Miranda v Arizona 1966

• Author: Daniel Brannen, Richard Hanes, Elizabeth Shaw
• Pages: 324-328

Contenidos

• Suggestions for further reading.

Page 324

Petitioner: Ernesto Miranda

Respondent: State of Arizona

Petitioner's Claim: That the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination protects a suspect's right to be informed of his constitutional rights during police questioning and applies to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Chief Lawyer for Petitioner: John Flynn

Chief Lawyer for Respondents: Gary K. Nelson

Justices for the Court: Hugo Lafayette Black, William J. Brennan, Jr., William O. Douglas, Abe Fortas, Earl Warren

Justices Dissenting: Tom C. Clark, John Marshall Harlan II, Potter Stewart, Byron R. White

Date of Decision: June 13, 1966

Decision: The Fifth Amendment protection from self-incrimination requires that suspects be informed of their constitutional rights before questioning by the police when they are in police custody.

Significance: Few events have altered the course of American criminal law more than the events surrounding the 1963 rape conviction of Ernesto Miranda. The only strong evidence against him was a confession he made while in police custody. The events surrounding that confession captured the nations attention and prompted a landmark United States Supreme Court decision.

Page 325

In Phoenix, Arizona, during the early hours of March 3, 1963, an eighteen-year-old movie theater attendant was kidnapped by a stranger while on her way home from work. The stranger dragged her into his car, drove out into the desert, and raped her. Afterwards, he dropped her off near her home.

The young woman's story of the events was vague and confusing. She described her attacker as a Mexican in his late twenties wearing glasses. He drove an early 1950s car, either a Ford or Chevrolet.

By chance, one week later, the woman and her brother-in-law saw what she believed was the car of her attacker, a 1953 Packard, license plate number DFL-312. License records showed that this plate was actually registered to a late model Oldsmobile. But plate number DFL-317 was a Packard, registered to a woman, Twila N. Hoffman. Further investigation showed that her boyfriend, Ernesto Miranda, age twenty-three, fit the attacker's description almost exactly.

Ernesto Miranda had a long history of criminal behavior. He had served a one-year jail term for attempted rape. Police put him into a lineup with three other Mexicans of similar height and build, though none wore glasses. The victim did not positively...