A question about Miranda Rights

[madamesilverspurs]

Is 'mirandizing' about the person, its application based on the nature of the suspected offense,

or,


is it about what value we, as a society, place on the concept of justice?


---

[hayu_lol]

1. People of 'interest' can be questioned without the use of Miranda...

Miranda is generally used just prior to booking as a suspect. It is entirely up to the 'person of interest' or 'suspect' as to when they stop talking.\

My opinion which may or may not be factual.

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. Mirandizing is all about giving rights to criminals that we don't give

to honest law abiding folk, because we want to coddle them and invite them into our homes.

[rasputin1952]

3. It is what value we place on the concept of Justice...

Our Constitution provides protections for the accused, and some for the convicted; one of the core values of our system of Justice is that one is innocent until proven guilty, Miranda helps keep these protections intact.

The protection against self-incrimination, the Right to legal representation are the primary movers of Miranda. With police and prosecutors having almost unlimited power, it is imperative that reins be put on their actions to coerce the accused into making statements or errors in their declarations under duress. Even w/Miranda there are many abuses in the system. fear is a powerful motivator when it comes to coercing information, some of which will be false, that can and will be used in a Court of Law.

I am not a Legal Eagle, but there are basics in every aspect of every society, Miranda, in theory, protects us from ourselves as well as from law enforcement agencies. It is a basic tenet of our society, protecting the notorious as well as the innocent.

[damntexdem]

4. It's about the value our society is SUPPOSED to put on justice.

However, many in our society, including apparently most of the GOP, fails to hold such values.

[Hippo_Tron]

5. It's pretty simple, we want to put guilty people in jail and not put innocent people in jail

No legal system can do this with absolute precision but the one set up by our constitution (at least in theory) is more or less the best thing that human beings have managed to come up with. In order for this sytem to function, the accused need to be aware of their rights in order to exercise them.

If the police only arrested guilty people, there would be no need for Miranda Rights. However, because the police are humans and thus prone to error, they do arrest innocent people.

[ChicagoSuz219]

6. They are told their Miranda rights as they are arrested.

Am I the only one who watches Law & Order??

[old mark]

8. Problem is that too many people really believe what they see on Law and Order

is factual.


mark

[asdjrocky]

7. There is no justice in America.

[rug]

9. Ironically, it's to prevent confessions that are the result of torture.

The Miranda case came out of Maricopa County, Arizona.

[old mark]

10. The Miranda warning is given before a person is interrogated while

in police custody and is not "free to leave". It is simply a statementg of the person's constitutional 5th ammendment rights to not incriminate himeslf. Police may ask questions prior to
giving the warning, limited to identification - name, wherer you live, etc. And the rights may not be required if the person is already talking freely, although a lawyer might find fault with this later.
The Miranda v. Arizona case is interesting. Mr Miranda was arrested for robbery and while being questioned for that arrest, confessed to the kidnapping and rape of an 18 year old girl. He was found guilty, sentenced to 60 years. His PD lawyer appealed, was turned down by AZ courts, went to the Supreme court which found for Miranda - disallowed his confession because he did not know he was entitled to a lawyer (A second trial not using the confession found him guilty.) Note the "Miranda warning" involves making a person AWARE OF EXISTING RIGHTS, and does not give new rights - it only mandates that police explicitly inform people of their existing rights.

(FWIW, Miranda was paroled and later was killed in a bar argument in the 1970's).

mark

[Igel]

11. Neither.

The Miranda warning is a constraint on government. The government is contrained to provide due process and not violate a person's right to self incrimination: that includes torture, but it also includes taking advantage of people. If somebody can't be deemed to have been able to make an informed decision the presumption is that they're taken advantage of. So they're reminded of their rights; if they're judged to not understand their rights, to have been abused so that they gave up their rights under duress, or were possibly ignorant of their rights, the courts have recourse.

The Miranda warning lets the courts know that the right of non self incrimination was preserved at the defendent's glottis or before.

If the Miranda warning wasn't issued it may be they didn't understand their rights; if they're mentally challenged and didn't understand their rights; if they were under duress; then the courts preserve the right to non-self-incrimination at the jurors' tympanic membranes. In other words, they are not allowed to consider evidence that that came from a violation of due process or is presumed to result from due process.

The Miranda warning was imposed on the courts to preserve the courts' integrity wrt the Constitution and preservation of rights. This is utterly distinct from the concept of justice, because a person who killed 20 people, left no incriminating evidence, freaked out and confessed prior to being Mirandized and who later pleads ignorance of his rights can have his confession tossed out. No incriminating evidence, no punishment. That's not justice, that's rights. Sometimes a violation of rights is justice (unless we merely define justice as "what the letter of the law says"--something most object to in most settings, but lawyers often swear by, unless they need to argue otherwise).

The Miranda warning is issued by police in order to preserve the integrity of the testimony, so that they won't be punished by having the testimony and any evidence resulting from the testimony thrown out at court. Even Holder said that at least one reason that Abdulmutallab was Mirandized was to preserve the integrity of his statements at court. If you have unimpeachable, independently obtained evidence, screw Miranda--but be aware that nothing that the suspect says is likely to be acceptable to the courts. But if you don't intend to use his statements or evidence obtained resulting from the, the matter is irrelevant.

So, you tell me: Is this the value "society" places on justice or based on the nature of the offense? IMO, neither. Police want to stop the bad guy, courts want to uphold civil liberties. Often "society" objects strongly to the latter, and has little to say directly about the former.