Highlights of This Issue

United States Supreme Court Action

Court Upholds the Constitutionality of Miranda v. Arizona.

Congress passed 18 U.S.C. sec. 3501 in 1968, ostensibly overruling Miranda for the federal courts and federal law enforcement agencies. Section 3501 makes traditional due process voluntariness the sole standard for the admissibility of confessions and incriminating statements in federal court, the standard that existed prior to the Miranda requirement of warnings and waiver of Fifth Amendment rights. Section 3501, however was largely ignored by federal prosecutors, federal courts, and greeted with actual hostility by the United States Justice Department over the years.

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, 166 F.3d 667 (1999), had ruled that a confession which is determined to be voluntary may be admitted as evidence in federal court despite a technical violation of Miranda, pursuant to sec. 3501.

On appeal to the Supreme Court the Court ruled 7-2, in an opinion written by the Chief Justice, that Miranda governs the admissibility of statements made during custodial interrogation in both state and federal courts. It stated that Miranda is a constitutional decision that can not be overruled by an Act of Congress. Although Miranda itself invited legislative action to protect the privilege against self-incrimination, it also stated that any such substitute for Miranda warnings had to be at least as effective as the warnings that Miranda required. Section 3501, the Court said, was not an effective alternative to the Miranda warnings.

It noted that while there are more remedies available today for curbing abusive police conduct than there were in 1966 when Miranda was decided, it did not agree that sec. 3501 was sufficient to replace Miranda warnings for protecting the privilege against self-incrimination.

Three other points were made by the Court in declining to overrule Miranda: (1) prior language by the Court in applying the case narrowly did not justify a conclusion that Miranda was not a constitutional mandate; (2) the Miranda warnings are now imbedded in police practices and procedures and there would be little value in changing them today; and (3) the rule of stare decisis, which discourages the overruling of long-standing constitutional precedent, militated against overruling Miranda after it had been the law of the land for over 34 years.

In short, those who have long-awaited an opportunity for eliminating the warning/waiver requirement of Miranda received no solace from the Court. While the Court reemphasized that due process voluntariness is the touchstone for confession admissibility, the Miranda warnings remain a necessary constitutional step to confession admissibility.

Undoubtedly there is no clearer evidence of the Court's continuing commitment to Miranda than the fact that there were only two dissenters: Justices Scalia and Thomas.