Law Commons^™

The Future Of Confession Law: Toward Rules For The Voluntariness Test, Eve Brensike Primus

Michigan Law Review

Confession law is in a state of collapse. Fifty years ago, three different doctrines imposed constitutional limits on the admissibility of confessions in criminal cases: Miranda doctrine under the Fifth Amendment, Massiah doctrine under the Sixth Amendment, and voluntariness doctrine under the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. But in recent years, the Supreme Court has gutted Miranda and Massiah, effectively leaving suspects with only voluntariness doctrine to protect them during police interrogations. The voluntariness test is a notoriously vague case-by-case standard. In this Article, I argue that if voluntariness is going to be the framework for …

J.D.B. V. North Carolina And The Reasonable Person, Christopher Jackson

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

This Term, the Supreme Court was presented with a prime opportunity to provide some much-needed clarification on a "backdrop" issue of law-one of many topics that arises in a variety of legal contexts, but is rarely analyzed on its own terms. In J.D.B. v. North Carolina, the Court considered whether age was a relevant factor in determining if a suspect is "in custody" for Miranda purposes, and thus must have her rights read to her before being questioned by the police. Miranda, like dozens of other areas of law, employs a reasonable person test on the custodial question: it asks …

Stories About Miranda, George C. Thomas Iii

Michigan Law Review

It is no exaggeration to say that Yale Kamisar was present at the creation of Miranda v. Arizona. To be sure, the seeds of Miranda had been sown in earlier cases, particularly Escobedo v. Illinois, but Escobedo was a Sixth Amendment right to counsel case. Professor Kamisar first saw the potential for extending the theory of Escob edo to the Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination. Escob edo theorized that a healthy criminal justice system requires that the accused know their rights and are encouraged to exercise them. The Escobedo Court read history to teach that no system …

We Can Do This The Easy Way Or The Hard Way: The Use Of Deceit To Induce Consent Searches, Rebecca Strauss

Michigan Law Review

In October of 1995, Aaron Salvo was studying and living at Ashland College. College officials informed local FBI agents that they suspected Salvo of possible child molestation and related conduct based on incriminating electronic mail. FBI agents approached Salvo at his dormitory, asked to speak with him in private about the suspicious mail, and suggested they speak in Salvo's dorm room. Salvo agreed to speak with the officers, but declined to do so in his room because his roommate was there, and he did not want to get anyone else involved in the embarrassing nature of the upcoming conversation. Salvo …

Miranda'S Mistake, William J. Stuntz

Michigan Law Review

The oddest thing about Miranda is its politics - a point reinforced by the decision in, and the reaction to, Dickerson v. United States. In Dickerson, the Supreme Court faced the question whether Miranda ought to be overturned, either directly or by permitting legislative overrides. The lawyers, the literature, and the Court split along right-left - or, in the Court's case, right-center - lines, with the right seeking to do away with Miranda's restrictions on police questioning, and the left (or center) seeking to maintain them. The split is familiar. Reactions to Miranda have always divided along ideological lines, with …

The Paths Not Taken: The Supreme Court's Failures In Dickerson, Paul G. Cassell

Michigan Law Review

Where's the rest of the opinion? That was my immediate reaction to reading the Supreme Court's terse decision in Dickerson, delivered to me via email from the clerk's office a few minutes after its release. Surely, I thought, some glitch in the transmission had eliminated the pages of discussion on the critical issues in the case. Yet, as it became clear that I had received all of the Court's opinion, my incredulity grew.

Miranda, Dickerson, And The Puzzling Persistence Of Fifth Amendment Exceptionalism, Stephen J. Schulhofer

Michigan Law Review

Dickerson v. United States preserves the status quo regime for judicial oversight of police interrogation. That result could be seen, in the present climate, as a victory for due process values, but there remain many reasons for concern that existing safeguards are flawed - that they are either too restrictive or not restrictive enough. Such concerns are partly empirical, of course. They depend on factual assessments of how much the Miranda rules do restrict the police. But such concerns also reflect a crucial, though often unstated, normative premise; they presuppose a certain view of how much the police should be …

Miranda, The Constitution, And Congress, David A. Strauss

Michigan Law Review

Are Miranda warnings required by the Constitution, or not? If they are, why has the Supreme Court repeatedly said that the rights created by Miranda are "not themselves rights protected by the Constitution"? If not, why can't an Act of Congress, such as 18 U.S.C. 3501, declare them to be unnecessary? These were the central questions posed by United States v. Dickerson. It is not clear that the majority opinion ever really answered them. The majority said that "Miranda is constitutionally based," that Miranda has "constitutional underpinnings," that Miranda is "a constitutional decision," and that Miranda "announced a constitutional rule." …

