The U.S. Supreme Court decided Monday to hear a case that could change the way Miranda rights are administered by police to suspects they are apprehending or searching for drugs or weapons.

In what has been considered one of the most important decisions offered by the Court, then-Chief Justice Earl Warren settled the case of Miranda v. Arizona by writing a five-member majority opinion that required police to advise suspects in custody that they have the right to remain silent, that anything they say may be used against them and that they have the right to an attorney. Since the 1966 ruling, popular television shows and movies familiarized the public with the phrase and their right to have it read to them if confronted by police.

President Bush’s administration had asked the Court to examine the ruling of a lower court, which ruled on a case involving Samuel Patane, a Colorado man who interrupted police reciting the Miranda rights and later voluntarily directed the officers to a pistol he possessed in violation of a restraining order against him.

Solicitor General Theodore Olson, in a brief asking the Court to consider the case, said that Patane’s case bore importance on federal criminal law because there were certain mitigated circumstances in which police are reasonably unable to recite Miranda rights for the suspect.

“Here, for example, the suspect himself cut off the officer’s attempt to advise him of his Miranda rights, saying that he already knew his rights,” Olson wrote. “In other cases, warnings may be omitted during a fast-moving investigation.”

In Patane’s case, the District Court of Colorado dismissed the pistol discovered as evidence because Patane told the officers investigating where the gun was without being read his rights, even though he told the police he was aware of his rights.

The Court also scheduled a hearing of the case of Texas man Delma Banks, who claims inept legal representation and a biased jury were the reasons he was wrongfully sentenced to death for the murder of a 16-year-old coworker. The Court issued Banks a stay only minutes before he was to be executed March 12.

Banks’s current attorney, George Kendal of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Persons’ Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said the case was intentionally corrupted by the state of Texas.

“The state first promised to disclose impeachment and exculpatory evidence bearing directly in questions of Mr. Banks’ guilt, innocence and eligibility for the death penalty, then failed in its legal and ethical duty to disclose it,” Kendal said in a statement. “The state also allowed its key witnesses repeatedly to lie to the court and jury, and in fact urged the jury to trust without question all the perjured testimony.”

The Court also agreed to hear a case to judge whether middle-aged employees can sue their employers for treating older workers better. Workers can currently sue under federal discrimination laws when they feel their younger counterparts are treated more favorably.

In another case, the Court rejected an appeal to a $257 punitive damage award to Six Flags Over Georgia, which accused Time Warner Entertainment Company of mismanaging its theme park.