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Against Orthodoxy: Miranda Is Not Prophylactic And The Constitution Is Not Perfect, Lawrence Rosenthal

Lawrence Rosenthal

In the four decades since the decision in Miranda v. Arizona, two point of consensus have emerged about that decision. The first area of agreement is that Miranda’s rationale for requiring its now-famous warnings is wrong, or at least dramatically overstated. In Michigan v. Tucker, the Court first labeled Miranda warnings as “prophylactic standards.” For their part, Miranda’s advocates do not spend much time defending its conception of unwarned custodial interrogation as inherently coercive. The second point of agreement is that Miranda has turned out to be a failure combating the coercive nature of custodial interrogation. Despite Miranda, coerced confessions …