Local Newspaper Brings Not-So-Subtle Attack On Basic Constitutional Rights

Listen lawyers: no matter what work you do, you have a role to play in how criminal law gets reported.

A random headline in a Buffalo newspaper may not seem like something to get worked up over, but these are exactly the little moments where lawyers of all stripes can actually make a difference.

While I’m going to throw a lot of flack at the paper, to be fair, the article itself does a pretty decent job laying out a textbook constitutional problem. That said, in the world of social media it’s the headline that’s going to stick with people and it’s the headline that makes the rhetorical choice to set up Miranda as a pernicious technicality as opposed to a basic constitutional right. High school civics lessons should be based around rewriting this headline.

Cheektowaga cops asked to search homicide suspect’s home, but he wanted to talk to lawyer

What the fuck do you mean, “but”? Placing blame on someone for trying to exercise basic constitutional rights… what is he, a woman in Texas in 2021? But seriously, what’s being presented as “imagine the nerve of this guy not complying with this simple request” is in reality “how the United States Constitution functions.” I feel like every 80s cop show had a better handle on criminal procedure than local news in the 21st century.

What happens next, obviously, is that the cops do not let him talk to his lawyer and eventually convince him to sign a document waiving his Fifth Amendment rights:

“I’d like to speak to my attorney first,” Bruks replied, Strozyk testified Thursday.

Near the start of an interview he wound up having shortly thereafter with detectives, Bruks signed a document acknowledging he waived his rights against self-incrimination, two police detectives testified Thursday.

While I do think the article is better than the headline, I’m wagering Bitcoin to Boston Creams that this interview didn’t happen “shortly thereafter” but following hours of leaving the suspect in isolation without letting him call a lawyer to the point where he broke and agreed to sign anything just to get the process moving. It’s subtle turns of phrasing like “shortly thereafter” that make every procedural screw-up here sound like an honest series of unfortunate events.

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And now the courts are hearing a challenge over the admissibility of all the suspect’s statements and everything that flowed from that poisonous tree because of course they are. When the cops could have just given this guy a lawyer and probably gotten to the exact same place entirely legally. Which will inevitably and ironically be recast by the courts as a reason to excuse gross constitutional transgressions because “no harm, no foul, we’d have figured it out anyway… sure we would’ve.” It’s the satisfying result because the facts of this case do not look good for the defendant and no one wants to let someone who could have brutally murdered his wife walk, but every single time the system makes excuses for terrible police work it just guarantees this whole fact pattern will come up again.

So, to bring this full circle, how about a headline like: “Cheektowaga cops refused to let homicide suspect speak to lawyer, placing whole case in jeopardy”? At least that puts the blame squarely on these dolts.

Look, local media tends to be in the tank for the cops because scaring the hell out of the audience about crime sells papers and no one is more willing to help scare the public about crime than the neighborhood police station. But it’s these little rhetorical choices in how news outlets talk about constitutional rights that undermine those rights writ large. When the courts sidestep the Constitution they’re not doing it in a vacuum, they’re doing it because the media conditions the public to see the Bill of Rights as an inconvenience.

So if you’re looking to do something concrete to advance the cause of basic rights, maybe just write in whenever you see subtle digs like this and lodge your protest against this kind of talk. Because the odds are you aren’t a criminal defense lawyer doing work in this defendant’s budget range or a crusading ACLU attorney. But even if you’re handling divorces or drawing up wills, you can weigh in as a licensed attorney and call out local media for poisoning the well like this.

Consider it the “think global, act local” of the legal world.

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HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.