Supreme Courts 1966 Miranda Ruling Legalities and Issues

¶ … Miranda Ruling: Its Past, Present and Future

In almost all cases, the Miranda ruling of 1966 applies to police interviews with criminal suspects, although other Supreme Court decisions extend some of the rights to legal counsel and prevention of self-incrimination to public and private employers. According to the Supreme Court, the Miranda Warnings must be given prior to questioning to all persons who have been arrested and are in police custody, although one loophole "permits the police to question suspects without giving them their Miranda rights in those settings where it is unclear whether custody is present" (Wrightsman and Pitman 2010). In addition, suspects might not understand all these rights, especially because local and state police forces around the United States use hundreds of different versions of these rather than one standard set of warnings. At times, police training manuals also advise officers how to avoid giving the warnings or pretending to ignore suspects when they choose to remain silent or ask for an attorney. More conservative Supreme Courts since 1966 have also sought to limit the application of Miranda and narrow the rights afforded to criminal suspects. Since the Miranda decision, however, the more old-fashioned 'third degree' methods of physical and psychological coercion have become much less common, and over the last thirty years videotaping of interviews and confessions has become standard procedure in most criminal and civil cases, and even in investigations by private employers. Police and investigatory work of all kinds has become more professional as a whole, although naturally incidents of coercion and brutality have continued.

Article #2 "Investigative Interviewing: Strategies and Techniques."

Private employers are generally not subject to the Miranda requirements, even when employees are being questioned or investigated about possible criminal activities, when security officers partnered with police conduct the interviews. Only rarely will private employers be required to issue Miranda warnings and in these situations no employee can be questioned without a signed waiver of their rights to obtain legal counsel and avoid self-incrimination. If the employee exercises these rights at any time, all questioning must stop immediately (Hoffman, p. 2). For the most part, though, any information that employers obtain in interviews can only be used for employment purposes, not in any criminal proceedings. Many employers today have legal forms that make it clear that make employee rights clear when their investigations only extend to workplace conduct rather than criminal charges or information that can be used in court cases. Some state laws and union contracts also require that the employee have legal representation during any such interviews. If criminal conduct is being investigated, then the Miranda rules apply and a separate form should advise employees of their right to counsel and to avoid self-incrimination. All such employee interviews should be compensated and take place during normal working hours, even if the employee is terminated at the end of the interview. According to the Weingarten case (1975), union employees are allowed to have representatives during any interview that may result in termination or disciplinary action, and employees have the right to end the interview if no representation is provided. Nor can employees be disciplined for requesting such representation. Although the representatives cannot advise the employee not to answer, they can advise them of how to answer. In 2001, these protections were also extended to non-union employees.

Article #3 The Fifth Amendment Disclosure Obligations of Government Employers when Interrogating Public Employees."

In general, the Fifth and Sixth Amendment protection against self-incrimination and requiring due process of law applies only to the police and criminal cases, not private employers. No accused person can be forced to testify against themselves or give any self-incriminating statements unless they are made "voluntarily or without improper pressures of coercion" (Niehaus, 2008, p. 4). The 1966 Miranda decision requires the police to warn anyone in custody that they have the right to remain silent, to consult with an attorney, and that any statement they make will be used against them. Nor can these rights be waived unless the accused is fully aware of their meaning and does so voluntarily and intelligently. Garrity v. New Jersey (1966) was very similar to Miranda because the Supreme Court extended similar rights to public employees who were being interviewed or investigated for possible wrongdoing. Those employed by government agencies cannot be forced to answer incriminating questions by threats of coercion, firing or disciplinary action. In the original case, three New Jersey police officers were threatened with loss of their jobs unless they agreed to give self-incriminating statements. As in Miranda, such coercion was "likely to exert such pressure upon an individual as to disable him from making a free and rational choice" (Niehaus, p. 5). On the same day, though, the Court also ruled in Spaveck v. Klein that public employees who refused to testify or give evidence were not immune from being discharged. Public employers could not compel employees to incriminate themselves without also guaranteeing them immunity in any subsequent legal proceedings and could not fire them for refusing to waive their rights. Subsequent Court cases did not require government employers to advise employees of these rights, however, or mandate that they had a duty to advise them.

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