HRC Update: Miranda Rights for Koreans?

The Human Rights Commission is calling on the cops to read people a Miranda warning at the time of an arrest. I realize what an extraordinary reach of activism it is to suggest that the Korean legal system should recognize the precedental authority of a case decided in a foreign court decades ago, so overlook the flimsiness of it on legal grounds. From the few Korean appellate opinions I’ve read, the concepts of judicial restraint, rules of statutory construction, and stare decisis don’t appear to be matters of common usage anyway. Look at the practical meaning of it instead.

First, 90% of criminal cases hinge on one decision: not a charging document, or a detective’s query of a database, or a ruling on a motion to suppress evidence, but a suspect’s decision to talk to the police. Second, those who talk, by overwhelming margins, get some kind of conviction (at least one of the convictions is usually for lying). Third, relatively few suspects exercise the option of keeping their mouths shut, even after hearing Miranda warnings. They think that a skillful lie can make it all go away, which leads to the fourth point: they’re almost always wrong. Fifth, skillful interrogators deliberately feed that misconception just to start the suspect talking, draw out initial inconsistencies, and feign sympathy for his criminal motives (it’s even got a name–the Reid Method). And sixth, Korean law does give citizens the right to remain silent and the right to consult with counsel, but does not require interrogators to tell suspects about those rights. Unlike the U.S. system, which has habeas corpus, the Korean police can hold suspects in custody for long periods without visitors or counsel. Under those circumstances, suspects may reasonably believe they have no choice but to confess.

If only the HRC could find discrimination here as easily as it seems to find it in other unlikely places.