Miranda v. Arizona

“ In reaching its decision, the court emphasized heavily the fact that Miranda did not specifically request counsel.
We reverse. From the testimony of the officers and by the admission of respondent, it is clear that Miranda was not in any way apprised of his right to consult with an attorney and to have one present during the interrogation, nor was his right not to be compelled to incriminate himself effectively protected in any other manner. Without these warnings, the statements were inadmissible. ”

“ Obviously there is no warrant in the Fifth Amendment for thus installing counsel as the arbiter of the privilege.
In sum, for all the Court's expounding on the menacing atmosphere of police interrogation procedures, it has failed to supply any foundation for the conclusions it draws or the measures it adopts.
IV Criticism of the Court's opinion, however, cannot stop with a demonstration that the factual and textual bases for the rule it propounds are, at best, less than compelling. Equally relevant is an assessment of the rule's consequences measured against community values. ”

“ Mr. Justice CLARK concurs in the opinion and judgment of the Court. He adheres, however, to the views stated in his separate opinion in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 499, 86 S.Ct. 1640.
Mr. Justice HARLAN, Mr. Justice STEWART, and Mr. Justice WHITE concur in the opinion and judgment of the Court. They continue to believe, however, for the reasons stated in the dissenting opinions of Mr. ”

“ The fundamental import of the privilege while an individual is in custody is not whether he is allowed to talk to the police without the benefit of warnings and counsel, but whether he can be interrogated. There is no requirement that police stop a person who enters a police station and states that he wishes to confess to a crime, [47] or a person who calls the police to offer a confession or any other statement he desires to make. Volunteered statements of any kind are not barred by the Fifth Amendment, and their admissibility is not affected by our holding today. ”

“ I have no desire whatsoever to share the responsibility for any such impact on the present criminal process.
In some unknown number of cases, the Court's rule will return a killer, a rapist or other criminal to the streets and to the environment which produced him, to repeat his crime whenever it pleases him. As a consequence, there will not be a gain, but a loss, in human dignity. ”

“ The Edwards rule, moreover, is not offense-specific: once a suspect invokes the Miranda right to counsel for interrogation regarding one offense, he may not be reapproached regarding any offense unless counsel is present. Arizona v. Roberson, 486 U.S. 675, 108 S.Ct. 2093, 100 L.Ed.2d 704 (1988) .
Having described the nature and effects of both the Sixth Amendment right to counsel and the Miranda-Edwards "Fifth Amendment" right to counsel, we come at last to the issue here: Petitioner seeks to prevail by combining the two of them. ”

“ A few years later, the Fifth Amendment privilege was similarly extended to encompass the then well established rule against coerced confessions:
In criminal trials, in the courts of the United States, wherever a question arises whether a confession is incompetent because not voluntary, the issue is controlled by that portion of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, commanding that no person "shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." ”

“ Our decision today does not indicate in any manner, of course, that these rules can be disregarded. When federal officials arrest an individual, they must as always comply with the dictates of the congressional legislation and cases thereunder. See generally Hogan & Snee, The McNabb-Mallory Rule: Its Rise, Rationale and Rescue, 47 Geo.L.J. 1 (1958) .1 2 . The decisions of this Court have guaranteed the same procedural protection for the defendant whether his confession was used in a federal or state court. ”

“ There a detective questioned Vignera with respect to the robbery. Vignera orally admitted the robbery to the detective. The detective was asked on cross-examination at trial by defense counsel whether Vignera was warned of his right to counsel before being interrogated. The prosecution objected to the question, and the trial judge sustained the objection. Thus, the defense was precluded from making any showing that warnings had not been given. While at the 66th Detective Squad, Vignera was identified by the store owner and a saleslady as the man who robbed the dress shop. ”

“ The more important premise is that pressure on the suspect must be eliminated, though it be only the subtle influence of the atmosphere and surroundings. The Fifth Amendment, however, has never been thought to forbid all pressure to incriminate one's self in the situations covered by it. On the contrary, it has been held that failure to incriminate one's self can result in denial of removal of one's case from state to federal court, Maryland v. ”

“ Decency, security and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperilled if it fail to observe the law scrupulously. Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. ”

“ People v. Gunner, 15 N.Y.2d 226, 205 N.E.2d 852; Commonwealth ex rel. Linde v. Maroney, 416 Pa. 331, 206 A.2d 288; Browne v. State, 24 Wis.2d 491, 131 N.W.2d 169.↑ . For instance, compare the requirements of the catalytic case of People v. Dorado, 62 Cal.2d 338, 398 P.2d 361, with those laid down today. ”

“ But irrespective of one's view of the merits of Miranda, the critical point is that Miranda is still good law. With few exceptions, prosecutors in state courts may not introduce statements taken from a criminal suspect in violation of his Miranda rights. If a state trial court permits the introduction of such statements, federal constitutional error has been committed. Unless the defendant's conviction is reversed, he is indisputably being held "in violation of the Constitution . ”

