location...right down to the firewood and garbage pail location.  If I'm not mistaken the Carleton Ave has a different layout.  I gotta check it out on the way home, maybe I'm confused.

What a shame if my spot did get raided...all the clerks are real nice guys and always let me slide when I'm a nickel short.  I know the owner is Pakistani, he seems like a good dude too.  

From SCOTUSblog (sorry, no link)

As almost all Americans who have ever watched television or gone to a movie know, the Supreme Court held in a case called Miranda v. Arizona that a criminal suspect who is in police custody must be advised of his right to remain silent; if the suspect chooses to remain silent, that silence cannot be used against him in a trial.  The question before the Court in this case was whether this protection of silence applies before a suspect is actually arrested.  The defendant in this case, Genevevo Salinas, voluntarily went to the police station, where officers interviewed him about a pair of 1992 murders.  When asked whether a shotgun given to police by his father would match shell casings found at the crime scene, Salinas did not answer.  At his trial for the murders, prosecutors used Salinas's silence as evidence of his guilt; Salinas was convicted and sentenced to twenty years in prison.

Over the years, the lower courts had been divided on whether prosecutors can point to the "precustodial" silence of suspects.  Today the Court resolved that conflict, holding that because Salinas failed to invoke his right to remain silent in response to the officers' questions, his silence was fair game at his trial. The Court reasoned that the privilege against self-incrimination applies only when it is asserted, and that merely remaining silent in response to questions is not enough.

From Scotusblog:

If a reader of the Scalia opinion stopped at the top of page 13, the impression would be very clear that Congress had won hands down in the field of regulating federal elections.   But from that point on, there is abundant encouragement for what is essentially a states' rights argument: that is, that the states have very wide authority to define who gets to vote, in both state and federal elections.

On the particular point at issue in this case -- Arizona's requirement of proof of citizenship before one may register to vote or actually vote -- the Scalia opinion said that a state was free to ask the federal government for permission to add that requirement.   And, Scalia said, if that doesn't work -- either because the federal agency that would deal with such a request is either not functioning or says no -- then a state would be free to go to court and make an argument that it has a constitutional right to insist on proof of citizenship as an absolute qualification for voting, in all elections.

The opinion seemed to leave little doubt that, if Arizona or another state went to court to try to establish such a constitutional power, it might well get a very sympathetic hearing, because that part of the Scalia opinion laid a very heavy stress on the power of states under the Constitution to decide who gets to vote.   Indeed, that part of the opinion said that the Constitution simply does not give Congress the power to decide who can qualify, but only how federal elections are run procedurally.

It will be up to lower courts -- and election-law specialists -- to sort out just how to reconcile the two parts of the Court's majority opinion.   And it appears there may well be quite a few opportunities to do so, because of the rising number of efforts -- particularly in states in which Republicans have control of state governments -- to impose new voter ID and other restrictions on the right to vote.

Thanks to the Supreme Court, it may soon become slightly easier to get the  cheaper generic version of some medications.  In the case of FTC v. Actavis, Inc. the Court decided 5-3 that the FTC has the power to try to stop "pay for delay" on anti-trust grounds.  This is a practice in which drug companies pay generic drug makers not to bring the generic version to the market. Without the competition the price of brand name drug remains high and the two companies basically split the extra profits.

Justice Kennedy joined with the four liberals on the court to form the majority. Justice Alito recused himself. link

Game No. 1: Mississippi State 5, Oregon State 4.

Game No. 2: Indiana 2, Louisville 0.

Game No. 3: North Carolina State 8, North Carolina 1.

Game 4: UCLA 2, LSU 1.

Game No. 5 (Mon. 3:00 p.m. EDT): Oregon State v. Louisville
(Loser will be eliminated, and winner will play the loser of Game No. 6 on Wed., June 19)

Game No. 6 (Mon. 8:00 p.m. EDT): Mississippi State v. Indiana

Game No. 7 (Tues. 3:00 p.m. EDT): North Carolina v. LSU
(Loser will be eliminated, and winner will play the loser of Game No. 8 on Wed., June 19)

They started this podcast in 2011, and since then one of them, Tig Notaro, got more exposure in a painful way when she was diagnosed with breast cancer last summer, and went on stage that night talking about it. Louis CK saw her and posted it on his site. She is since in remission after a mastectomy. I had not heard of the other 3 before, but looking at their credits they have done lots of work.

I started listening a few weeks ago - basically picked one at random from the list in itunes to get me started...there are a few running jokes that take more than one listen to tune into, but you get into it pretty quick. One of the guys, Kyle Dunnegan, does really funny impressions and characters.

It is hard to describe, but I am guaranteed one real LOL moment per podcast,which is enough to get me going in the morning.