You have a right to remain silent. You have a right to a lawyer. If you dont have a lawyer we will provide it for you. Everything you tell me today can be used against you in a court of law. Do you understand that . The cause of the miranda rights or the miranda warnings because the main case that came down from the United States Supreme Court in 1966 was miranda verses arizona. They are as fundamental and essential to justice today as almost anything ever created because they are a product of the fifth amendment to the constitution. Thats where they came from. Thats why they have them and thats what they stand for today. Miranda lived here in mesa, arizona, was worn in mesa, arizona. He was a young man in his mid20s at the time. He was suspect at by the Phoenix Police department of being involved in the abduction and the robbery and kidnapping of three different women on three different occasions. All of those occasions happened in downtown phoenix. The pickup for lack of a better word was done in downtown unix. Some of the crimes took place out in the desert at the time. Its now 20th street. Its no longer the desert. Its a major part of central phoenix now. Thats how it started. He was a suspect in those crimes. The police went to his home in mesa, arizona. Two Police Officers and they asked him if he would come down to the Police Station in central phoenix. They would drive him down and talk with him about some criminal activity. He wasnt sure what at the time. He agreed to do that so they brought him down here and interviewed him or interrogated him, depending on your perspective here in the building that we are in today. But the police had no direct with. They had no physical evidence. They had no eyewitness identification. They had no admissions. He was a suspect but they had nothing upon which to base a formal arrest or to charge him. But they asked him for an interview and he voluntarily gave the interview. He was not warned of the consequences of this interview because the law did not require that in 1963. So during the course of talking to him the Police Officer that was in charge of the case and was the primary interrogator or interviewer at the time, his name was carroll cooley. He was then a Police Detective and stayed with the Police Department and became a captain. He is alive and well today and still lives here in phoenix. During the course of the interview miranda denied any connection to any of these three cases at the Phoenix Police department was investigating. He said he was not involved. He didnt abduct anybody, he didnt rape anybody and he didnt rob anybody or kidnap anybody. That was his clear statements of a asked him, detective cooley asked him if he would agree to appear in a lineup and they would bring in one of the big guns or two of the victims. It wasnt quite clear and if he is telling the truth then they wont be able to identify him and they had no other evidence and they were open with him about that. They had no other evidence have they asked him if he would agree to be in the lineup, not a photo lineup but an actual lineup. That also took place here in this building and he agreed and they have a room for that. They found two of the victims who were able to come in on short notice. Phoenix was a very small place and so the two women came in and neither of the two women could identify him with certainty. One of the two women said she thought it might be the man but they were all identified as one, two, three and for all me in this photo and only in this lineup but she wasnt sure. The other one, to pick one of the four but agreed it might be number one but there is no positive in the case. On the basis of that detective cooley went back into the Interview Room where miranda was waiting and miranda asked detective cooley a question. Did they pick me out . How did i do . Some question to that effect. The interview was not taperecorded or video recorded. This was 1963. Detective cooley said im sorry or to that effect, they nailed you. So i think the best thing for you is just to tell me what happened and we will see what we can do to help you. And miranda did. He confessed to all of them. He described in some detail although theres no recording of that he described in some detail and detective cooley said, which was good Police Procedure then and now, well i would like you to write this out in your own hand and i will ask you to sign it after you have written it out and read it. Miranda wrote a onepage confession in his own handwriting and gave it to detective cooley. Cooley read it and said all right this is the true then this is your statement sign it down here at the bottom. There is a reference in there written statement that this statement can be used in court against you as one of the four elements. So that part is clear. He then signed it and it became exhibit one, the only exhibit at his trial. This is the sixth floor of the old Maricopa County superior court house. The first four of this building is where miranda was tried. On the sixth floor, this is the jail part. He was kept here in this jail until his trial and after jail he was moved to a temporary institution and then he went to the state penitentiary. The physical presence here is important because the interview happened here and he was jailed here and kept here during the trial. There were two separate trials. There were three cases and three women involved. He admitted in conversation with detective cooley to all three cases but in only one of the cases was he asked to write out a statement, and that was in the rape of one of the three women and it was clear to the jury and making an assumption here that his confession is a true voluntary confession. He said it was. He didnt take the stand in neither case, which is standard process and those kinds of cases , so he was quickly convicted by two different juries in two different cases. He went into the system in 1963 and that led to the appellate process which began after the actual trials. His lawyer in the trial was a man named alvin moore and alvin moore at the time in 1963 was a 73yearold lawyer during that trial, during the rape case. Alvin moore objected to the disability of the written confession and his objection was because he didnt have a lawyer before he gave that statement. Alvin moores statement to the trial judge was i object because there was no lawyer present at the time you gave that and no one told him he would have to get it or words to that effect so when the case went to the arizona Supreme Court, it went up there in 1965, that was a record. There was an objection made by a lawyer on mirandas behalf that his confession should not have been admitted and shown to the jury because he didnt have a lawyer at the time he gave it. So when the case went to the