Miranda v. Arizona and Fifth Amendment Rights Violations

Introduction and Purpose

The Miranda v. Arizona decision ostensibly produced a profound transition in the U.S. legal system. It is a landmark Supreme Court ruling that affirmed the rights of the defendant when placed under arrest and subjected to coercion — including intimidation intended to produce a confession under duress (Kassin, Leo, Meissner, Richman, & Colwell, 2007). Now in the 21st century, violations of defendant rights are commonly reported (Criminal Law Reporter, 2000; Saltzburg, 2009), particularly violations of the defendant's Fifth Amendment right to remain silent and to obtain an attorney for representation.

As a common scenario illustrates, an individual is stopped on the street and told that he or she "matches the profile" of a suspected criminal in the area. Lacking a reliable alibi to account for his or her whereabouts during the relevant time frame, the individual is labelled a defendant, arrested, and brought to the station for questioning and subsequent interrogation — with the ultimate intention of producing a confession.

The purpose of this research is to examine this particular problem within the street-level bureaucratic process (Leo, 1996) of prejudicial prosecution. The intended audience is comprehensive and includes police personnel, judges, defense and prosecution attorneys, legal researchers, sheriffs, detectives, police sergeants, chiefs of police, state troopers, highway patrol officers, state ranger patrols, and all other officials with the granted authority and means to detain, arrest, and jail.

Null Hypothesis (H0): There is no difference in the percentage of arresting official violations of the defendant's Fifth Amendment right.

A review of the literature on Miranda v. Arizona (Asch, 1971) reveals that the Supreme Court decision potentially increased the difficulty of daily police work. Given the age of that early study, its findings serve as a framework for understanding how the decision initially affected the protection of the accused under the law. Asch (1971) argues that such protection was long overdue and certainly necessary, but also produced the undesirable side effect of adding complexity to the officer's job. Additionally, Asch advocates for tougher and more stringent "selection, training, and education of police and other criminal justice personnel" (Asch, 1971).

Kilpatrick (1986) argues that the law was a mistake from the beginning, contending that it distorts the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution: "The court has found compulsion where there has not been compulsion; it has elevated investigation to the level of criminal prosecution and it has defined suspect to mean accused" (Kilpatrick, 1986). Kilpatrick views Miranda v. Arizona as a judicial authorization to treat a suspect as the "accused" — a framing that informs the use of that term throughout this paper.

Literature Review

Escobedo v. Illinois (1964) (Kilpatrick, 1986) is a case that preceded Miranda and established a broader parameter addressing voluntary statements made by an arrested individual held in jail but not yet indicted or arraigned. The Escobedo ruling set the precedent for treating such voluntary statements as inadmissible as evidence. The Miranda ruling then established the absolute right to counsel prior to interrogation. The Supreme Court's ruling in Mathis v. United States (1969) (Kilpatrick, 1986) further stated that Miranda v. Arizona interpreted the Fifth Amendment in a manner hazardous to the efficient and effective upholding of legal rights for the accused. Brewer v. Williams (1977) (Kilpatrick, 1986) characterized the Miranda ruling as an injustice and a breach of proper police conduct.

Yet what was the fundamental purpose of the ruling? Thomas, Leo, and Tonry (2002) describe Miranda v. Arizona as a mandate requiring police to inform arrestees, prior to interrogation, of their constitutional rights — including the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney. Additionally, suspects must willingly relinquish these rights before any confession can be admitted as evidence at trial.

"The rationale of Miranda, as elaborated by the Supreme Court, has evolved from encouraging suspects to resist police interrogation to informing suspects that they have a right to resist. Reflecting a fundamental tenet in American culture and law, Miranda today seeks to protect the free choice of a suspect to decide whether to answer police questions during interrogation." (Thomas, Leo, & Tonry, 2002)

Empirical research on the Miranda ruling has shown hardly any effect on conviction rates, nor any evidence of a significantly lowered confession rate or evidence that it "imposed significant costs on the American criminal justice system. Overall, therefore, police have developed multiple strategies to avoid, circumvent, nullify, or simply violate Miranda and its invocation rules" (Thomas, Leo, & Tonry, 2002).

Allen (1967) views Miranda v. Arizona as contrary to proper law enforcement methodology, arguing that it undermines the ability of authorities to interrogate suspects when objectively necessary. Such decisions, Allen contends, reflect society's prioritization of convicting suspects based on criminal profiling over protecting a suspect's right to avoid interrogation (Allen, 1967).

Milner (1971) investigates Miranda v. Arizona and its impact on "Wisconsin police departments of Racine, Madison, Green Bay, and Kenosha during the first fourteen months after the decision" (Milner, 1971). A comparative analysis examines the relationship between interrogation behavior and Miranda compliance across departments at varying levels of professionalism. The analysis finds that more professional law enforcement departments tend to comply with Miranda and do not view the ruling as a restriction on policing. Changes in interrogation behavior are embraced rather than avoided, in contrast to less professional departments where evasion is more likely (Milner, 1971).

Markman (1987) draws on a conclusion by William H. Erickson, stating that Miranda has ultimately proven ineffective in protecting the rights of the accused and in preventing police misconduct including coerced interrogation (Markman, 1987). While judicial scholars acknowledge the premise of Miranda and understand the function of its establishment, the ruling's effectiveness remains broadly questioned.

In Miranda v. Arizona (1966), as summarized by Lewis and Allen (1977), "the U.S. Supreme Court held that, before custodial interrogation, the suspect must be informed that (1) he has a right to remain silent, (2) anything he says can be used against him in a subsequent criminal proceeding, (3) he has the right to the presence of an attorney during the interrogation, and (4) if he cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for him at the state's expense" (Lewis & Allen, 1977).

