preview

Sixth Amendment Rights Essay

Satisfactory Essays

Two years prior to Miranda, the Court held in Massiah v. United States that indicted defendants have a Sixth Amendment right to counsel were violated were federal agents, acting in collusion with his co-defendant, deliberately elicited incriminating information from him, in the absence of his counsel, after his indictment. The court stated that the surreptitious nature of the interrogation made the violation even more serious. Thus, the government violated Massiah’s Sixth Amendment rights when it used an informant to elicit statements from him after he was indicted. Massiah did not know that he was speaking to a government informant and thus there was no issue of waiver of the right to counsel. Waiver first arose in Brewer v.Williams. The …show more content…

In Patterson v. Illinois , the Court held that when an indicted defendant relinquished his Miranda right to counsel, he had simultaneously give up his Massiah right to counsel. This followed, the Court held, even though the two rights have different textual homes – Massiah the Sixth Amendment and Miranda the Fifth Amendment self-incrimination clause – and even though indictment is the start of the adversary criminal process. Similar to Miranda, the vote was 5-4. The dissent contended that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel carries with it duties and responsibilities that go beyond advice about responding questions, but the majority said that the matter was the usefulness of an attorney in the specific proceeding. In the context of interrogation, Miranda supplies the measure of the usefulness of an attorney. One problem left undecided by Patterson was whether it issues if a judge has appointed a counsel during a pretrial, and post-indictment, proceeding before police seek a Miranda waiver. Would a waiver of Miranda also waive Massiah when the indicted defendant is in fact represented by counsel? Continuing a string of 5-4 decisions, the Court in Montejo v. Louisiana held that Miranda continues to provide the measure of a usefulness of an attorney even if the defendant is officially represented by counsel. Thus, a waiver of Miranda is a waiver of Massiah whether or not the indicted defendant is represented by

Get Access