Memo: How the Supreme Court Has Turned False Narratives on Policing into More Police Power

By Jennifer E. Laurin The Wright C. Morrow Professor of Law, University of Texas School of Law

Kyle C. Barry Director of Research, The Justice Collaborative Institute

Introduction

Late one night in September 1980, New York City police officers chased Benjamin Quarles to the back of a grocery store. There, officers detained Quarles and frisked him, finding an empty shoulder holster. After securing Quarles with handcuffs, one officer asked him where the gun was. Quarles nodded toward some empty cartons and replied, “The gun is over there.” 

Later, the Supreme Court decided whether Quarles’ statement could be used against him at trial. Ordinarily, once someone is in custody the police must provide Miranda warnings, advising the suspect of the right to remain silent, before starting an interrogation. But in New York v. Quarles the Court created an exception: police officers can freely question someone about an ongoing threat to public safety—in this case, a gun discarded in a grocery store waiting to be found—and any responses can later be used as evidence, even without a Miranda waiver. 

In his majority opinion, Chief Justice William Rehnquist dispensed with concerns about creating an incentive for police to routinely disregard Miranda under the guise of public safety. Not to worry, he said, “police officers can and will distinguish almost instinctively between questions necessary to secure their own safety or the safety of the public and questions designed solely to elicit testimonial evidence.” 

In dissent, Justice Thurgood Marshall called this “wishful thinking.” Instead, Marshall wrote, the new “public safety exception” to Miranda “expressly invite[s] police officers to coerce defendants into making incriminating statements.”

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