Danny Escobedo (born c. 1937) was a

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

petitioner in the

Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

case of ''

Escobedo v. Illinois ''Escobedo v. Illinois'', 378 U.S. 478 (1964), was a Supreme Court of the United States, United States Supreme Court case holding that criminal suspects have a right to counsel during police interrogations under the Sixth Amendment to the United ...

'', which established a criminal suspect's right to remain silent and have an attorney present during questioning. This case was an important precedent to the famous ''

Miranda v. Arizona ''Miranda v. Arizona'', 384 U.S. 436 (1966), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution restricts prosecutors from using a person's statements made in response to ...

'' decision. Escobedo's brother-in-law Manuel was shot on the night of January 19, 1960, and Escobedo was arrested, without a warrant, at 2:30 a.m. the next day to be questioned. He was released at 5 p.m, that afternoon after Warren Wolfson, his lawyer, obtained a writ of

habeas corpus ''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, t ...

, making no statement to the police. On January 30, Benedict DiGerlando, a man in police custody told the police that Escobedo had shot and killed Manuel. The police then arrested Escobedo along with his sister between 8 and 9 that day. He was then taken to the police headquarters and questioned without letting him speak to or even see his lawyer. During his questioning, Escobedo was tricked into saying he knew that DiGerlando had killed Manuel, making him an accomplice. He was then found guilty of first degree murder and was sentenced to jail for 20 years, with his "confession" which he had later recanted. He then petitioned to the

Illinois Supreme Court The Supreme Court of Illinois is the state supreme court, the highest court of the State of Illinois. The court's authority is granted in Article VI of the current Illinois Constitution, which provides for seven justices elected from the five ap ...

(where the conviction was affirmed) and then to the US Supreme Court. The US Supreme Court agreed to hear it and the case was titled ''

''. The case was heard on April 29, 1964. Barry L. Kroll argued for Escobedo with Donald M. Haskell, and

James R. Thompson James Robert Thompson Jr. (May 8, 1936 – August 14, 2020), also known as Big Jim Thompson, was an American attorney and politician who served as the 37th governor of Illinois from 1977 to 1991. A moderate Republican who sometimes took more ...

argued for Illinois against Escobedo with Daniel P. Ward and Elmer C. Kissane. Bernard Weisberg argued for the

American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...

in favor of Escobedo with Walter T. Fisher. The case was decided on June 22, 1964. Justice

Arthur Goldberg Arthur Joseph Goldberg (August 8, 1908January 19, 1990) was an American statesman and jurist who served as the 9th U.S. Secretary of Labor, an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the 6th United States Ambassador to ...

delivered the opinion of the court, which was in favor of Escobedo. The ruling reversed Escobedo's conviction and stated that "Under the circumstances of this case, where a police investigation is no longer a general inquiry into an unsolved crime but has begun to focus on a particular suspect in police custody who has been refused an opportunity to consult with his counsel and who has not been warned of his constitutional right to keep silent, the accused has been denied the assistance of counsel in violation of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments; and no statement extracted by the police during the interrogation may be used against him at a trial." Escobedo became a drifter after his case was resolved, moving from job to job. He was arrested in 2001, outside

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

, for federal probation violations and on a warrant issued in

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

in connection with a 1983 stabbing death. Escobedo had been listed by the

US Marshals Service The United States Marshals Service (USMS) is a federal law enforcement agency in the United States. The USMS is a bureau within the U.S. Department of Justice, operating under the direction of the Attorney General, but serves as the enforce ...

as one of its 15 Most Wanted Fugitives prior to this arrest.

References

1930s births Living people People from Chicago {{US-crime-bio-stub

See also

References