In Miranda v. Arizona (1966), one of the best examples of the decisions laid down by the Warren court, it was determined that "in order to secure criminal suspect's Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination, the police must advise suspects in custody, before any questioning takes place, of their right to remain silent" (Day, 1964, 145)
. And to give concrete constitutional guidelines for law enforcement agencies and courts to follow" (Dix, 1973, 78)
This decision established the now-famous "Miranda warning" that requires the police to advise suspects before questioning that they have the right to remain silent, that anything they say can be used against them, that they have the right to be represented by an attorney and that if they are unable to afford an attorney, one will be provided by the court. Miranda 2 The so-called "Miranda Decision" was very controversial, due to "the probe conducted by the Supreme Court into police practices that had previously been concealed from the public and free from the scrutiny of the courts" (Gay, 1967, 67)
Wainwright served as the basis for the confessional rules outlined in Miranda v. Arizona" and that "while the Court found no pertinent differences between judicial proceedings and police interrogation, I believe the differences are so vast as to disqualify wholly the Sixth Amendment precedents as suitable analogies in the present case" (Gold, 1995, 145)
The majority was clearly reacting against the overall atmosphere of interrogation, for they recognized that the defendant's statements might have been obtained involuntarily via destructive police interrogation methods which meant that some confessions were not the product of free choice. The remedy, as Chief Warren pointed out, was the "presence of legal counsel that would ensure that any statements made by the suspect were the products of his/her own free will and not the result of police coercion" (Riley, 1994, 178)
Clymer (2002) questions whether the police now have cause to disregard the Miranda rights. The researcher blatantly proclaims that "Miranda and its progeny impose no such obligation on the police" and that police are free to do as they will with those they incarcerate (Clymer, 2002: 268)
The due process requirements enable citizens the right to an attorney, to questioning in safe conditions under the advisement of an attorney and the right to know and understand what their rights are as stated by the Constitution. Many Petitioners incarcerated are not native English speakers; in these cases the law enforcement agents have a duty to provide the Petitioner with a discourse of their Miranda Rights and the right to a lawyer that speaks their native language so their understand what exactly is happening to them during interrogation (Columbia Law Review, 1961: 748)
Arizona in 1966. The courts recognized that police interrogators do indeed sometimes use "devious techniques" to "extract confessions" from suspects they may consider vulnerable, including those with limited knowledge of the law, minority groups or those with low socio-economic status (Einesman, 1999:1)
Leo (1996) notes many including Nixon felt the Miranda Rights were an award for criminals not for the Supreme Courts of the United States, allowing too many criminals to be released on false pretenses when they should actually suffer incarceration and penalties for their actions. Further the author blames rising crime rates according to many, are the direct result of Miranda implementation which may be the reason so many law enforcement agents are eager to violate this legislation especially knowing they won't be persecuted by the law for doing so (Leo, 1996)
As a result, many people provided evidence for confessions in a situation which could have been avoided if they would've understood and recognized the fact that they did not have to provide this information to law enforcement. Prior to the Miranda decision, the court to recognize coerced confessions is inherently untrustworthy and used a 'totality of the circumstances' test to determine admissibility of a waiver of rights against self-incrimination" (Goldstein et al
Surprisingly, the participants who were innocent were much quicker to waive their Miranda Rights, believing that their innocence would be strong enough to protect them from any of their dialogue being construed as potential evidence to show their guilt. Here, the research suggests that "naively believing in the power of their innocence to set them free, most waive their rights even in a hostile detective condition, where the risk of interrogation was apparent," and there interrogation dialogue could have easily been used against them to bring charges for crimes they did not commit (Kassin & Norwick, 2004, p 211)
There are simply too many Americans unaware of their constitutional rights for whatever reason, and us when these individuals were being arrested they were being denied their basic civil liberties. The Miranda Rights that are now required to be informed to all suspects was placed under arrest thus "buttressed the constitutional privilege against self-incrimination by requiring as a procedural safeguard that various aspects of this privilege be clearly communicated to custodial suspects" (Rogers et al
Many mentally ill individuals may not disclose their handicapped to police interrogators during the process of their arrest, and may waive their Miranda Rights without law enforcement really understanding how deep the situation goes. As a result, many of these confessions and information provided during an interrogation have to be thrown out later in court based on the clear presentation of the suspect being mentally incompetent (Vuotto & Ciccone, 2006)