How police exploitation of Miranda Rights misconceptions endangers vulnerable suspects

¶ … citizens of the United States to misunderstand the true nature of their Miranda Rights. Often times, misconceptions are drawn from the media's representations of how invoking one's Miranda Rights will make one look guilty. In many situations, these misconceptions are exploited by law enforcement in order to try to exact incriminating evidence even with the invocation of one's Miranda Rights. The situation is even more difficult when examining the most vulnerable populations, like juveniles and the mentally challenged. Clearly, misconceptions regarding the nature of Miranda Rights are placing people in potential danger of incriminating themselves.

Evaluating Miranda Rights: Clear Problems that Keep Many Suspects Vulnerable

The concept of the rights of the accused was first drafted within the Bill of Rights, and received a huge ally in the 1966 court case demanding that suspects be informed of their right to remain silent and seek legal counsel -- known as their Miranda Rights. Yet, despite the protection Miranda Rights offer potential suspects, it is clear that many do not fully understand their rights, which often leads them to endanger themselves through offering up self-incrimination. Some individuals have false conceptions of what their Miranda Rights entail, as provided by their only experience of them coming from the media, while others falsely believe that invoking their rights will only make them look guiltier later on in court. Too often, police take advantage of people's misconceptions and use it against them, even in extremely vulnerable populations like juveniles and special needs suspects. Clearly, many individuals are failing to realize the true extent of their Constitutional rights, and thus are left vulnerable even in spite of protecting legislation like the ability to invoke their Miranda Rights.

The establishment of Miranda Rights was a huge step in the right direction to help protect citizens being accused of crimes. Previous to this decision, many citizens were not aware of their right to remain silent and seek legal counsel during the time they were being arrested and interrogated. As a result, many people provided evidence for confessions in a situation which could have been avoided if they would've understood and recognized the fact that they did not have to provide this information to law enforcement. Prior to the Miranda decision, the court to recognize coerced confessions is inherently untrustworthy and used a 'totality of the circumstances' test to determine admissibility of a waiver of rights against self-incrimination" (Goldstein et al., 2004, 359). Yet, this lack of standardized testing often created a situation where such rulings were extremely inconsistent. What was applied to one case was not necessarily apply to another, and suspects often never really knew how they could protect themselves against incriminating themselves.

Many individuals who did not understand their Constitutional rights were thus placed in a position of vulnerability where they could be taken advantage of by law enforcement agents and strategies. One particular suspect took a stand against this point of practice, which resulted in the legislation that helps protect the rights of the accused more than ever today. In 1963, Ernesto Miranda was arrested for the kidnapping and rape of an 18-year-old girl. After intensive and Terry nation and pressure placed on him by police, Miranda has signed a confession. However, he was never told that he had the right to seek legal counsel nor was he advised that he did not have to speak to the police in order protect himself from incriminating himself (National Paralegal, 2012). As such, Miranda later sued the state of Arizona claiming that he was not properly informed of his constitutional rights when he needed them most. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court in the monumental case known as Miranda v. Arizona in 1966 (National Paralegal, 2012). The result was the requirements of all law enforcement agencies within the United States to specifically inform all suspects being arrested on their Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights, or the notion that they can remain silent and seek legal counsel without having to speak with the police at the time of their arrest.

Today, all law enforcement agents have to read suspects their Miranda Rights, which informed these suspects of the right to remain silent and the right to seek legal counsel. These rights ensure the protection of 5th Amendment, which aims to provide citizens with protection against incriminating themselves (Miranda Rights, 2013). They also provide protection for 6th Amendment rights to legal counsel. Essentially, the rights are the basis for providing protection for the accused in an environment where everybody is considered innocent until found guilty. After the court case, "prior to any questioning, the suspect must be warned that he has a right to remain silent, that any statement the suspect does make may be used as evidence against him, and that he has a right to the presence of an attorney, either retained or appointed, and that the defendant may waive effectuation of these rights" (National Paralegal, 2012). This was an essential movement to help protect the rights of the accused, which had been ignored for far too long. There are simply too many Americans unaware of their constitutional rights for whatever reason, and us when these individuals were being arrested they were being denied their basic civil liberties. The Miranda Rights that are now required to be informed to all suspects was placed under arrest thus "buttressed the constitutional privilege against self-incrimination by requiring as a procedural safeguard that various aspects of this privilege be clearly communicated to custodial suspects" (Rogers et al. 2010, p 300). If the individual is not exclusively and explicitly told about their right to remain silent and demand Council, any evidence taken from an investigation and interrogation of that individual may be excluded from a court of law. Still, suspects have the right to waive their Miranda Rights and thus talk to police immediately and without the presence of their legal counsel. Yet, the Supreme Court made it clear that such waivers had to be done knowingly and consciously by fully capable adults who understand the consequences of such actions. As such, "a waiver is only valid if it is given knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily. In other words, the suspect must understand the vocabulary in the warning and the basic meaning of the rights, appreciate the consequences of waiving the rights, and provide the waiver without coercion or police intimidation" (Goldstein et al., 2004, p 360).

