MEDIA ADVISORY: Pitt Law Expert Available to Comment on U.S. Supreme Court Ruling in Salinas v. Texas

PITTSBURGH—The United States Supreme Court released its decision this morning in Salinas v. Texas, a case challenging the Fifth Amendment’s Self-Incrimination Clause. David A. Harris, professor of law and associate dean for research in the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, is available to comment on the decision, which was delivered by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Anthony Alito, Jr., and joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and Justice Anthony M.  Kennedy.

“The decision cuts back in a significant respect on the Miranda rights of Americans,” said Harris. “Those are rights that every American knows and, yet, the Court has decided to use a technicality to permit prosecutors to do the very thing that Miranda is supposed to prevent.”

Harris is a leading national authority on racial justice profiling. His 2002 book, Profiles in Injustice: Why Racial Profiling Cannot Work (The New Press), and his scholarly articles about traffic stops and frisks have influenced the national debate on profiling and related topics. In his latest book, Failed Evidence: Why Law Enforcement Resists Science (NYU Press, 2012), Harris examines why many police and prosecutorial agencies oppose replacing questionable investigative methods with science-based, empirically proven techniques.

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6/17/13/amm/cjhm