Repealing Miranda?: Background of the Controversy over Pretrial Interrogation and Self-Incrimination (CRS Report for Congress)
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| Release Date |
July 20, 2004 |
| Report Number |
97-645 |
| Authors |
Paul S. Wallace, Jr., American Law Division |
| Source Agency |
Congressional Research Service |
Summary:
Although an involuntary confession has been inadmissible in federal cases since the nineteenth
century, the Supreme Court did not denounce physically coercive abuses in State cases until its
decision in Brown v. Mississippi . The Brown case established the basis for
the Fourteenth
Amendment "voluntariness" standard as the due process test for assessing the admissibility of
confessions in State cases. Under this standard, the admissibility of a confession was evaluated on
a case by case basis which would be governed by the "totality of the circumstances," which included
the facts of the case, the background of the accused, and the behavior of the police during the
interrogation.
In Miranda v. Arizona , the Court established several procedures to safeguard the
Fifth
Amendment rights of persons during custodial interrogations. The Court reasoned that the suspects
needed the safeguards because "[t]he circumstances surrounding in-custody interrogation can operate
very quickly to overbear the will of [the suspect..." and without them no statement can be considered
the product of his/her free will.
Miranda was controversial among policy-makers and academics who debated its
legitimacy
and desirability over thirty years after its judicial creation. One of the major arguments offered for
overruling Miranda was that it had caused great difficulty to law enforcement efforts in
controlling
crime. The ruling in Dickerson v. United States , 530 U.S. 428 (2000), struck down 18
U.S.C. 3501,
a federal law that allowed confessions elicited without a police advisory to be used at trial as long
as the "totality of circumstances" demonstrated that they were given voluntarily.
Dickerson made Miranda 's constitutional status clear. The
Miranda decisions announced during
the Court's 2003-2004 term, however, suggest that continued vitality of seemingly conficting
pre- Dickerson caselaw is less clear. United States v. Patane , divided the
Court so that no single
rationale united a majority of its members, although five Justices joined in a plurality decision that
declined to overrule its pre- Dickerson decisions concerning the admissibility of physical
derivate
evidence. On the other hand, Missouri v. Seibert likewise resulted in a plurality opinion,
but in spite
of contrary suggestions in the pre- Dickerson caselaw five Justices found inadmissible
a confession
intentionally wrung from the defendant before Miranda warnings and re-elicited
thereafter. Five
Justices did agree in Yarborough v. Alvarado that the state courts did not unreasonably
apply federal
law when -- without considering the inexperienced suspect's age (17 years old) -- they determined
that Miranda 's custodial threshold had not been crossed. And they all agreed in
Fellers v. United
States , that the lower courts should not have addressed Miranda/Dickerson
implications raised out
of an interrogation that offended Sixth Amendment requirements.