airs on the Supreme Court they came down with an opinion in 1965 and they rejected the arguments by mr. Moore the confession should not be admitted as he did not have a lawyer. Arizona Supreme Court said that is not required under american law. The Supreme Court has not said that a confession is inadmissible if you dont have a lawyer. What the court has said two years prior in a case called escobedo verses the United States, the court had said that if the suspect asks for a lawyer at any time before or during interrogation you have to get give him one right then. In this case brand that had not asked for a lawyer so that is the issue that the Supreme Court took up in 1966. So in the briefing stage prior to oral argument in the miranda case, all of the briefs focused on that question. Who has to give these warnings . Are warnings required and if they are required who is to give them and who do they have to give them to . Just knowledgeable people are everybody . So that was the setting for this case. The briefs and all four cases focused on the sixth amendment which is the right to counsel. So when the oral argument was held in february of 1966 in the miranda case there were two lawyers principally involved in the case, john d frank wrote the brief and john fran argued the case. They were both in the same law firm of phoenix firm, still here and in this argument to the court, the Supreme Court in february of 1966 john flynn was asked a question about justice stewart. During the argument mr. Stewarts question was Something Like this. These are the exact words but. Close. He said, so your position is that there is a point in time when this interrogation becomes almost confrontational because the Police Officer is digging for confession and the suspect is avoiding that in all of these cases so what is your view when this confrontation occurred . Does the sixth amendment require at that point that a lawyer be appointed when theres a confrontation going on and mr. Flynn said mr. Justice, the issue here is whether the defendant has a right to remain silent. The only person that can tell him that is a lawyer. So the fifth amendment against, the privilege against selfincrimination in the 2nd amendment the right to counsel had connected here at that juncture, that intersection. Somebody has to tell that suspect before he or she confesses. Thats where the sixth amendment comes in. The court after that argument issued an opinion that ultimately came down based on the fifth amendment and tangentially tied to the sixth amendment so the primary issue in the miranda opinion came down as americas right to remain silent. Thats the first. You have a right to remain silent. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote the majority opinion. It was a split opinion, a 54 decision. The reaction to the decision was from the Law Enforcement community very negative and very reluctant and various suspect it the Law Enforcement community said its not our job give people we arrest information about their legal rights. That ought to come from a lawyer its not our job to get them a lawyer and what you are going to do by this decision is the end result will be a lot of people returned to the crime that they committed to the reason we cant charge them is because they didnt admit it so the admission of a crime is a very important element of all Law Enforcement, understandably so so the reaction was negative. Time magazine newsweek and other magazines and other newspapers, there was an awful lot of coverage of this in 1966. In 2000 and what is arguably the second most important decision about miranda, in that case the u. S. Supreme court said enough. Once and for all miranda verses arizona is a constitutional decision of this court. It is not a decision its a constitutional decision of this court. We will continue to examine cases that involve the miranda warnings and issues of the disability of confessions but quit telling us that its a prophylactic rules case. Its a constitutional decision in this court. What makes it interesting is that was written by chief Justice Rehnquist. Chief Justice Rehnquist was at the time of a branded decision a lawyer here in phoenix. History repeats itself in many ways. Miranda was from here. Judged then lawyer rehnquist was here and the year 2000 becomes a constitutional decision. Something interesting happened and 2000 when the case went up. If you look at the end of that case and read the briefs, the briefs in the Supreme Court cases, u. S. Supreme court cases, they invite a class of people for lack of a better word. They are called amicus kyrie eyes or mot briefs, friends of the court. They are not parties of the brief but they are interested in the issue so they invite people to write briefs called amicus briefs and a good many of those briefs were filed in the dickerson case by chiefs of elites associations. Other Law Enforcement associations arguing for miranda no longer believing that aranda is a big bad thing. No longer believing that it harms Law Enforcement, believing the reality is to come in the reality is if the Police Officer does his or her job and gets those miranda warnings and does it in a proper way tape recording, video recording, written documentation in some form that is reliable, then what happens in the Trial Court System is that many, i think most not 100 but a very high , if the confession is miranda compliant then the judge fairly routinely admits evidence because it is miranda compliant. Its become a good way for a good cop to get a good confession. Use the miranda document. Document it. Save it in writing, get the suspect to sign it. Do it and record it, tape recorded. Audio record it. Do something so there is some evidentiary basis basis for a so that has become a reality today. As a consequence judges in the middle and lawyers on both sides, prosecutors and defense lawyers dont argue much anymore about the miranda document. What they argue about is whether the miranda rights are waived or not. Thats a new question du jour and it has been for a long time. So that is what is really happen. We are now arguing about waiver, not whether hand we now argue about the consequence in ways that i think are central to due process of law. So many people come to california because they see it as eden. Its heaven. And of course television has it because ask anybody. Released of the rockies they think all californians drive convertibles, go to the beach have the big dog in the back of the car and sit all day and drink there. Thats what california is all about. Thats what commercials have been about for many years but thats not what california is about. If you know anything about california and i have studied this state for 50 years or more,
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.