MIRANDA RULES (Update)

miranda v. arizona (1966) held that a statement obtained from a criminal defendant through custodial interrogation is inadmissible against that defendant unless the police obtained a waiver of the right against self-incrimination after warning the suspect of both the right to remain silent and the right to counsel. Recently, the Supreme Court has issued decisions favorable to the government concerning several Miranda issues: the definition of custodial interrogation, in Arizona v. Mauro (1989); the adequacy of warnings provided to persons in custody, in Duckworth v. Eagan (1989); and the standard that governs the validity of waiver, in Colorado v. Spring (1987) and Colorado v. Connelly (1986). Although in Arizona v. Robertson (1988) the Court reaffirmed the proscription of questioning until counsel appears, once the suspect requests counsel, the police need not advise the suspect of a lawyer's efforts to consult with him or her, as the Court held in Moran v. Burbine (1986).

The most significant of these developments is the holding in Connelly and Spring that a Miranda waiver is valid so long as the police did not obtain the waiver through conduct that would render a confession "involuntary" as a matter of procedural due process. The Miranda opinion stated that "a heavy burden rests on the Government to demonstrate that the defendant knowingly and intelligently waived his privilege against self-incrimination and his right to … counsel." Connelly, a lunatic, confessed at the behest of "the voice of God." Spring waived Miranda rights after government agents led him to believe that the questioning would concern an illegal firearms transaction, but the interrogation eventually included questions about a homicide. Spring's waiver was not knowing, and Connelly's was not intelligent. The Court nonetheless approved admission of both confessions, stating in Connelly that "there is obviously no reason to require more in the way of a "voluntariness' inquiry in the Miranda waiver context than in the fourteenth amendment confession context."

The Justices would not likely approve waiver of the right to counsel at trial by a person in Connelly's condition or by a person like Spring, who misunderstood the seriousness of the charge. Yet in Patterson v. Illinois (1988), the Court held that in the interrogation context the claimed waiver of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel, a right initiated by a formal charge with the prospect of a trial, is tested under the Connelly standard. Ironically, the standard governing the waiver of rights is strictest in the courtroom, where coercion and deception are least likely, and most lenient in the stationhouse or the police cruiser, where these dangers are greatest.

Not many police departments are likely to depart from the verbal formulation of the warnings given by the Miranda opinion, and in few cases does a lawyer attempt to advise an arrested person who did not invoke the Miranda right to counsel. Commonly, however, the government claims that the accused waived his or her Miranda rights. The ability of police interrogators to induce suspects to waive their rights explains the consistent empirical finding that the Miranda doctrine has had a negligible effect on police effectiveness. Because Miranda was inspired by dissatisfaction with the vacuous and unpredictable due process approach, stating the test for waiver in the same terms as the voluntariness test comes close to full circle from the law that preceded Miranda.

But the Court's retrenchment of the Miranda doctrine is not the whole story. In one sense, the most important development in confessions law is Miranda 's continued survival, emphasized by cases such as Roberson, in which the Court approved the exclusion of valuable evidence obtained without police brutality. At least since harris v. new york (1971), a majority of the Justices have believed that Miranda was wrongly decided. A majority continues to describe the Miranda rules as prophylactic safeguards rather than constitutional entitlements, a distinction that is not compatible with Miranda 's presumption that statements obtained without a valid waiver are compelled within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment. Despite the erosion of their Fifth Amendment foundation, the Court refuses to abandon the Miranda rules.

The failure of recent efforts to have Miranda overruled confirms that stare decisis, even without more, will sustain the decision. During the presidency of ronald reagan, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy issued a lengthy report calling for Miranda 's demise. The report effectively pointed out the inconsistency of Harris and its progeny with Miranda itself; but on several points, including the key issue of law enforcement effectiveness, the report made an embarassingly weak case for obliterating a landmark. Not only did the Court as a whole reject the department's effort; the report was not approved by a single Justice in any concurring or dissenting opinion.

soMiranda lives, a symbol of commitment to civil liberty that conveniently does little to obstruct the suppression of crime. But at the borders of the Miranda rules, a skeptical Supreme Court majority has taken frequent opportunities to limit their scope. The most likely future development along these lines is approval of the suggestion advanced by two Justices, concurring in Duckworth v. Eagan, to the effect that claims by state prisoners that their convictions violated Miranda should not be cognizable in federal habeas corpus proceedings.

Donald A. Dripps
(1992)

(see also: Police Interrogation and Confessions; Procedural Due Process of Law, Criminal.)

Bibliography

Kamisar, Yale et al. 1989 Modern Criminal Procedure, 6th ed. St. Paul, Minn.: West Publishing Co.

United States Department of Justice, Office of Legal Policy 1986 Report to the Attorney General on the Law of Pre-trial Interrogation. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.