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.

Elisaul Perez was arrested for stealing an iPod in March 2009. Before he was arraigned, he was interviewed by a detective and two assistant district attorneys through a Spanish-speaking interpreter. They told Mr. Perez, “If there is something you would like us to investigate concerning this incident, you must tell us now so we can look into it.” Only after that did they give him Miranda warnings on his right to remain silent and be provided counsel.

Before a lawyer was appointed for him, Mr. Perez told his interviewers that this was not a robbery, but his retaliation for a beating he took from the iPod owner months earlier. But, as the judge wrote, the district attorney’s office did not bother to investigate this claim — despite the “promise to the defendant to induce him to speak.”

The judge concluded that this promise was a misrepresentation and a violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct. It “deliberately” gave the defendant a false, now-or-never ultimatum: if he didn’t speak right away, he would give up an advantage in his case.