Summary Of The Supreme Court Case Of Miranda V. Arizona

On March 3, 1963, an 18 year old female was walking home from her job when she was grabbed and thrown in the back seat and tied up. She then was driven around for 20 minutes before the car stopped and the man raped her. After raping her he then dropped her back off at the spot at which he had kidnapped her at. (Greenwood, 5.5)

After investigating the crime for ten days, police arrested a 23 year old man named Ernesto Miranda in his own home. He had previously served in federal prison before for grand theft auto and then taking it over state lines. While asleep policemen came and knocked on the door of his rent house and told him they wanted to take him to headquarters. At this point Miranda didn’t think he had a choice because before he knew

After the written confession was introduced as evidence and tried in the court case. Miranda’s case then appealed to the Supreme Court, where he stated that he would have never confessed if he would have been read his rights, and given an attorney like he asked. He didn’t argue that his confession was false or coerced, but he did argue that his rights were not read and request for an attorney was denied multiple times. (Greenwood, 5.5)

Lawyers from Arizona then proceeded to say that he had not requested for a lawyer nor did he attempt when being interrogated. They also added to that by saying his confession was freely given. They argued it over and over that he could have asked for a lawyer knowing he had and was denied one. Also his confession was freely given not knowing he had to right to be silent. (Greenwood,

A Chief Justice by the name of Warren wrote a five to four opinion on what really concerned him when it came to the privacy of interrogations. He wrote: “In a series of cases decided by the Court long after these studies, the police resorted to physical brutality—beatings, hangings, whipping—and to sustained and protracted questioning incommunicado in order to extort confessions … The use of physical brutality and violence is not, unfortunately, relegated to the past or to any part of the country” (Greenwood, 5.6) What he meant by this is that in the past police enforcement has resulted to violence in order to get what they needed from the suspect. Whether that was by beating it out of them or by other means like whipping or even threatening the suspect about things that could possibly happen to their families. Even though this was a sad thing for law enforcement to do they did it anyway so that what they needed they got. Another thing is that it didn’t matter where you were it could still happen to you. He also wrote “Again we stress that the modern practice of in custody interrogation is psychologically rather than physically oriented … this Court has recognized that coercion can be mental as well as physical, and that the blood of the accused is not the only hallmark of an unconstitutional