Paul C. Cassell, Court-Appointed
Amicus Curiae
On February 8, 1999, in the case of United States v. Dickerson, the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Section 3501 of the 1968 Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, not the U.S. Supreme Court holding in Miranda v. Arizona (1966), governed the admissibility of voluntary confessions from individuals in police custody. Lawyers for Charles Thomas Dickerson, along with the U.S. Department of Justice, appealed this ruling to the Supreme Court, which granted it certiorari on December 6, 1999. Because neither of the parties in the case favored upholding the Fourth Circuit’s ruling, the Court appointed Paul…
