Word: mirandas
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...were eventually given jail terms. During an 18-month period ending last April, the American Civil Liberties Union received 174 complaints of police abuses from Los Angeles Mexican Americans. Two of the recent landmark Supreme Court decisions limiting police questioning of suspects involved Mexican Americans?Escobedo v. Illinois and Miranda v. Arizona. Many Mexicans still look on the Texas Rangers and U.S. border patrols with terror...
...court's concern for protecting accused criminals who may not be able to defend themselves. It was followed by Escobedo v. Illinois (1964), which held that a suspect may not be prevented from seeing his lawyer during a police interrogation. The most controversial decision of all was Miranda v. Arizona (1966), which called on the police to warn a suspect of his rights to remain silent and to have a lawyer before being questioned. Otherwise, said the court, any confession taken from the suspect may not be introduced at his trial...
Though there is no evidence that Miranda occasioned the release of large numbers of criminals, the decision did turn against the court a large group of Americans who are concerned about crime rates. A poll published by the Gallup organization last month disclosed that a majority in the nation not only opposes the Miranda decision but also the 1963 ruling that barred prayers and Bible reading in public schools, and a 1965 decision declaring that compulsory registration of Communist Party members was unconstitutional...
...criminal cases, one or two votes could possibly change the balance. Miranda, for example, was decided by a 5-to-4 margin. It may be that Burger and Justices of similar temperament will in the future give the police the benefit of the doubt in resolving close cases based on Miranda. But like other Justices, Burger will be deterred by the doctrine of stare decisis (respect for precedent) from abandoning rules that have been law for three years now. Even so, under Burger's leadership, the court is more likely to return to the role of anchoring the ship...
...dissent, Justice Byron White protested that the ruling carries Miranda to "new and unwarranted extremes." He argued that the previous decision emphasized interrogations in the station house because the "isolation and unfamiliar surroundings" there created special pressures for the accused. Orozco's bedroom, White insisted, could hardly be considered unfamiliar to him. Moreover, the majority had made no effort to demonstrate that any of the psychological pressures in Miranda were present in Orozco's case...