Miranda Rules

AuthorCharles H. Whitebread
Pages1742-1743

Page 1742

In MIRANDA V. ARIZONA (1966) the Supreme Court held that a person subject to custodial POLICE INTERROGATION must be warned that any statement he makes can be used against him, that he has a right to remain silent, and that he has a right to the presence of an attorney and that one will be appointed for him if he is indigent. A defendant may waive these rights. AWAIVER must be voluntary and intelligent. In the absence of a fully effective alternative, these warnings must be given and a valid waiver taken as the constitutional prerequisite to the admissibility of any product of custodial police interrogation.

The Miranda opinion left unresolved numerous issues. For example: When is a person in custody? What constitutes interrogation? What are the standards for measuring the validity of a purported waiver of the Miranda rights? May voluntary statements that are inadmissible for failure to comply with Miranda be introduced to impeach the credibility of a defendant's trial testimony? How is the burden of proving VOLUNTARINESS and compliance with the Miranda requirements allocated?

Post-Miranda cases have lessened considerably the constraints the decision had imposed upon law enforcement officials. For example, the police are required to give a suspect the Miranda warnings only if the suspect is in custody at the time of interrogation. In OROZCO V. TEXAS (1969) the Court held that a person is in custody any time that he is not free to leave whether in his own home, a hospital, a police car, or the stationhouse. ESTELLE V. SMITH (1981) held that when an indicted defendant, who has not put his mental state in issue, is compelled to undergo a court-ordered psychiatric examination, he is in custody and is entitled to the Miranda warnings prior to the evaluation by a mental health professional. However, most courts have held that a suspect is not in custody when in an open, natural environment. Examples include STOP AND FRISK situations, traffic arrests, accident investigations, or searches at international borders.

The second prerequisite to requiring the Miranda warnings is that the suspect be the subject of interrogation. The Miranda opinion defined interrogation as "questioning initiated by law enforcement officers." In RHODE ISLAND V. INNES (1980), the Court elaborated, stating that "interrogation" meant "express questioning or its functional equivalent" including "any words or actions on the part of the police...

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