|
Are Police Free To Disregard Miranda? |
|
|
|
|
Steven D. Clymer [View as PDF]
|
112 Yale L.J. 447 (2002)
This Article contends that the common understanding of Miranda as a direct restraint on custodial interrogation by police is mistaken. Instead, Miranda, like the privilege against compulsory self-incrimination that serves as its constitutional foundation, is a rule of admissibility. As the text of the privilege, the Supreme Court's Fifth Amendment jurisprudence, and the Miranda majority's reasoning all demonstrate, neither the privilege nor Miranda can be violated without use of a compelled statement in a criminal case. Miranda controls police conduct only indirectly, by requiring suppression of statements taken in violation of the Miranda rules. At least two significant consequences flow from this understanding. First, police violations of the Miranda rules alone cannot support civil lawsuits under 42 U.S.C. 1983. Second, and more importantly, police have no constitutional obligation to comply with the Miranda warnings and waiver regime. Rather, police are free to disregard Miranda if they deem it advantageous.
If the Supreme Court had fashioned a stringent Miranda exclusionary doctrineÜone similar to that which applies when prosecutors compel testimony by use of immunity grantsÜpolice would have good reason to comply with the Miranda rules even absent a constitutional duty. But, the Court has done the opposite, creating a host of evidentiary incentives for police to violate those rules. Thus, it is not surprising that some police officers and departments deliberately disregard Miranda in order to benefit from those incentives.
Because many federal appellate courts already have interpreted Miranda as a rule that governs only admissibility, and there is a good chance that the Supreme Court will construe the privilege accordingly when it decides Chavez v. Martinez this Term, Miranda°s future appears bleak. It is likely that the Court will signal to police that they have no constitutional duty to follow Miranda rules and, at the same time, will leave intact its decisions tempting police to violate those rules. This Article offers an alternative approach, one by which the Court squares its Miranda doctrine with its treatment of the privilege in other contexts. This proposed approach would mandate that the Court treat Miranda as a rule of admissibility but also would require that it rethink many of the decisions that entice police to violate the Miranda rules.
|
