Miranda Rights

The Miranda warnings may be the most famous words ever written by the Supreme Court. The first warning is the best known: “You have a right to remain silent.” Police officers addressing a suspect in custody are required to further warn: “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law; you have a right to a lawyer and to have them present with you during questioning; if you can't afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you.” If a suspect waives these warnings he or she must do it knowingly.

When the Supreme Court mandated the Miranda warnings for custodial police interrogations, its decision was greeted with uproar. Even supporters had to admit that the decision lacked precedent. Thirty-five years later, in 2000, a more restrictive Supreme Court had the opportunity to overrule the Miranda decision, but let it stand. Miranda had proven itself and become precedent; the warnings are now part of our national culture.

MIRANDA V. ARIZONA

In Phoenix, Arizona, in March 1963, Ernesto Miranda, twenty-three, with a record of prior convictions for sex crimes and robbery, abducted and raped an eighteen-year-old woman. Miranda was questioned for two hours at a station house and confessed to the rape, as well as the attempted rape and robbery of two other women. He signed a statement that included his voluntary confession. A rights statement was read to him by the arresting officers before he wrote the confession, but not before he confessed.

At trial in June 1963, Miranda's court-appointed lawyer would have used an insanity defense had psychiatrists not found that Miranda understood the nature of his crime. The evidence against him was his signed confession and the victim's testimony. Miranda's attorney tried to have the confession excluded because, “The Supreme Court says a man is allowed an attorney at the time of his arrest.” The Supreme Court had not yet decided that, although the accused in Arizona had long been entitled to an attorney at the time of trial. Miranda was convicted and sentenced to twenty to thirty years for kidnapping and rape. [Page 1064]

John Birch Society sign.

Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Miranda's case was appealed to the Arizona Supreme Court in December 1963 and affirmed in April 1965. In the interim, the U.S. Supreme Court had decided the case of Escobedo v. Illinois. Danny Escobedo's lawyer had been present at the station house but prevented from seeing his client until after Escobedo incriminated himself in the murder of his brother-in-law. The Supreme Court held that Escobedo's confession was not valid because it violated his Sixth Amendment right to counsel.

The law enforcement community and judges nation-wide were polarized about the meaning of Escobedo. Narrow constructionists did not believe the Court required lawyers at the station house unless specifically requested; broad constructionists believed a lawyer must be provided prior to police interrogation. The Arizona Supreme Court took the narrow view. It was careful to say that Miranda was not like Escobedo, because Miranda had not requested a lawyer. The U.S. Supreme Court accepted Miranda v. Arizona on appeal and joined it with confession cases from other states.

...