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Miranda v arizona brif facts about the case
Case commentary Miranda v. Arizona
Miranda v arizona brif facts about the case
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Everyone agrees that police should not use unconstitutional methods to coerce a suspect into giving out a confession, yet police have used unauthorized force throughout American history. Fortunately, the Supreme Court created a legal safeguard against police abuses. The safeguards were created in the 1960s after taking a case titled Miranda v. Arizona. Miranda v. Arizona is unarguably one of the most important actions the Supreme Court has taken to prevent police abuses. Many jurisdictions have interpreted Miranda v. Arizona differently and because of the lack of uniformity, Miranda v. Arizona remains a controversial ruling today. This paper will examine the facts of the case, its significant to the legal system.
MIRANDA V. ARIZONA The
In Kyle Scherr’s You Have the Right to Understand: The Deleterious Effect of Stress on Suspects ' Ability to Comprehend Miranda article, he states that researchers have study how certain impartments can impair someone’s understanding of the Miranda rights (Scherr, 2012). For example, he lists how stress, intelligence, and even the method of communication can impair a suspect’s understanding of his Miranda rights, especially stress. He states that “stress expends valuable cognitive resources that would otherwise be used for efficient cognitive functioning, and by so doing, compromises the efficiency of individuals ' working memory system” (Scherr par. 6). Essentially, stress messes with the processing of how memory is stored, and thus, hypothetical, causes “inaccuracy in eyewitness identifications” and maims the suspect’s ability to recall past witnessed events with accuracy (Scherr par. 8). People being accused of crimes can feel pressured, awkward, and uncomfortable, regardless of whatever they have committed the crime or
In his research, Kyle finds that people with substance abuse and unacute mental health have a harder time understanding their Miranda rights (Scherr par. 6). Furthermore, the participants had a clearer understanding of their rights during interrogation when oral warnings were written at an sixth grade level more than they were written at an eighth grade. (Scherr par. 3). The human brain is supposed to function to work as little as possible when processing its main mechanisms. The human brain performs more efficiently when there is less
After two hours of interrogation by the police, Miranda wrote a complete confession, admitting to the kidnapping and rape of an eighteen-year-old girl ten days earlier. Alvin Moore was assigned to represent Miranda at his trial which began June 20th, in front of Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Yale McFate. It was pointed out that Miranda had not been informed of his Fifth Amendment right to have an attorney present during police questioning. Despite that he had not been informed of his rights, Miranda was convicted, forcing him to appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court. The charges as well as the verdict remained the same. Miranda appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in June of 1965. Criminal Defense Attorney John Flynn agreed to represent Miranda in Alvin Moore’s stead. The Supreme Court agreed that the written confession was not acceptable evidence because of Ernesto’s ignorance of his Fifth Amendment rights, and the police’s failure to inform him of them. Then state of Arizona re-tried him without the confession but with Twila Hoffman’s testimony. He was still found guilty and was sentenced to twenty to thirty years in prison, but this case set precedence for all other cases of this
Defenders of the Miranda decision say that fewer crimes solved are for a good reason. They believe that law enforcement officers were forced to stop coercive questioning techniques that are unconstitutional. Over the years, the Supreme Court has watered down its stance in saying that the Miranda rules are not constitutional obligations, but rather “prophylactic” safeguards intended to insure that officers do not force a confession from a suspect. The need for both effective law enforcement as well as protection of society dictates the need for potential alternatives to the limitations of Miranda that would simultaneously protect the interest of society in effective law enforcement while at the same time providing protection to suspects against unconstitutional force (www.ncpa.org).
Ernesto Miranda grew up not finishing high school. He didn’t finish the 9th grade, and he decided to drop out of school during that year. He also had a criminal record and had pronounced sexual fantasies after dropping out of high school. Ernesto Miranda was arrested in Phoenix in 1963. He had raped an 18 yr. girl who was mildly mentally handicapped in March of 1963. He was charged with rape, kidnapping, and robbery. When he was found and arrested, and he was not told of his rights before interrogation. After two hours of interrogation, the cops and detectives had a written confession from Miranda that he did do the crimes that he was acquitted for. Miranda also had a history mental instability, and had no counsel at the time of the trial. The prosecution at the trial mainly used his confession as evidence. Miranda was convicted of both counts of rape and kidnapping. He was sentenced to 20-30 years in prison. He tried to appeal to the Supreme Court in
However, with every rule there also exceptions like: Maryland v. Shatzer, Florida v. Powell, and Berghuis v. Thompkins. Miranda Vs Arizona was a United States Supreme Court case in 1966. The court “ruled that a criminal suspect must make a knowing, intelligent, and voluntary decision to waive certain constitutional rights prior to questioning” (Ortmeier, 2005, 285). This ruling meant that suspects must be aware of their right to remain silent and that if they choose to speak to the police, the conversation can be used against them in a court of law. If they do decide to speak under police it must not be under false promises and or coercion.
