This article is about Miranda v. Arizona 348 US 486, Miranda Warning’ and the ‘exclusionary rule’ evolved therein and Chief Justice Earl Warren.
Chief Justice Earl Warren (March 19, 1891 – July 9, 1974) was the 14th Chief Justice of USA and perhaps one of the greatest, ever to adorn the bench.
This article was written after I read 'Miranda: Crime, Law and Politics' by Liva Baker and 'Super Chief: Earl Warren and His Supreme Court, a Judicial Biography' by Bernard Schwartz in mid 1980s. Both books are worth reading.
The article has been updated since then.
Mirand's Victim - Film based on the Miranda Case
One cannot help being obsessed with Earl Warren: he was that kind of a person. He went on to become the 14th Chief Justice of the United States of America (1953-69). But before I tell you more about Warren, you should know something about ‘Miranda Vs Arizona’, the most controversial and the most important criminal case decided by the Warren Court.
The Facts
March 1963, Place Phoenix, Arizona, Time 00:10am: A pretty, eighteen year old girl was coming home after a late night show. She was pulled inside a car, taken to a lonely place, and was raped.
On March 13, 1963, 10 days later: Ernesto Miranda, a seriously disturbed indigent Mexican, with pronounced sexual fantasies, was arrested. He signed his confession in the interrogation room. It contained a paragraph that confession was made voluntarily with full knowledge of his legal rights.
At his trial this confession was admitted. He was convicted of kidnapping and rape. The Supreme Court of Arizona rejected his appeal. He sent his petition to the Supreme Court of United States from jail. Now, his fate changed.
The Exclusionary Rule
The Supreme Court held his confession to be inadmissible and set aside his conviction. The court ruled that Miranda was neither apprised of his right to engage a counsel nor was his privilege against self-incrimination adequately protected. Any evidence (his confession) ignoring these principles had to be excluded.
This case established that the police, before questioning a criminal suspect, must inform him of his rights to remain silent and to have a counsel present (appointed for him if he is indigent) and that a confession obtained in defiance of these requirements is inadmissible in court.
This is known as the exclusionary rule. It has no historical background in any other jurisprudence. The Constitution also does not say anything about it. It is a judge made device, given constitutional mandate through judicial decisions.
It was in 1886 that for the first time the court had declared private papers inadmissible as they had been illegally seized in contravention of the Fourth Amendment that protects citizens from unreasonable search and seizure. Nothing happened thereafter; the decision was thrown into the dustbin until the United States Supreme Court revived it again in 1941, holding documents obtained without a search warrant to be inadmissible.
Miranda firmly established this rule. Though, unfortunately, not for very long.
Its supporters say it is a way of enforcing the Constitution and is a restraint on police misbehaviour. Others believe that it is the most unreliable way to deter lawlessness among the police. It is better to leave this debate to sociologists. But after all, what is the value of constitutional rights, if they can be violated at will. In the years following the Miranda case, its effect has been watered down though it is not formally overruled. The case itself drew public debate throughout the country. No other case, except desegregation cases, had generated so much heat, debate and emotion.
Our Supreme Court was also inspired by the Miranda case. In DK Basu Vs State of WB 1997 (1) SCC 416: AIR 1997 SC 610: 1997 CRLJ 743: (1997) 1 JT (SC) 1, our Supreme Court laid down requirements to be followed in case of arrest. Failure to comply renders the official liable to departmental action, contempt and damages.
Miranda Case – Afterwards
After the conviction of Miranda was set aside, he was retried. This time his admission was excluded but prosecution produced another witness - Twila Hoffman – Mirand’s common law wife. She deposed that Miranda told her that he had committed the rape. It was treated as extra-judicial confession.
Miranda was again convicted and was sentenced to 20 to 30 years in prison. Later he was paroled. He started selling autographed Miranda warning cards for money. Then in a Bar, he was murdered over a fight.
In 2023, Hollywood made a film on this case titled ‘Miranda's Victim’. It explains the case, the principle evolved therein and the later developments. It is a worth watching film. Don’t miss it.
Earl Warren
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| Earl Warren - courtsey Wikipedia |
In the first term on the bench in 1954, Warren spoke for a unanimous court in the leading school-desegregation case; Brown Vs Board of Education of Topeka 347 U.S. 483. The unanimous court declared the separate public schools according to race unconstitutional. It overruled the separate but equal doctrine that had prevailed since 1896 in Plessy Vs Ferguson 163 U.S. 537. The court held that ‘separate educational facilities are inherently unequal’.
In Watkins Vs United States 354 U.S. 178. in 1957. Warren, upheld the right of a witness to refuse to testify before a congressional committee concerning federal and state loyalty and security investigations.
In the other opinions, he took similar stand discounting the fear of communist subversion that was prevalent in the United States during the 1950’s.
In 1964 in Reynolds Vs Sims 377 U.S. 533 known as the one man, one vote decision, he held that representation in state legislatures must be apportioned equally on the basis of population rather than geographical areas, remarking,
"Legislators represent people, not acres or trees."
But why did Warren Court hand down these rulings at that time. What kind of a man was he to have come down so heavily in favour of liberty and against state action. After all he was the man, who, as Attorney General of California, was involved in forced evacuation of 110,000 Japanese citizens and aliens from the West Coast following the bombing of Pearl Harbour. But then he was not the only one to commit such mistake.
President Roosevelt had issued the order. Tom Clark, Assistant Attorney General of the United States, had dispatched it. The Department of Justice had helped the army to enforce it. The only man of any distinction to oppose it, was Abe Fortas, the most distinguished lawyer ever to adorn the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States of America. However, Fortas had to resigned over a controversy.
A Commission has since then offered compensation for those evacuations. The nation has recognised its shame. Warren himself in his memoirs apologised for his involvement, but then there was another incident.
The Other Incident – Methias Warren
May 14, 1938 Bakersfield, place California. Methias Warren, aged seventy-three years and father of the District Attorney Earl Warren was killed and his money stolen.
The police were sure of the killer. They wanted to keep an informer in the cell with him and wire the cell for sound. This was illegal. Earl Warren refused. He loved his father, but to convict even a guilty man on the basis of evidence illegally obtained was unthinkable for Earl Warren.
The suspect was ultimately not even arraigned in a court of law.
Warren preached what he had practised, a trait not found in many. Now I am sure that you understand, why he came so heavily in favour of liberty and against the state, why it is difficult not to be obsessed by him.
But, Is It Fair?
Before I end, you may be asking what the heading 'But, is it fair', has to do with this article.
Warren was neither a great scholar nor a constitutional expert; he practised law for a short time. But one thing he knew and that was fairness. 'But, is it fair' was the question that most of the lawyers appearing before him had to answer. It is the same question that governed his life and his judicial philosophy. And it was on this touchstone that he tested all state actions. And it was this nagging doubt that changed Miranda’s fate.
In fifteen years of my judgeship, I tried to follow 'But, is it fair' principle. The lawyers and litigants, where I sat in the court and the history will judge if this philosophy has governed my decision making process or not.
IT LIES IN THE HEART
(These articles were written before I was elevated as the High Court judge on 5th February 1999 and were also published. Since then they have been updated.)
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