“ Compare People v. Dorado, 62 Cal.2d 338, 398 P.2d 361, 42 Cal.Rptr. 169 (1964) , with People v. Hartgraves, 31 Ill.2d 375, 202 N.E.2d 33 (1964) .1 2 . See, e.g., Enker & Elsen, Counsel for the Suspect: Massiah v. United States and Escobedo v. Illinois, 49 Minn.L.Rev. 47 (1964) ; Herman, The Supreme Court and Restrictions on Police Interrogation, 25 Ohio St.L.J. 449 (1964) ; Kamisar, Equal Justice in the Gatehouses and Mansions of American Criminal Procedure, in Criminal Justice in Our Time 1 (1965) ”

“ By this she presumably means those claims that are based on so-called "voluntary statements." Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298, 307, 105 S.Ct. 1285, 1292, 84 L.Ed.2d 222 (1985) (emphasis in original) . I have never accepted the proposition that there is any such a thing as a "nonconstitutional" Miranda claim based on "voluntary" statements. The explicit premise of Miranda is that, unless a suspect taken into custody is properly advised of his rights, "no statement obtained from the [suspect] can truly be the product of his free choice" as a matter of federal constitutional law. ”

“ The Court states that the retroactivity rule adopted in Johnson was 'an effort to extend the protection of Miranda to as many defendants as was consistent with society's legitimate concern that convictions already validly obtained not be needlessly aborted.' Ante, at 219. I too believe that a desire not to interfere with trials which were concluded or already under way at the time of Miranda lay at the core of what was done in Johnson. ”

“ Similarly, when a State attempts to make inquiries about a person's beliefs or associations, its power is limited by the First Amendment. Broad and sweeping state inquiries into these protected areas, as Arizona has engaged in here, discourage citizens from exercising rights protected by the Constitution. ”

“ Therefore, and purely out of respect for stare decisis, I reluctantly feel compelled to acquiesce in today's decision of the Court, at the same time observing that the constitutional condemnation of this perfectly understandable, sensible, proper, and indeed commendable piece of police work highlights the unsoundness of Miranda.
Mr. Justice WHITE, with whom Mr. Justice STEWART joins, dissenting. ”

“ The Court makes a case for why the Arizona Supreme Court’s interpretation of its own precedent is wrong. If I were on the Arizona Supreme Court, I might agree. But that call is not within our bailiwick. Our job is to determine whether the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision is defensible, and we owe the utmost deference to the state court in making that judgment. Cases of inadequacy are extremely rare, and this is not one. ”

“ The disadvantage of the Miranda rule is that statements which may be by no means involuntary, made by a defendant who is aware of his "rights," may nonetheless be excluded and a guilty defendant go free as a result. But experience suggests that the totality-of-the-circumstances test which §3501 seeks to revive is more difficult than Miranda for law enforcement officers to conform to, and for courts to apply in a consistent manner. ”

“ Congress already engaged in that balancing process when it created habeas review and extended the federal courts' jurisdiction to all claims based on a violation of federal law. The federal courts have been reviewing Miranda claims on federal habeas for 23 years, and Congress has never even remotely indicated that they have been remiss in doing so. To the extent Justice O'CONNOR is unhappy with Miranda, she should address that decision head on. But an end run through the habeas statute is judicial activism at its worst. ”

“ Miranda forbids coercion, not mere strategic deception by taking advantage of a suspect's misplaced trust in one he supposes to be a fellow prisoner. As we recognized in Miranda: " [C] onfessions remain a proper element in law enforcement. Any statement given freely and voluntarily without any compelling influences is, of course, admissible in evidence." 384 U.S., at 478, 86 S.Ct., at 1629. Ploys to mislead a suspect or lull him into a false sense of security that do not rise to the level of compulsion or coercion to speak are not within Miranda 's concerns. ”

“ Even if Arizona may not take criminal action against its law enforcement officers or its teachers who become Communists knowing of the purposes of the Party, the Court's judgment overreaches itself in invalidating this Arizona statute. Whether or not Arizona may make knowing membership a crime, it need not retain the member as an employee and is entitled to insist that its employees disclaim, under oath, knowing membership in the designated organizations and to condition future employment upon future abstention from membership. ”

“ Nonthreatening attempts to persuade the suspect to reconsider that initial decision are not, without more, enough to render a change of heart the product of anything other than the suspect’s free will. Thus, what is most remarkable about the Miranda decision —and what made it unacceptable as a matter of straightforward constitutional interpretation in the Marbury tradition— is its palpable hostility toward the act of confession per se, rather than toward what the Constitution abhors, compelled confession. ”

“ In the light of these additional considerations, we conclude that Escobedo and Miranda should apply only to cases commenced after those decisions were announced. We recognize that certain state courts have perceived the implications of Escobedo and have therefore anticipated our holding in Miranda. Of course, States are still entirely free to effectuate under their own law stricter standards than those we have laid down and to apply those standards in a broader range of cases than is required by this decision. ”

“ Yet, after Harris, there is no longer any real incentive for police to obey Miranda. Credibility is always an issue when an accused takes the stand in his own defense. The license granted by the Harris majority to use Miranda-violative statements for impeachment purposes, therefore, foreshadows the possible use of tainted statements in almost every case. This opens the door to a calculated risk by police interrogators. If, in response to Miranda warnings, an accused indicates he wishes to have an attorney present during questioning, the request may be ignored with virtual impunity. ”