In The Stationhouse After Dickerson, Charles D. Weisselberg

Michigan Law Review

Miranda v. Arizona established the high water mark of the protections afforded an accused during a custodial interrogation. During the decades that followed, the United States Supreme Court allowed Miranda's foundation to erode, inviting a direct challenge to the landmark ruling. In Dickerson v. United States, the Court turned back such a challenge and placed Miranda upon a more secure, constitutional footing. This Article explores the impact of Dickerson in the place where Miranda was meant to matter most: the stationhouse. As I have described elsewhere, Supreme Court decisions have influenced a number of California law enforcement agencies to instruct …

Deceptive Police Interrogation Practices: How Far Is Too Far?, Laurie Magid

Michigan Law Review

Virtually all interrogations - or at least virtually all successful interrogations - involve some deception. As the United States Supreme Court has placed few limits on the use of deception, the variety of deceptive techniques is limited chiefly by the ingenuity of the interrogator. Interrogators still rely on the classic "Mutt and Jeff," or "good cop, bad cop," routine. Interrogators tell suspects that nonexistent eyewitnesses have identified them, or that still at-large accomplices have given statements against them. Interrogators have been known to put an unsophisticated suspect's hand on a fancy, new photocopy machine and tell him that the "Truth …

Questioning The Relevance Of Miranda In The Twenty-First Century, Richard A. Leo

Michigan Law Review

Miranda v. Arizona is the most well-known criminal justice decision - arguably the most well-known legal decision - in American history. Since it was decided in 1966, the Miranda decision has spawned voluminous newspaper coverage, political and legal debate, and academic commentary. The Miranda warnings themselves have become so well-known through the media of television that most people recognize them immediately. As Patrick Malone has pointed out, the Miranda decision has added its own lexicon of words and phrases to the American language. Perhaps with this understanding in mind, George Thomas recently suggested that the Miranda warnings are more well-known …

Miranda'S Failure To Restrain Pernicious Interrogation Practices, Welsh S. White

Michigan Law Review

As Yale Kamisar's writings on police interrogation demonstrate, our simultaneous commitments to promoting law enforcement's interest in obtaining confessions and to protecting individuals from overreaching interrogation practices have created a nearly irreconcilable tension. If the police must be granted authority to engage in effective questioning of suspects, it will obviously be difficult to insure that "the terrible engine of the criminal law . . . not . . . be used to overreach individuals who stand helpless against it." If we are committed to accommodating these conflicting interests, however, some means must be found to impose appropriate restraints on the …

Separated At Birth But Siblings Nonetheless: Miranda And The Due Process Notice Cases, George C. Thomas Iii

Michigan Law Review

Paraphrasing Justice Holmes, law is less about logic than experience. Courts and scholars have now had thirty-four years of experience with Miranda v. Arizona, including the Court's recent endorsement in Dickerson v. United States last Term. Looking back over this experience, it is plain that the Court has created a Miranda doctrine quite different from what it has said it was creating. I think the analytic structure in Dickerson supports this rethinking of Miranda. To connect the dots, I offer a new explanation for Miranda that permits us to reconcile Dickerson and the rest of the post-Miranda doctrine with the …

Identifying And (Re)Formulating Prophylactic Rules, Safe Harbors, And Incidental Rights In Constitutional Criminal Procedure, Susan R. Klein

Michigan Law Review

The Miranda conundrum runs something like this. If the Miranda decision represents true constitutional interpretation, and all unwarned statements taken during custodial interrogation are "compelled" within the meaning of the Self-Incrimination Clause, the impeachment and "fruits" exceptions to Miranda should fall. If it is not true constitutional interpretation, than the Court has no business reversing state criminal convictions for its violation. I offer here what I hope is a satisfying answer to this conundrum, on both descriptive and normative levels, that justifies not only Miranda but a host of similar Warren, Burger, and Rehnquist Court decisions as well. In Part …

The Public Safety Exception To Miranda: Analyzing Subjective Motivation, Marc Schuyler Reiner

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues, however, that the appropriate inquiry under Quarles is whether an actual and reasonable belief in an emergency motivated the interrogating officer. This Note proposes a two-prong test to facilitate this inquiry. The subjective motivation prong evaluates the officer's subjective motivation as revealed by objective factors: the. content of the officer's questions, when he asked them, and when the suspect received Miranda warnings. The objective reasonableness prong looks at the objective circumstances to determine the reasonableness of the officer's belief in an emergency.

Part I demonstrates that the Quarles opinion actually contemplates and requires analysis of the officer's …

The Public Safety Exception To Miranda: Analyzing Subjective Motivation, Marc Schuyler Reiner

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues, however, that the appropriate inquiry under Quarles is whether an actual and reasonable belief in an emergency motivated the interrogating officer. This Note proposes a two-prong test to facilitate this inquiry. The subjective motivation prong evaluates the officer's subjective motivation as revealed by objective factors: the. content of the officer's questions, when he asked them, and when the suspect received Miranda warnings. The objective reasonableness prong looks at the objective circumstances to determine the reasonableness of the officer's belief in an emergency.

