NEW YORK, March 20 (Reuters) - A coalition of civil liberties groups is asking a New York state appeals court to end the Queens District Attorney's controversial pre-arraignment interview program, saying it violates suspects' constitutional rights and breaches attorney ethics rules.

In an amicus brief filed Tuesday, the groups -- including the New York Civil Liberties Union, Brennan Center for Justice, New York State Defenders Association, and the New York Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers -- urged the appeals court to rule on the constitutionality of the so-called Central Booking Program. The groups say the program has ensnared thousands of mostly indigent individuals over the years.

There are three appeals pending before the Appellate Division, Second Department, in which criminal defendants are seeking to suppress evidence elicited from them during interviews with Queens prosecutors before they were formally arraigned.

"Any program where legally trained prosecutors intercept unrepresented suspects on their way to court and direct them into an interrogation room is unconstitutional and unethical," NYCLU senior staff attorney Taylor Pendergrass said in a statement. "The program should be ended immediately."

In New York, suspects arrested without a warrant are administratively processed before they make their first court appearance at an arraignment. But in Queens, after some suspects are booked, they are brought face-to-face with a prosecutor in an interrogation room.

During videotaped interviews, suspects are told to turn over any information regarding their alibi, potential witnesses and their version of events so that prosecutors can investigate. Prosecutors warn that it is the suspect's last chance to give his side of the story before facing a judge.

'OBSCURED AND UNDERCUT'

In the brief, the civil liberties groups argued that the interviews violate suspects' Fourth Amendment right to be brought promptly before a judge to establish probable cause for their arrest. They also said that suspects' Fifth Amendment right to remain silent is "obscured and undercut" before they receive Miranda warnings of their legal rights.

The program also violates prosecutors' ethical prohibitions against giving legal advice to unrepresented adverse parties, the brief says, and targets the mostly indigent suspects without access to counsel during pre-arraignment proceedings.

The American Civil Liberties Union, Five Borough Defense and Bronx Defenders also signed on to the brief.

A spokesperson for Queens District Attorney Richard Brown declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.

The Central Booking Program has drawn scrutiny before, most recently from Acting Supreme Court Justice Joel Blumenfeld in Queens. In a judicial inquiry, Blumenfeld questioned the ethics of the program after a defendant, Elisaul Perez, sought to suppress statements made to prosecutors during one of the pre-arraignment interviews.

The DA's office appealed Blumenfeld's standing to question the program's ethics to the Second Department; in a 2011 ruling, the court upheld the inquiry.

(Reporting by Jessica Dye)

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