Miranda v. Arizona: The Right to Remain Silent | 5-Minute Videos | PragerU
“You have the right to remain silent…” It’s one of the most famous phrases in American law. But where does it come from? In Miranda v. Arizona (1966), the Supreme Court ruled that police must inform suspects of their rights before questioning. John Malcolm of The Heritage Foundation explains how that decision reshaped criminal justice—and why it remains deeply controversial.
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Transcript:
Miranda v. Arizona: The Right to Remain Silent
Presented by John Malcolm
“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to talk to a lawyer and to have him present with you during questioning. If you cannot afford to hire a lawyer, one will be provided for you.”
Anybody who has ever watched a TV cop show or a Dirty Harry movie, or read a police thriller, knows those words almost by heart. They are now part of American culture.
Where did they come from?
They were not the invention of a Hollywood screenwriter. They were the invention of five Supreme Court justices.
The words are a paraphrase of the Court’s ruling in the 1966 landmark Supreme Court case – Miranda v. Arizona.
The case involved the rights of a criminal suspect named Ernesto Miranda.
Miranda was arrested in 1963 on suspicion of kidnapping and raping an 18-year-old girl. Identified by the girl in a lineup, Miranda was questioned by the police and confessed to the crime. He then wrote out his confession in his own hand. At the top of each page were the printed words: “This statement has been made voluntarily and of my own free will…”
His confession was introduced at trial, and he was convicted.
Miranda later appealed his conviction to the Supreme Court, arguing that he had not been advised of his right to remain silent or to have an attorney present during questioning. Therefore, he contended, his confession was invalid.
In a 5-4 decision, the Court agreed. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote the majority opinion.
In-custody interrogation, Warren asserted, was by its very nature intimidating. All the advantages were with the authorities. In great detail, he laid out the many ways in which the police took advantage of the accused, often manipulating them into making confessions. This, he held, was a violation of the Fifth Amendment’s right against self-incrimination, which provides, “No person shall be… compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself…”
“Without proper safeguards,” Warren wrote, “the process of in-custody interrogation… contains inherently compelling pressures which work to undermine the individual’s will to resist and to compel him to speak where he would not otherwise do so freely.”
This was not a new issue. In 1936, in Brown v. Mississippi, the Court held that coerced confessions were inadmissible under the Constitution’s Due Process Clause, which states, “nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law…”
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Miranda was not a good person let alone a normal one !
There should've been a different name !
I KNEW IT! yall told us not to worry after vega vs tekoh, yall told us miranda wasnt going anywhere. and now here you are making "miranda warnings are bad" videos. never believe a word a conservative says.
What is your basis for claiming this reduces confessions? If it does so because suspects are less likely to confess if they know their rights, then good. If simply knowing about a right causes them to exercise it, then it's good for them to know about the right. Unless you don't think they should have these rights at all, it's a clear win. If it does so because cops fail to properly Mirandize suspects, your priorities are messed up. How can we expect more out of random civilians in the vindication of their rights than we do out of people whose job is literally working with the justice system? The actual issue here is that cops want to deny people's rights to put them in jail, and Miranda makes it harder. You agree that suspects should have their rights denied, so you oppose Miranda.
When I was a firefighter/paramedic with the City of Phoenix Fire Department, I responded on several calls where Ernesto had been beat up by other bums on “The Deuce”, Phoenix’s skid row. I always had him sign a “Miranda Card” and sold them to PD officers! Ernesto got stabbed to death at the Amapola bar, right behind Fire Station 1, but I was off duty that night. He was not a very nice man…
If telling people they have rights stops the states abilities to get confessions, you have to wonder how they were getting confessions before.
fgt
Those justice's fears of adding Miranda rights would increase crime had no idea what would come to be with judges just freeing people because of their darker skin tone or people begging for and getting no cash bail and what all that would do to crime. Miranda was nothing compared to what would be unleashed.
Calling her an 18 year old "girl" is not correct. She is an adult woman at 18. Changing man to boy or woman to girl or vice versa is a common tactic to those trying to manipulate their audience.
Post Miranda, confessions can still coerced. Consider the story of the "Norfolk Four". Lower clearance rates, in and of itself, is not necessarily an indication that more criminals are released to the streets. Pre Miranda, how many more confessions were coerced, leading to wrongful convictions. It is not the citizen's duty to do the job of the police for them. There is a presumption of innocence in the US. The Fifth Amendment is very clear on the right not to incriminate oneself. "No person… shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself".
Allow me to educate your further as a lawyer/retired officer:
1. Miranda requires TWO CONDITIONS before it is REQUIRED: Custody and Interrogation. You can be arrested and only asked your name, address without Miranda, and it is not a violation.
2. Violations of Miranda only make the statement inadmissible and not does not dismiss the entire case in court (if there is any other evidence).
3. Voluntary Utterances are allowed after an arrest without Miranda Warnings.
4. In 2000, the most conservative Supreme Court Justice of all time (Rehnquist) led the Supreme Court to keep Miranda Warnings when it was challenged on its constitutionality (a court making a protection law). In that decision, police and police groups asked for the Supreme Court to keep Miranda because it actually helps their cases.
