1984—When is an express signed waiver of Miranda rights not a waiver? When you try to conceal your identity by signing a false name. So rules federal district judge H. Lee Sarokin (in an unpublished opinion in United States v. Rodriguez). Rodriguez had been arrested on theft-related charges and was advised of his Miranda rights and informed that signing the waiver form would waive those rights. He signed the form, but, intent on concealing his identity, signed someone else’s name. Sarokin rules that “it does not strain logic to find the use of a name other than one’s own to be wholly inconsistent with a voluntary waiver of rights: defendant may well have believed that by using a false name he was not committing himself to anything.”
In a remarkable display of chutzpah, Sarokin immediately follows this assertion with a “But see” citation to specific and contrary Third Circuit authority that he himself describes as standing for the proposition that “contention that signature was not one’s own is not relevant to the issue of the voluntariness of the confession.” A more blatant defiance of controlling authority of a higher court is difficult to imagine.