You have the right to remain silent

The Supreme Court handed down the Miranda decision on this date 40 years ago. AmericanHeritage.com has an excellent summary of the case worth reading in full. It includes these essentials:

In the 1963 case Gideon v. Wainwright, the court strengthened the right to counsel by ruling that a man convicted of robbery who could not afford a lawyer had to have one appointed for him by the state. A year later, when Danny Escobedo confessed to a Chicago murder after being denied a chance to see his lawyer, the court overturned his conviction, holding that in such an instance “no statement elicited by the police during the interrogation may be used against him.”

The Miranda case was the culmination of this trend toward, as Time magazine put it, “moving the constitution into the police station.” It evolved out of a growing realization that false confessions were not uncommon and that the police could coerce without resorting to the rubber hose. In the decision handed down on June 13, 1966, Chief Justice Earl Warren, writing for the 5-4 majority, recognized that the “third degree” was a venerable tradition in American law enforcement (the term itself comes from the rigorous questioning of candidates for a high level of the Masonic order). “The very fact of custodial interrogation,” Warren found, “exacts a heavy toll on individual liberty and trades on the weakness of individuals.”

In order for a statement to be assumed voluntary, the suspect had to be informed of four things before being questioned: (1) his right to remain silent, (2) the fact that his statements could be used against him, (3) his right to the presence of an attorney, and (4) the obligation of the state to provide counsel if he couldn’t afford it.

The decision did Ernesto Miranda little good. He was retried without the confession and again convicted. He served almost 10 years before being paroled. He briefly traded on his celebrity by selling autographed “Miranda warning” cards in Phoenix for $1.50 each.