WHY IT MATTERED
Miranda was one of four key criminal justice cases
decided by the Warren Court (see Related Cases). In
each case, the decision reflected the chief justice’s
strong belief that all persons deserve to be treated with
respect by their government. In Miranda, the Court
directed police to inform every suspect of his or her
rights at the time of arrest and even gave the police
detailed instructions about what to say.
The rights of accused people need to be protected
in order to ensure that innocent people are not pun-
ished. These protections also ensure that federal, state,
or local authorities will not harass people for political
reasons—as often happened to civil rights activists in
the South in the 1950s and 1960s, for example.
Critics of the Warren Court claimed that Miranda
would lead to more crime because it would become
more difficult to convict criminals. Police departments,
however, adapted to the decision. They placed the list
of suspects’ rights mentioned in Miranda on cards for
police officers to read to suspects. The statement of
these rights became known as the Miranda warning
and quickly became famil-
iar to anyone who
watched a police show on
television.
As for the defendant,
Ernesto Miranda, he was
retried and convicted on
the basis of other evi-
dence.
HISTORICAL IMPACT
The Miranda decision was highly controversial. Critics
complained that the opinion would protect the rights
of criminals at the expense of public safety.
Since Miranda, the Court has continued to try to
strike a balance between public safety and the rights of
the accused. Several cases in the 1970s and 1980s soft-
ened the Miranda ruling and gave law enforcement
officers more power to gather evidence without
informing suspects of their rights. Even so, conserva-
tives still hoped to overturn the Miranda decision.
In 2000, however, the Supreme Court affirmed
Miranda by a 7-to-2 majority in Dickerson v. United
States. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice William
Rehnquist argued, “There is no such justification here
for overruling Miranda. Miranda has become embedded
in routine police practice to the point where warnings
have become part of our national culture.”
The New Frontier and the Great Society 901
THINKING CRITICALLY
THINKING CRITICALLY
CONNECT TO HISTORY
1. Drawing Conclusions
Critics charged that Miranda
incorrectly used the Fifth Amendment. The right to avoid
self-incrimination, they said, should only apply to trials,
not to police questioning. Do you agree or disagree?
Why?
SEE SKILLBUILDER HANDBOOK, PAGE R18.
CONNECT TO TODAY
2.
Visit the links for Historic Decisions of the Supreme Court
to research laws and other court decisions related to Mapp
and Miranda. Then, prepare a debate on whether courts
should or should not set a guilty person free if the govern-
ment broke the law in establishing that person’s guilt.
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(right) This card is carried
by police officers in order to
read suspects their rights.
(far right) An officer reads a
suspect his rights.
