Friday, May 25, 2012
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is setting an election-season review of racial preference in college admissions, agreeing Tuesday to consider new limits on the contentious issue of affirmative action programs.
COURT: MIRANDA RIGHTS NOT NECESSARY IN SOME JAILHOUSE INTERROGATIONS
The Supreme Court said Tuesday investigators don't have to read Miranda rights to inmates during jailhouse interrogations about crimes unrelated to their current incarceration.
The high court, on a 6-3 vote, overturned a federal appeals court decision throwing out prison inmate Randall Lee Fields' conviction, saying Fields was not in "custody" as defined by Miranda and therefore did not have to have his rights read to him.
"Imprisonment alone is not enough to create a custodial situation within the meaning of Miranda," Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the court's majority opinion.
Three justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor, dissented and said the court's decision would limit the rights of prisoners.
"Today, for people already in prison, the court finds it adequate for the police to say: 'You are free to terminate this interrogation and return to your cell,' " Ginsburg said in her dissent. "Such a statement is no substitute for one ensuring that an individual is aware of his rights."
Miranda rights come from a 1966 decision that involved police questioning of Ernesto Miranda in a rape and kidnapping case in Phoenix. It required officers to tell suspects they have the right to remain silent and to have a lawyer represent them, even if they can't afford one.
Previous court rulings have required Miranda warnings before police interrogations for people who are in custody, which is defined as when a reasonable person would think he cannot end the questioning and leave.
A challenge from a white student who was denied admission to the University of Texas flagship campus will be the high court's first look at affirmative action in higher education since its 2003 decision endorsing the use of race as a factor.
This time around, a more conservative court could jettison that earlier ruling or at least limit when colleges may take account of race in admissions.
In a term already filled with health care, immigration and political redistricting, the justices won't hear the affirmative action case until the fall.
But the political calendar will still add drama. Arguments probably will take place in the final days of the presidential election campaign.
A broad ruling in favor of the student, Abigail Fisher, could threaten affirmative action programs at many of the nation's public and private universities, said Vanderbilt University law professor Brian Fitzpatrick.
A federal appeals court upheld the Texas program at issue, saying it was allowed under the high court's decision in Grutter vs. Bollinger in 2003 that upheld racial considerations in university admissions at the University of Michigan Law School.
But there have been changes in the Supreme Court since then. For one thing, Justice Samuel Alito appears more hostile to affirmative action than his predecessor, Sandra Day O'Connor. For another, Justice Elena Kagan, who might be expected to vote with the court's liberal-leaning justices in support of it, is not taking part in the case.
Kagan's absence probably is a result of the Justice Department's participation in the Texas case in the lower courts at a time when she served as the Obama administration's solicitor general.
Fisher, of Sugar Land, Texas, filed a lawsuit along with another woman when they were denied admission at the university's Austin campus. They contended the school's race-conscious policy violated their civil and constitutional rights.
The Project on Fair Representation, which opposes the use of race in public policy, has helped pay Fisher's legal bills. "This case presents the Court with an opportunity to clarify the boundaries of race preferences ... or even reconsider whether race should be permitted at all under the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection," said Edward Blum, the group's director.
Most entering freshmen at Texas are admitted because they are among the top 10 percent in their high school classes. Fisher's grades did not put her in that category.
The Texas Legislature adopted the Top Ten Percent law after a federal appeals court ruling essentially barred the use of race in admissions.
But following the high court ruling in 2003, the university resumed considering race starting with its 2005 entering class. The policy at issue applies to the remaining spots beyond those filled by the top 10 percent and allows for the consideration of race along with other factors
Texas said its updated policy does not use quotas, which the high court has previously rejected. Instead, it said it takes a Supreme Court-endorsed broader approach to enrollment, with an eye toward increasing the diversity of the student body.
Before adding race back into the mix, Texas' student body was 21 percent African-American and Hispanic, according to court papers.
By 2007, the year before Fisher filed her lawsuit, African-Americans and Hispanics accounted for more than a quarter of the entering freshman class.
Fisher's challenge says the Top Ten Percent law was working to increase diversity and that minority enrollment was higher than it had been under the earlier race-conscious system.
The case is Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, 11-345.
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