DA's Central Booking Interview Program stopped by court

From the NY Times:

When the Supreme Court ruled in the landmark Miranda case that criminal suspects in custody must be told of their right to have a lawyer and to remain silent, the purpose was to ensure that the police and prosecutors did not obtain a confession through improper means. But the office of the Queens district attorney, Richard Brown, has concocted a way around this basic principle with a “central booking interview program” in which prosecutors interrogate suspects before they are arraigned or have counsel assigned to them. Fortunately, a state trial judge has found the program misleading, deceptive and unethical, and will not allow the district attorney’s office to use statements from this type of interview at trial.

The district attorney’s office has interrogated thousands of people in this improper fashion — primarily indigents who could not afford a lawyer and were interviewed before being arraigned by a judge who appoints counsel. This practice is now being challenged in a New York State appellate court on grounds that it violates the Constitution and state law. Evidence from pre-arraignment interviews should be suppressed in every case, and the district attorney’s office should be stopped from using them because they force defendants to give up rights they do not even know they have.