The New Jersey State Police failed a "troubling" number of times to inform suspects of their Miranda rights during motor vehicle stops in early 2009, according to a report issued Wednesday by the state Attorney General’s Office
Attorney General Paula Dow, right, gave the State Police high marks for the job it has following rules enacted after it was placed under federal oversight.TRENTON — The New Jersey State Police failed a "troubling" number of times to inform suspects of their Miranda rights during motor vehicle stops in early 2009, according to a report issued Wednesday by the state Attorney General’s Office.
Overall, the report said troopers made 248 errors during traffic stops reviewed by the office, more than in any six-month period since State Police signed a consent agreement with the U.S. Justice Department in 1999 to end racial profiling.
Of 429 stops reviewed from Jan. 1 to June 30, the office found troopers failed to give Miranda warnings correctly in 74 instances despite recent training. In 16 instances, the report said, the errors were not uncovered until an internal review was undertaken.
"The high number of uncaught Miranda issues is a clear result of the change in State Police procedures and is troubling, as is the high number of stop reports with errors," the report said.
The head of the state troopers union was critical of the report, saying the rules governing stops were confusing and that the officers did nothing wrong.
And Lt. Stephen Jones, a spokesman for the State Police, said that while the division began the training to stem the problem, it anticipates "this type of error rate" until the instruction is reflected in future reports.
The review issued Wednesday was the second by the Attorney General’s Office of Law Enforcement Professional Standards, created to oversee State Police procedures after federal authorities stopped monitoring the division in 2009.
Attorney General Paula Dow praised the work of the State Police, but added that maintaining the oversight was important.
"Despite the continued progress observed throughout this report, we are committed to remaining vigilant, and to ensuring that the ‘best practices’ that got State Police to this point are adhered to every day," Dow said.
The State Police regularly review all motor vehicle stops that result in such actions as a search or an arrest. The office then performs a subsequent review to make sure the division identifies and corrects policy violations.
Christina Glogoff, director of the office of professional standards, said the Miranda problems were mostly the result of confusion among troopers in the wake of a state Supreme Court ruling two years ago that tightened standards for vehicle searches.
After the court ruling, the State Police put a policy in place requiring everyone in a vehicle to be arrested if a trooper has probable cause. Suspects must then be given their Miranda warning before further questioning.
Glogoff said the State Police identified problems with the warnings, and provided more training.
"We expect the rate of this problem to go down," she said.
David Jones, president of the State Troopers Fraternal Association, said the arrest policy is unnecessary and confusing for troopers, and that he has asked the Attorney General’s Office to revisit the rule.
"The guys weren’t ignoring it," Jones said. "They couldn’t figure out what the hell they should do. This is the by-product of a really lousy, intellectually lazy policy that came out that no one really understood."
But Ed Barocas, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, said the problems with the Miranda warnings cited in the report show why monitoring the State Police is important.
"If we didn’t have the monitor to analyze the data, we would be having people on both sides interpreting the data and perhaps misinterpreting the data," Barocas said. "With these analyses, both the public and law enforcement can focus on areas of actual concern rather than perceived areas of concern."
The report also found troopers asked permission to search vehicles 405 times, three times more than in any previous six-month period.
Glogoff attributed the sharp increase to the Supreme Court ruling, which requires that troopers obtain a warrant or ask consent to search a vehicle. She said there was no significant increase in warrant searches because a phone system to quickly request them does not exist.
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