However, the research clearly shows obvious problems within the actual understanding of Miranda Rights by the public. There are clear issues about misconceptions and misunderstandings that lead individuals to make poor decisions in regards to waiving their Miranda Rights. Not speaking English is one clear way people can misinterpret Miranda rights, yet there are now currently laws in place which force law enforcement to read Miranda rights in whatever language the suspect is fluent in. This has helped avoid suspects not understanding their rights to remain silent based on language barriers. Yet, even in English-speaking populations, there are clear misunderstandings of the rights that lead to suspect vulnerabilities, as seen in Rogers et al. (2010). This study explores how a surprising number of English speaking citizens make major misconceptions regarding their Miranda Rights. It is this notion of truly understanding one's constitutional rights that become so problematic, especially in situations with vulnerable populations. First, there are issues about whether or not these rights are fully understood by the suspects in custody. It has been a trend in both federal and local courts to assert that "if self-incriminatory statements are to be admitted into evidence, and Miranda warnings must have been stated, irrespective of the suspects alleged prior familiarity" (Rogers et al. 2010, p 301). Essentially, this means that the Miranda Rights just need to be spoken, and that the suspect in custody does not need to really be able to understand them. This has created a number of problems within the law enforcement system, as many civil rights groups have attested that simply announcing the Miranda Rights are not enough and that they must be made to be understood by the suspect in order to stay true to the actual tenants of the law.

One study uncovered that the representation of Miranda Rights within the media, specifically with the television and film, tends to provide the public with misconceptions about their constitutional rights. Rogers et al. (2010) conducted a study which surveyed recently arrested participants and question them about their knowledge of their Miranda Rights. This knowledge was then compared and contrasted "with those of undergraduate students representing a more educated and comparatively unstressed segment of society" (300). These two very different groups both had extremely different conceptions of what it was that their Miranda Rights actually entailed, although there were clear misconceptions in both. The group that was most confused, however, was clearly those who have been arrested recently within a four-week span, and who do not have the educational background that the students did. This often resulted in these individuals using experience from media and other unreliable sources as a way to educate themselves about their Miranda Rights. With the popularity of criminal investigation films and television shows, Miranda Rights have been plastered all over the screen. This has falsely provided many Americans with the idea that they understand what the Miranda Rights actually are based on how they are portrayed in film and television. Thus, Rogers et al. (2010) suggests that "inundated with television images of police arrest and Mirandized suspects, most Americans believe they know their Miranda Rights," (301). However, in real application, many show clear confusion that helps to mislead custodial suspects about the true nature of their actual rights. It is not the fault of law enforcement that there are such misunderstandings, but rather the skewed portrayal by the media and the lack of programs that provide more truthful and reliable information to citizens before arrests are made.

Additionally, there is the strong misconception that remaining silent will actually prove detrimental later in court. Essentially, suspects are often afraid to actually use their right to remain silent because of misconceptions that that silence will be used against them in court to imply some sense of guilt. Here, Rogers et al. (2010) stated "about 30% to you silence, by itself, as incriminating evidence. A much smaller number (9.4%) believes their silence will be punished via retaliatory actions with police handling on the charges" (308). Many suspects have the misconception that remaining silent or asking for counsel immediately suggests some sort of guilt. When such discriminatory practices are believed by suspects, many will actually waive their Miranda Rights in order to try to save themselves from looking guilty later in court. This clearly suggests "a frequently erroneous assumption that may diminish counsel's motivation to investigate Miranda waivers and may implement court rulings on the validity of such waivers" (Rogers et al., 2010, p 300). This creates a huge problem where individuals begin self-incriminating themselves unintentionally in order to try to save themselves later on. Really, they need to remain silent and allow their counsel to make such legal decisions for them.

In relation to this, other research has discovered that innocent suspects are more likely to waive their Miranda Rights and thus put themselves unknowingly endanger of self-incriminating them selves for crimes they did not actually commit. Kassin and Norwick (2004) conducted a study where participants were either innocent or guilty of a mock crime and then were put under interrogation by detective prompting them to waive their Miranda Rights. Surprisingly, the participants who were innocent were much quicker to waive their Miranda Rights, believing that their innocence would be strong enough to protect them from any of their dialogue being construed as potential evidence to show their guilt. Here, the research suggests that "naively believing in the power of their innocence to set them free, most waive their rights even in a hostile detective condition, where the risk of interrogation was apparent," and there interrogation dialogue could have easily been used against them to bring charges for crimes they did not commit (Kassin & Norwick, 2004, p 211). Often times, innocent people speak freely with police based on their assumed belief that they are not guilty. However, this can leave them vulnerable because statements they make can later be used to show theories of guilt. Moreover, Kassin and Norwick (2004) illustrated that suspects with no prior criminal justice experience are more likely to waive their Miranda Rights than those suspects who have had dealings with the law before. In a sense, suspects may find a false sense of innocence that they're trying to persuade officers for their own benefit. However this false sense of innocence is not going to protect them as well as they may believe, and their refusal to invoke their Miranda Rights can only lead to potential harm in compiling a case against them, even if they are truly innocent.