5. Ernesto Miranda did actually rape Rebecca Johnson and attempted to kidnap another female. In the 60s, there was no CSI or video surveillance investigatory practices, and that's all they had was testimonial evidence.
6. Other countries have adopted their own forms of Confessions or Statements' Warnings thanks to the Miranda decision.
All of these can be searched for validity. Miranda Warnings are good. They are also the most misunderstood process in the US Criminal Justice system.
I don't see the harm in reading the Miranda rights. Reading Miranda Rights certainly stops confessions from being coerced, which is good. The other side is, does it stop honest criminals from confessing? I don't see why it would.
Counterpoint to dissent point 1: Why the blue hell should the right to not incriminate yourself – disregarding entirely the inherent unreliability of coerced statements – apply only in one agency of the state (the courthouse), but not another (the police station)? You may as well not have the right at all in this case.
For dissent point 2: Much like how Charlie Kirk defended gun rights despite gun deaths, it is worth having some criminals go free if the innocent are better protected from the overreach of the state. And in addition to that, there is – as mentioned above – the inherent unreliability of coerced statements. How many of those "solved" cases were actually solved? As in, how many of those actually got the correct person, and not just some poor schmuck the police shook down because they hit a roadblock? I'd argue that the previous numbers were *inflated*, and corrected after Miranda made it harder for investigators to not do their job properly. Not to mention that this isn't even a legal argument (or even a factual one, but purely emotional) and honestly has no true place in SCOTUS precedent. "But guns are scary" is not legal argument. Neither is "but crime is scary". Honestly, that second argument reminded me of Remy's "People Will Die" song he did for Reason, lampooning that kind of thinking.
But if those high "clearance rates" involve convicting people who didn't do the crime but confessed under pressure, public safety is doubly harmed, not aided. First, an innocent person is punished, and second a criminal goes free.
And don't forget, just because you are an "honest citizen" doesn't mean you might not one day find yourself in an interrogation room.
Spinning lower conviction rates as “the system going soft?!” Reality check: before Miranda v. Arizona, cops could bully, trick, or flat-out beat confessions out of people. Of course conviction rates were sky-high, when a confession is forced. Miranda didn’t cripple justice; it stopped fake justice. Convictions dipped because now the state has to prove guilt with real evidence instead of fear tactics. Fewer convictions doesn’t mean more crime, it means fewer innocent incarcerations. That’s not weakness, that’s progress.
The voice sounds like the dude from the original naked gun movies . The dude that I think shines shoes and gives info
If the police actually had the evidence necessary to justify an arrest they would not need to pressure people into confessing. The fact that they have to lie and pressure people into talking is proof they do not have evidence and are simply tying to get SOMEONE to say they did he crime so the police can claim they solved the crime and make themselves look good. To hell with justice.
If you decide to talk to the police, ask questions, never answer questions, tell them they need to address their questions to your lawyer, never engage in any form of chitchat because police are "fishing" for anything no matter how small that they can use to turn a speeding ticket into a strip search, or worse.
Never roll your car window down any further than necessary to clearly speak or to exchange paperwork. They will always want you to roll your car window down far enough so they can stick their face just close enough to the inside of your car so they can smell for alcohol or drugs and, of course, there would be little you can do to deny any claim they make if they decide to smell something. The same thing applies to your home (where you live). They will stick their foot into the door to prevent you from closing it and any attempt to force their trespassing foot out of the way so you can shut the door will immediately be declare an assault and battery on a (so called) law enforcement officer.
Nothing in the law requires the police to tell you your rights before you can exercise your rights, their permission is not necessary.
It is legal for the police to lie. They will even lie under oath during a trial with zero consequences.
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966)
“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you? With these rights in mind, do you wish to speak to me?”
ANYTHING YOU SAY CAN AND WILL BE USED AGAINST YOU
Police may no longer use the third degree, but they don't have to since there are more subtle way of getting people to talk and confess to crimes they did not commit. A good example of the case of Peter Reilley, an eighteen-year-old Connecticut teenager who came home one night to find his mother's body on the floor of their him, her throat slashed. After eight hours of interrogation and a polygraph test, Peter confessed. Investigators were convinced they had an open-and-shut case, but the townspeople disagreed. They couldn’t believe that the naïve teenager was capable of such a gruesome crime, and blamed detectives for taking advantage of the boy’s trust. With the help of celebrities including Mike Nichols and William Styron, who contributes an eloquent and persuasive introduction to Joan Barthel’s account of the case, the community of Canaan rallied to Peter’s defense. At no time was Reilly advised of his Miranda rights. At no time was he allowed to call a lawyer during the questioning. Reading this book shows how police can manipulate and deny suspects of their rights and be convicted of crimes they did not commit.
Ensuring innocent people don't go to prison takes priority over imprisoning guilty people, that's the whole point of it otherwise they could just lock up every suspect with coerced confessions. It doesn't help that police are allowed to lie during interrogations as well.
Ernesto Miranda, a kidnapper and rapist, got off scott free because of this decision. The Miranda decision favors criminals.
The doenstream consequences of a finding must be irrelevant, when evaluating the constitutionality of a metric. It is often illuminating to read decisions, to find out how justices got to their conclusions. The actual constitutionality of the issue frequently has little, if anything, to do with it.