Austin American-Statesman - AP -- Supreme Court Could End Miranda Warnings

``I am dying! ... What are you doing to me?'' Martinez is heard screaming on a recording of the persistent interrogation by police Sgt. Ben Chavez in Oxnard, a city of 182,000 about 60 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

``If you are going to die, tell me what happened,'' the officer said. He continued the questioning in an ambulance and an emergency room while Martinez pleaded for treatment. At times, he left the room to allow medical personnel to work, but he returned and continued pressing for answers.

No Miranda warning was given.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with a federal judge that the confession was coerced and cannot be used as evidence against Martinez in his excessive-force civil case against the city. It said Chavez should have known that questioning a man who had been shot five times, was crying out for treatment and had been given no Miranda warning was a violation of his constitutional rights.

Oxnard appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is scheduled to hear arguments in the case Wednesday.

On Nov. 28, 1997, Martinez, a farm worker, was riding his bicycle through a field where police were questioning a man suspected of selling drugs. The police ordered Martinez to stop. When an officer found a sheathed knife in his waistband, they scuffled and the officer's partner, perceiving that Martinez was reaching for the officer's gun, shot him five times, in the eyes, spine and legs.

Martinez was never charged with a crime.

Martinez, 34, blind and paraplegic, lives in a one-room trailer in a remote rural area, tended by his father.

Chavez eventually got an acknowledgment from Martinez that he did grab for the officer's gun. But Martinez's lawyers said that statement was coerced and is inadmissible in the damage case that Martinez filed.

A ruling that minimizes defendants' rights would be useful to the Bush administration, which supports Oxnard's appeal, in its questioning of terrorism suspects, experts said.

The city of Oxnard is arguing that civil rights only apply in criminal, not civil trials.