Part I demonstrates that the Quarles opinion actually contemplates and requires analysis of the officer's …

Chopping Miranda Down To Size, Michael Chertoff

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Confessions, Truth, and the Law by Joseph D. Grano

The Emerging International Consensus As To Criminal Procedure Rules, Craig M. Bradley

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article will demonstrate that these general claims, as well as certain observations about specific countries, were, with one significant exception, substantially wrong when they were written. More importantly, due to significant developments in several countries in the years since those reports came out, they are even more wrong now. That is, not only have the U.S. concepts of pre-interrogation warnings to suspects, a search warrant requirement, and the use of an exclusionary remedy to deter police misconduct been widely adopted, but in many cases other countries have gone beyond the U.S. requirements.

Police-Obtained Evidence And The Constitution: Distinguishing Unconstitutionally Obtained Evidence From Unconstitutionally Used Evidence, Arnold H. Loewy

Michigan Law Review

The article will consider four different types of police-obtained evidence: evidence obtained from an unconstitutional search and seizure, evidence obtained from a Miranda violation, confessions and lineup identifications obtained in violation of the sixth amendment right to counsel, and coerced confessions. My conclusions are that evidence obtained from an unconstitutional search and seizure is excluded because of the police misconduct by which it was obtained. On the other hand, evidence obtained from a Miranda violation is (or ought to be) excluded because use of that evidence compromises the defendant's procedural right not to be compelled to be a witness against …

Confusing The Fifth Amendment With The Sixth: Lower Court Misapplication Of The Innis Definition Of Interrogation, Jonathan L. Marks

Michigan Law Review

This Note examines how these courts have applied or misapplied Innis, and concludes that, while many of these decisions are consistent with Miranda and Innis, too many others are not. In order to evaluate these cases, it is first necessary to understand the meaning and significance of Innis. Part I thus considers Innis and its background. Part II then examines lower court decisions applying the Innis test, dividing these decisions into six groups based on the most common factual scenarios. Because the cases deal with factually specific police practices, this method constitutes the most useful way to …

The Applicability Of Miranda Warnings To Non-Felony Offenses: Is The Proper Standard "Custodial Interrogation" Or "Severity Of The Offense"?, Kenneth W. Gaul

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note argues that the proper standard for determining the necessity of the Miranda warnings for any offense is the existence of custodial interrogation. When interrogation for non-felony offenses takes place in a custodial atmosphere, Miranda warnings should be required, as they are for more serious offenses. Part I summarizes the two basic approaches taken by courts that have confronted the question of the applicability of the Miranda warnings to non-felony offenses. Part Ill argues that neither the rationale for the Miranda doctrine nor the roots of the fifth amendment support a distinction based on the severity of the offense …

Interrogation Without Questions: Rhode Island V. Innis And United States V. Henry, Welsh S. White

Michigan Law Review

In Rhode Island v. Innis, the Court defined "interrogation" within the meaning of Miranda; and in United States v. Henry, it defined "deliberate elicitation" within the meaning of Massiah. This article explores the implications of Innis and Henry, suggests readings of the new tests consistent with their purposes, and applies the tests to several situations where the scope of the fifth and sixth amendment protections remains unclear.

The Right To Counsel In Police Interrogation Cases: Miranda And Williams, Mitchell Leibson Chyette

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This article will consider some of the theoretical and practical ramifications of the Williams decision and compare its protections to the protections offered by Miranda. The article, focussing on the right to counsel, discusses the nature of the police conduct which is prohibited by each decision, the time at which the protections involved become effective, and the standard by which a waiver of the rights will be measured. The article concludes that there may be significant differences in the application of the two cases and that a uniform rule based on the sixth amendment may be superior to the …

Criminal Procedure--Self-Incrimination--Harmless Error--Application Of The Harmless Error Doctrine To Violations Of Miranda: The California Experience, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Using decisions of the appellate courts of California that have applied the federal harmless error rule to violations of Miranda v. Arizona and Escobedo v. Illinois, this Note will examine the logic and effects of the California application. However, the California experience can only be understood by first briefly describing the United States Supreme Court's decisions regarding harmless constitutional error and then showing the approaches taken by other states in their application of the harmless error rule to Miranda violations. Not only will this analysis put the California experience in its proper perspective, but it will also show the …

Custodial Police Interrogation In Our Nation's Capital: The Attempt To Implement Miranda, Richard J. Medalie, Leonard Zeitz, Paul Alexander

Michigan Law Review

In his attempt to define the meaning of democracy, Carl Becker, looking back to Plato's view of society, observed that "[a]ll human institutions, we are told, have their ideal forms laid away in heaven, and we do not need to be told that the actual institutions conform but indifferently to these ideal counterparts." Becker's observation may well set the perspective from which to view what occurred when the attempt was made in the District of Columbia to implement the Supreme Court's decision in Miranda v. Arizona.