Interrogation Practices

Suspect Rights and Interrogation

Corporal punishment and harsh interrogation tactics were legitimately employed by American police and prison officials well into the 20th century, perhaps most famously by New York City chief of detectives Thomas Byrnes in the 1890s. But although the Wickersham Commission's report of 1930 detailed many problems with so-called “third-degree” interrogation tactics, little changed with regard to police procedure until a series of precedent-setting court decisions during the 1960s added to the protections of criminal suspects. Specifically, under Chief Justice Earl Warren, the Supreme Court initiated the requirement of police to inform suspects of their rights regarding police interrogation in adherence to the spirit of the Constitution. The court also required investigators to stop interrogations if a suspect invoked his or her right to counsel by attorney and obligated trial courts to appoint lawyers to represent indigent defendants in serious criminal cases.

Many Supreme Court decisions under Chief Justice Warren, and the policies that emerged from them, were a product of the social and political upheaval of the 1950s and 1960s. During this time, the civil rights movement was initiated by African Americans as a counteraction to segregation and discrimination in the south. As African American civil rights groups lobbied, protested, and sued for equal inclusion into American policy, the court increasingly found that the Fourteenth Amendment extended constitutional protection to every citizen of the United States. Since then, the idea that each American is worthy of equal protection and due process under the law (as provided by the Fourteenth Amendment) has been extended to other political, ethnic, and social groups—including suspects of crime and convicted criminals.

Generally speaking, the decision in Miranda was indicative of the broader context of social justice and equality commonly associated with the African American and youth movements of the 1960s. Specifically, the Supreme Court enacted Miranda's limitations on police and prosecutorial power in a reaction to third-degree interrogative tactics employed against suspects of crime. As indicated above, third-degree tactics include high-pressure and violent actions designed to frighten and brutalize a suspect into compliance, such as threats of violence, aggressive confrontations, and badgering, as well as beatings with fists, rubber hoses, or other weapons. Prior to the 1960s, police—especially in poor, crime-ridden neighborhoods—could employ third-degree tactics with almost absolute impunity and little risk of reprimand.

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