Today, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Dickerson vs. United States, a case that could put an end to the requirement that police officers give to suspects taken into custody the famous Miranda warning: "You have the right to remain silent. . . ."
Defenders of Miranda, from a 1966 decision by the Earl Warren Supreme Court in the case of Miranda vs. Arizona, insist that because the case is grounded on the 5th Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination, the only way to overturn it is by amending the Constitution. Proponents of 3501--the provision in the federal Criminal Code that "overrules" Miranda and is at the heart of the current case before the high court--emphasize that the Miranda warning is not itself a constitutional right but only a standard designed to safeguard or to provide practical reinforcement for the privilege against self-incrimination. Therefore, they argue, Congress has the power to overturn Miranda by legislation.
The Miranda warning is the best-known aspects of that famous case, but they are not the most important aspects. As the University of Chicago Law School's Stephen J. Schulhofer has pointed out, Miranda contains a number of conceptually distinct steps:
* Informal pressure to speak, no less than official pressure to do so, can constitute "compulsion" within the meaning of the 5th Amendment.
* This element of informal compulsion is inherent in police interrogation of a person taken into custody.
* The privilege against self-incrimination applies to the police station as well as to the courtroom.
* Police custodial interrogation as typically conducted--the questioning officer acts as if he has a right to an answer and gives the impression that it will be so much the worse for the suspect if he does not answer--is incompatible with the privilege.
* To comply with the 5th Amendment, something must be done to dispel the inherent pressure of custodial interrogation.
* Although Congress and the states may devise other equally effective procedures, in the absence of suitable alternatives the now-familiar warning must be given.
The Miranda warning has caught heavy fire. Yet the core of Miranda is in the first four or five of those steps, not the last one. Moreover, the warning was designed to help the police, not hurt them. The warning supplemented the new ruling that the self-incrimination clause was applicable to the station house; they spelled out one way that the police could continue to conduct interrogations without facing the risk that valuable evidence would be lost.