In reality, researchers discovered that many detectives and law enforcement agents often use the same aggressive techniques to seek a suspect to waive their Miranda Rights just as they would to prompt a suspect provide a confession. As such, such aggressive tactics can often lead for incriminating evidence against suspects who are actually innocent. There are even training modes for police enforcement, like those in California, where officers are "specifically trained in how to get suspects to talk outside Miranda-- even after they have invoked their rights," which often result in off the record disclosures that helped prompt new turns investigations, although they cannot be used within the actual case against the suspect (Kassin & Norwick, 2004, p 212). In this sense, police can use information provided by a suspect after they have invoked their Miranda Rights to find physical evidence, names of witnesses, and identities of other individuals involved in the crime. This creates a situation where the suspect is no longer protected, even though he or she has invoked their Miranda Rights. This evidence can lead to strengthening of a case against a suspect, and is thus clearly incriminating. Kassin and Norwick show that in many instances physical evidence gathered in such questionable circumstances is not always suppressed. A number of cases show how law enforcement has attempted to circumvent Miranda statutes. For example, in Berghuis v. Thompkins (2010), the court ruled that any information or voluntary statements made by a suspect after they invoked their Miranda Rights is still admissible in court and can be seen essentially interpreted as a waiver of Miranda Rights. According to the Court, the suspect did not make an unambiguous statement that he was invoking his rights, which then led to conversations after being admissible in court (Berhguis v. Thompkins 2010). Thus, there are loop holes within the system that allow law enforcement to use loop holes to still find ways to prove guilt, even after the suspect has been informed and invoked their Miranda Rights.

However, modern policies often allow such tactics to exist, clearly showing huge gaps within the effectiveness of Miranda Rights Legislation. Even more troubling, is the fact that law enforcement agencies do not have to facilitate the suspect getting to his or her counsel. In fact, the research suggests that "the police are not obliged to inform a suspect to is waived his Miranda Rights that his lawyer had either attempted to reach him or has instructed the police not to question the suspect in the absence of counsel," (Frumpkin & Garcia, 2003, p 5). This creates a situation where the suspect can be left under the pressure of interrogators; even after the lawyer has arrived to help provide the suspect with the type of information and advice here she may need to avoid any potential self-incrimination. This allows law enforcement to continue to add stress on to suspects in order to try to pressure them to rethinking the invocation of their Miranda Rights. If a suspect is unclear about the nature of Miranda Rights and how law enforcement has strategies to try to work around them, that suspect might be incredibly vulnerable to aggressive and coercive police tactics, even after he or she has invoked their Miranda Rights.

This situation gets even more complicated when dealing with some of the most vulnerable populations within society. Juveniles are incredibly vulnerable due to their lack of understanding and experience of the legal system. Thus, they are one of the most vulnerable populations that do not understand the true nature and extent of their Miranda Rights. In many instances, juveniles tried as adults have serious misunderstandings of their Miranda Rights because of their experience as being tried as children, and thus in civil proceedings rather than criminal courts. According to the research, "the juvenile justice system was founded on the notion that youthful offenders require special protection because of their developmental vulnerabilities," (Goldstein, 2004, p 360). This meant that many juvenile offenders were not brought to criminal proceedings, but rather handled within civil proceedings and special juvenile courts. This helps protect juvenile offenders, but when these juveniles are tried as adults that protection often goes out the window. Juveniles tried as adults may not understand the true nature of their Miranda Rights, and thus may have misconceptions that lead to incriminating evidence being able to be brought against them within a criminal court case. Thus unfortunately, "because of juveniles intellectual and emotional immaturity, they are at increased risk for poor comprehension and false confession (i.e., admitting to the commission of crimes they did not commit)" (Goldstein et al., 2004, p 360). The truth is, many juvenile offenders may not know what their right to remain silent even means. In other cases, they are even more severely influenced by the media's representation of Miranda Rights, and may choose to waive them because of an assumed perception that it makes them look even guiltier. In any circumstance, juveniles are more vulnerable to misunderstanding and misinterpreting the protections guaranteed within their Miranda Rights. Yet, they are also more vulnerable to police tactics. Here, the research suggests that "in addition to diminish comprehension of rights, juveniles are more suggestible that adults are and, therefore, may be more easily persuaded or coerced by police during interrogations" Goldstein, 2004, p 261). Many juvenile offenders are very vulnerable to pressure placed on them by law enforcement agencies. As such, they're more willing to provide them information that may or may not be true in order to stop the pressure being placed upon them within the context of an interrogation. Young teens with lower IQ scores are often even more vulnerable to police tactics which compounds with their lack of knowledge of their Miranda Rights and often results in them providing information that may be self-incriminating without real knowledge of what such confessions and information would actually do to them later in a court of law. This is incredibly dangerous, as Goldstein et al. (2004) reports that the average IQ score abuse involves within the juvenile criminal justice system was only set at around 81 points. Thus, the bulk of the juveniles being introduced to this type of pressure are not going to respond well, and may often clearly misinterpret their ability to invoke Miranda Rights as a way to protect themselves.