Source: Houston Chronicle Contact: Tue, 18 Nov 1997 URL: http://www.chron.com/ Supreme Court holds hard line on Miranda By JOAN BISKUPIC Washington Post WASHINGTON The Supreme Court on Monday spurned Maryland's request to reinstate the conviction of a suspect who was asked at police headquarters whether he used drugs before he was warned he had the right to remain silent. By declining without comment to take the case, the justices let stand a decision by the Maryland Court of Appeals, which found that a response to a standard Prince George's County booking question about drug use could not be used against a defendant unless he first had been read his Miranda rights. The Maryland attorney general had argued that the booking question was not meant to be part of a criminal interrogation, requiring a warning, but rather was asked for routine administrative purposes. While the Supreme Court has allowed some exceptions to Miranda, the justices have declined over three decades to reverse a ruling that requires suspects in custody to be warned they have the right to remain silent and to have a lawyer present. The Maryland case began when Michael Patron Hughes was arrested on suspicion of distributing illegal drugs. During booking, Hughes was asked standard biographical questions, but the arrest report form also asked whether he was a "narcotic or drug user." Hughes answered no. At trial, the prosecutor used that response, with the judge's consent, to try to establish that Hughes possessed drugs not for his personal use but to sell. Hughes was found guilty, but the state appeals court threw out his conviction, ruling that a question about drug use necessarily would generate an incriminating answer and could not fall within a Miranda exception for booking questions. The Supreme Court in 1990 ruled that answers to routine booking questions, such as a suspect's name, address and date of birth, could be used without the Miranda warning. But the court cautioned police against turning the booking process into a pretext for gathering incriminating information. In the state's appeal, Maryland Attorney General Joseph Curran Jr. said confusion exists among lower courts over how to evaluate when a booking question requires Miranda warnings. The trial court had said the drug question could have been harmlessly asked to determine whether a person has a drug problem requiring medication or isolation. But Hughes' lawyers rejected claims of confusion and said, in Maryland vs. Hughes, "The question in this case is plainly designed to elicit an incriminating response and any officer would know that it is likely to elicit an incriminating response."