Legislators should determine American rights, not judges

This legislative session, for perhaps the first time in the United States, the Maryland General Assembly will address whether to codify the rights originally created by the Supreme Court in Miranda v. Arizona. In doing so, it grapples with the larger issue of whether it will be the legislatures or the courts that determine these rights going forward.

Today, any court in Maryland will recognize what are known as your Miranda rights, but only because the U.S. Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, has told them to. However, the U.S. Supreme Court has indicated in recent holdings its intention to continue reversing many watershed decisions on individual rights pertaining to privacy and those protecting us from the abuses of law enforcement.

Last session, the General Assembly acted to expand Miranda rights to children, something the courts had not done (“Juvenile suspects need to understand their rights — and officers need to respect them,” March 2, 2022). This session, Senate Bill 22, sponsored by Sen. Charles Sydnor, seeks to codify, clarify and expand Miranda rights for all citizens and visitors of the State of Maryland. According to opponents, the scenarios are too various and complicated for the legislature to deal with. For example, in a DUI stop, ought the driver to be told their rights against self-incrimination the moment they are pulled over? Or, if an officer tackles and questions a suspect running from a school shooting, should the officer be required to squeeze in the Miranda recital?

If the General Assembly wishes to weaken, strengthen or keep the Miranda rights the same, I think it’s fantastic, so long as it is done by the General Assembly, not the justices and judges in Annapolis — who are accountable to no one, least of all the people. Worst of all would be continuing to leave it to the nine unelected justices sitting on the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., who were appointed by presidents more to the liking of Georgians, Arizonans, Pennsylvanians, and other swing state voters than any Marylander.

When the U.S. Supreme Court left a vacuum overruling Roe v. Wade, multiple states scrambled to implement laws in response. Let us avoid the chaos and uncertainty this go round, and in the meantime, get the General Assembly more in the habit of taking on these issues, as more will undoubtedly be coming their way.

— Joshua E. Hoffman, Nottingham

The writer is an attorney and the original architect of the bill.