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BY MERIANNE GRACE EREÑETA
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Tuesday, December 20, 2016
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ILOILO City – The National Police Commission (Napolcom) Region 6 has expressed alarm. Some police officers could not memorize the Miranda doctrine (also called Miranda rights or Miranda warning).
The Miranda warning is a “right to silence” warning given by police to criminal suspects in police custody (or in a custodial interrogation) before they are interrogated to preserve the admissibility of their statements against them in criminal proceedings.
Article 3, Section 12 of the 1987 Constitution states that “Any person under investigation for the commission of an offense shall have the right to be informed of his right to remain silent and to have competent and independent counsel preferably of his own choice. If the person cannot afford the services of counsel, he must be provided with one. These rights cannot be waived except in writing and in the presence of counsel.”
The police must convey this right to criminal suspects but according to Allen Camering, pre-charge investigator of Napolcom-6, “Damo gid wala kasaulo.”
He was referring to the 71 police officers under the Iloilo Police Provincial Office (IPPO) that Napolcom-6 summoned recently for missing the annual inspection of the Commission.
“Gin check kun may kopya sila sang Mirandra doctrine kag kun kasaulo sila,” said Camering. “Ang iban indi kasaulo bisan Hiligaynon version na lang.”
Due to this discovery, Napolcom-6 will likely include the Miranda doctrine in its next inspections of various police units across Western Visayas, said Camering.
The Miranda rights of a person must be read to him during arrest and not when he is already at the police station, stressed Camering.
This “right to silence” warning is a legal right recognized in many of the world’s legal systems but popularly took on the name “Miranda doctrine” following the 1966 Miranda vs Arizona United States Supreme Court decision.
Such decision found that the Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights of Ernesto Arturo Miranda had been violated during his arrest and trial for armed robbery, kidnapping, and rape of a mentally handicapped young woman. (Miranda was subsequently retried and convicted.)
In Miranda vs Arizona, the US Supreme Court established rules to protect a criminal defendant’s privilege against self-incrimination from the pressures arising during custodial investigation by the police. Thus, to provide practical safeguards for the practical reinforcement for the right against compulsory self-incrimination, the court held that “the prosecution may not use statements, whether exculpatory or inculpatory, stemming from custodial interrogation of the defendant unless it demonstrates the use of procedural safeguards effective to secure the privilege against self-incrimination./PN
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