According to Lewis and Allen (1977), the decision was an attempt to eliminate covert law enforcement practices used to obtain coerced confessions that may not reflect the truth. Studies indicate that Miranda rights are often read from a card by officers in a monotone and disconnected voice. Defendants under arrest frequently do not understand the Miranda procedure or the rights afforded to them, as officers are not attempting to convey this information meaningfully but are instead seeking to discharge the "legality" of Miranda as quickly as possible (Lewis & Allen, 1977).

A related legal question concerns police searches of public and private buses stopped during patrols of public roads. The case of suspicionless bus sweeps (Brazier, 2010) raises concerns about Fourth Amendment infringements, with clear parallels to Miranda but with the added complexity of multiple individuals present in a public vehicle.

The scenario involves a bus stopped by a patrol of three officers. The bus driver exits, one officer kneels on a seat facing the passengers, and the other two proceed to the back — one guarding the rear exit and one questioning each traveler in turn. Before questioning begins, the first officer announces that the officers are conducting a "suspicionless search" and requests passenger cooperation (Brazier, 2010).

During the search, two black males are approached. One is found to carry no contraband, but his travel companion is found to possess concealed cocaine in quantities suggesting intent to distribute. The defendant claims "illegal search and seizure," but the claim is dismissed by the trial judge.

According to Brazier (2010), "Many courts and academics have suggested a bright-line rule requiring police to inform passengers of their right to refuse to cooperate during suspicionless bus searches. Such a rule essentially requires police officers to inform the passengers that they do not have to participate. This would, in essence, parallel the rule announced in Miranda v. Arizona" (Brazier, 2010).

"The Miranda warnings were created by the Court to protect the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Concerned that the atmosphere of interrogation and the general lack of knowledge of one's constitutional rights were leading to confessions that violated the Fifth Amendment, the Court in Miranda required police to inform suspects of their rights. Some have argued that a bright-line rule in bus sweeps, akin to the requirement of Miranda warnings for custodial interrogation, would lead to consistency among lower court rulings, eliminate problematic subjectivity with the totality-of-the-circumstances test, account for important factors that have otherwise been ignored by lower courts, and have a minimal impact on officers' ability to conduct effective bus sweeps." (Brazier, 2010)

The stipulations of Miranda are intriguing yet bewildering, given the loopholes in the ruling that call into question its ability to protect Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights. According to Brazier (2010), "Miranda has not proven to be the practical safeguard that it was originally meant to be for two reasons. First, the Supreme Court has carved out exceptions and limited its scope over time. Second, and more importantly, police have become very adept at circumventing the literal requirements of Miranda. Thus, applying a similar solution to suspicionless bus sweeps is not sound" (Brazier, 2010).

"To start, as the law now stands, police are only required to give Miranda warnings where a suspect is both in custody and subject to police interrogation. Custody, for Miranda purposes, has been held to depend on objective consideration of 'how a reasonable person in the position of the individual being questioned would gauge the breadth of his or her freedom of action.' In other words, it would seem that one is in custody when a reasonable person in that position would not feel free to leave. This circular logic illustrates how problematic it might be to apply a Miranda-like rule to suspicionless bus sweeps. Requiring a warning in custodial situations would not solve the threshold problem of determining when one is or is not free to leave. Miranda warnings are only required where a suspect is in 'custody' and where police are 'interrogating.'" (Brazier, 2010)

According to Zalman and Smith (2007), "Top administrators of the largest American municipal police departments were surveyed regarding interrogation law and practice. Major findings include: (1) Most big city police administrators do not wish to overturn Miranda; officers in their departments complied with Miranda [and] Missouri v. Seibert. (2) Administrators disagreed with the practice of deliberately evading Miranda rules known as interrogation 'outside Miranda'" (Zalman & Smith, 2007).

Causality and Research Variables

"(3) Three-quarters of the respondents disagreed with the proposition that aggressive psychological interrogation causes false confessions. (4) Three-fifths of big city police administrators favored the videotaping of interrogation sessions. (5) Disciplining officers for Miranda violations is uncommon. The survey indicates 'wholesale' compliance with legal rules designed to guide police interrogations. However, support for violations is sufficient to be of concern for a legal system that espouses the rule of law. Although some failures to comply are a result of frequent changes in Miranda law by the Supreme Court, police agencies have an obligation to closely monitor the actions of officers." (Zalman & Smith, 2007)

Proving a causal relationship between a dependent variable and any number of independent variables is a task that will often result in imperfection, yielding a variance between expectation and conclusion. The central question of this research is whether the Miranda v. Arizona decision has produced a measurable impact on defendant arrests and the subsequent right to habeas corpus.

The variables of interest are defendants who assert a civil rights violation of their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. It is assumed that the rights of residents and citizens in this regard were violated approximately 50% of the time prior to the Supreme Court's Miranda ruling. After the ruling, however, the hypothesis is that the percentage of violations will decrease — resulting in an increase in non-violations above the 50% baseline. The probability here is set at 50%, with a population mean of .5 under the standard normal distribution, assuming n > 30 and a standard deviation of 16.7 (based on n = 50).

To establish a causal relationship, a variable must demonstrate a very high correlation of determination (>.90), and the hypothesis is to be tested at a .99 confidence level. The dependent variable selected as the causal factor is the construct of corruption — operationalized as all underlying factors that constitute a body of evidence indicating an inferior police investigation in relation to stated Miranda violations.

The level of internal validity in this approach assumes that police departments operate within expected parameters of conduct, such that corruption can be measured and isolated as a function of symptomatic behavior within selected departments. A limitation of internal validity, however, is the assumption that the specific act of corruption causing a Miranda violation within one department is necessarily the same act causing a Miranda violation in another. External validity is high, as the methodology and results of this study should be representative of the broader population and repeatable within one standard deviation.