Miranda v. Arizona

[cliveandrews]

What are your thoughts on the Miranda v. Arizona decision?

For those of you who don't know, Miranda v. Arizona is the 1966 Supreme Court decision which resulted in the requirement for police to read suspects their rights prior to custodial interrogation.

It appears to me that the majority judges were primarily concerned with upholding a suspect's constitutional rights. They felt that custodial interrogation was inherently coercive due to the psychological effects on the suspect and the ability of police to abuse their authority to extract confessions.

The dissenting opinion was that the decision was unconstitutional, or at least extra-constitutional; that is, nothing in the constitution indicates that police must do anything to ensure than suspects are aware of their rights.

What would be the Objectivist position on this.

[DavidOdden]

The Objectivist position on this derives from the Objectivist position on the proper role of government, especially that the government is fundamentally limited to specific things. The concrete holding of that case is not necessitated: what is necessary is that government act according to objectively justified law. Intimidating citizens would be prohibited, and would be a crime punishable under the law. Thus the circumstances that gave rise to Miranda (and which still exist in interrogations) would be impossible. That decision would be rendered moot since there would be a well-defined legal process for questioning citizens, one which would by its nature protect their rights.

[Grames]

There is more to be said than that. When courts vitiate any evidence gathered when the police fail to 'Mirandize' the suspects, especially in the absence of any formal police interrogation, they are elevating procedural justice above objective justice (the truth of the case). This is bad.

caveat: I am not a lawyer.

[DavidOdden]

When courts vitiate any evidence gathered when the police fail to 'Mirandize' the suspects, especially in the absence of any formal police interrogation, they are elevating procedural justice above objective justice (the truth of the case). This is bad.

Well, there has to be a solution to the problem, thus a punishment against evil-doing by the government is called for. There could be alternatives, for example imprisoning the offending officer for 20 years, if you had a society that was intolerant of the government violating the law and was therefore willing to convict. The "fruit of the poison tree" rule is the only solution open to the court in our legal system (they cannot create a criminal sanction).