Elsen, Sheldon, and Arthur Rosett. “Protections for the Suspect under Miranda v. Arizona.” Columbia Law Review 67.4 (1967): 645-670. Web. 10 January 2014.
...e police officers. Miranda established the precedent that a citizen has a right to be informed of his or her rights before the police attempt to violate them with the intent that the warnings erase the inherent coercion of the situation. The Court's violation of this precedent is especially puzzling due to this case's many similarities to Miranda.
The decision requires law enforcement officers to follow a code of conduct when arresting suspects. After an arrest is made, before they may begin questioning they must first advise the suspect of their rights, and make sure that the suspect understands them. These rights are known as the Miranda Warnings and include:
If a seventh grade boy is interrogated by a police officer, he has the pressure to tell the truth; however if an adult was to be interrogated they would know that they have the right to remain silent. This correlates with the Miranda v. Arizona case, stating that you have the right to remain silent, and after you are told these rights anything you say can be used against you in the court of law. And because children are psychologically and socially different from adults this raises the question- if the age of a child subjected to police questioning is also relevant when determining police custody for Miranda purposes? There is no strict or absolute way in interrogating a child after a crime has been committed; nonetheless it is settled by
As a result of the Miranda case, all persons detained by the police should be informed of four things before being questioned:
Friedman, S. (2014, March 10). You have the right to ... not much: Why are there no 'Miranda rights'
Miranda v. Arizona is a very important activist decision that required police to inform criminal suspects of their rights before they could be interrogated. These rights include: the right to remain silent, that anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law, you have a right to an attorney, if you cannot afford an attorney one will be appointed to you be the court. In this case the Fifth Amendment's right that a person may not be forced to incriminate one's self was interpreted in an activist way as meaning that one must be aware of this right before on is interrogated by the police. Prior to this ruling it was common practice to force and coerce confessions from criminal suspects who did not know they had the right not to incriminate themselves.
From the moment an innocent individual enters the criminal justice system they are pressured by law enforcement whose main objective is to obtain a conviction. Some police interrogation tactics have been characterized as explicit violations of the suspect’s right to due process (Campbell and Denov 2004). However, this is just the beginning. Additional forms of suffering under police custody include assaults,
Harr, S. J., Hess, K. M., & Orthmann, C. H. (2012). Constitutional Law and the Criminal Justice
The Miranda warnings stem from a United States Court’s decision in the case, Miranda v. Arizona. There are two basic conditions that must be met for Miranda warnings to be required: the suspect must be in official police custody and the suspect must be under interrogation. The suspect goes through a booking process after an arrest. The suspect will have a bond hearing shortly after the completion of the booking process or after arraignment. The arraignment is the suspect’s first court appearance to officially hear the charges filed against him or her and to enter a plea. The preliminary hearing or grand jury proceeding determines if there is substantial evidence for the suspect to be tried for the crime charged. In this essay, I will identify and describe at least four rights afforded criminal defendants at the arrest stage and during pretrial. I will analyze the facts presented and other relevant factors in the scenario provided. I will cite legal authority to support my conclusions.
The term that best explains the barriers to eyewitness memory is widely regarded as verbal overshadowing. The notion of verbal overshadowing has been coined as the inability to provide explicit memories due to the cognitive barriers people possess to depict accurately the events that have transpired. On a daily basis, individuals across the United States are sentenced to lengthy prison sentences resultant of wrongful convictions (Innocence Project, 2016). To illustrate the ambivalences caused by verbal overshadowing, if it even exists, behavioral scientists conducted a study to demonstrate the disparities. Many researchers have designed an experiment to measure a person’s cognitive ability to remember accurately a perpetrator that has committed a crime in a police lineup (Schooler & Engstler-Schooler,