Washington ? A splintered Supreme Court took another swipe at the landmark Miranda ruling Tuesday, saying the right to remain silent doesn’t apply when authorities aggressively — or even coercively — interrogate someone they’re not prosecuting,

Oliverio Martinez thought he was dying in 1997 after an Oxnard, Calif., police officer shot him five times in the face, legs and back.

He begged another officer to stop questioning him as he waited for medical treatment.

A four-justice plurality said the officer’s refusal to stop didn’t violate Martinez’s Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination, because he was never charged with a crime. But a majority of the court said the relentless questioning of Martinez under the circumstances could have violated his 14th Amendment rights to due process, because it could be compared to torturing him.

The case was sent back to lower courts to consider that question.

The ruling inspired both praise and criticism from lawyers for Martinez and the American Civil Liberties Union, who said the hope for a favorable outcome on the 14th Amendment issue in lower courts was a silver lining in the court’s cloudy decision.

Martinez, who was left blind and paralyzed, is suing the Oxnard police for damages.

Alan Wisotsky, an attorney for Oxnard and the police officer who interrogated Martinez, said the court’s ruling was a victory for persistent police work.

“If someone had kidnapped your child, wouldn’t you want police doing everything they possibly could to get information from someone who had it?” he asked hypothetically.

Some constitutional scholars said the decision was a clear dilution of Miranda rights, under which law enforcement officers for years have warned suspects that they have the right to remain silent.

Miranda, said Mary Cheh, a law professor at George Washington University, “has been scaled back to such an itty-bitty little protection that you begin to wonder whether it’s worth it.”

Cheh said that to prove a 14th Amendment violation, Martinez would have to show that his treatment was so cruel as to “shock the conscience” of the court. In Tuesday’s opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas denied that police conduct was egregious, saying it served a “justifiable government interest.”

Despite a common perception, the Constitution does not bar police from using pressure — short of torture — to obtain information from suspects or witnesses, Thomas said in the court’s lead opinion.

He was joined by Justice Antonin Scalia in that part of his opinion, but several others disagreed to varying degrees. Only Justice John Paul Stevens included strong language in his opinion denouncing police conduct.

“Unfortunately, courts have generally said the police have to go really, really far before they reach that level,” Cheh said.

Tuesday’s ruling came after a series of Supreme Court decisions narrowing Miranda rights and as the court prepares to undertake a more comprehensive review of Miranda requirements later this year. The justices will decide in the fall when — and even whether — Miranda violations by police require evidence to be tossed out.