Miranda: Out off the Doghouse

The Supreme Court broadens defendants' pretrial rights

In countless speeches and court opinions, Chief Justice Warren Burger has criticized the "massive safeguards for accused persons" that, in his view, unduly hamper law enforcement and criminal justice. High among the safeguards that the legal community has always assumed he had in mind were those provided by the court's 1966 landmark ruling in Miranda vs. Arizona. That decision requires police, before they question someone they have arrested, to inform him of a brief list of rights, including his freedom to remain silent and to consult a lawyer. Indeed, since Burger became Chief Justice in 1969, his court has consistently--and sometimes ingeniously--avoided squarely applying the Miranda precedent. In two unanimous rulings last week, however, the court not only relied on but actually expanded the famous doctrine.

The first case involved an Arizona man named Robert Edwards, who was charged with robbery, burglary and murder. At his first interrogation, Edwards requested a lawyer. Next day, though Ed wards had still seen no attorney, he talked to two detectives and implicated himself in the crimes. That admittedly voluntary confession, wrote Justice Byron White, was invalid because it had not been established that Edwards waived his right to counsel "intelligently and knowingly." White went on to announce a new rule: once a suspect invokes his right to remain silent until he consults a lawyer, he cannot undo it unless he himself "initiates further communication."

The ruling surprised legal scholars. Said University of Chicago Law Professor Geoffrey Stone: "In the past, this court basically put Miranda in the doghouse. Now it seems to be suggesting that, for better or worse, we accept it." Other experts pointed out that White's rule raised further questions to be settled in future cases--particularly as to what constitutes "initiating" communication.

The second decision involved a Texas prisoner named Ernest Smith, who was convicted of taking part in a grocery store robbery during which his accomplice killed a clerk. A judge asked Dallas Psychiatrist James Grigson to talk to Smith in jail to see if he was mentally competent to stand trial. Grigson decided that he was. After a jury found Smith guilty, it reconvened to sentence him--a procedure required by Texas law whenever the state seeks the death penalty. Grigson, a controversial figure with a striking record of testifying in favor of the death penalty (see box), said that Smith felt no remorse and would always be a threat to society. The jury voted for execution.

There were two problems, Burger concluded in his opinion. First, no one warned the defendant that whatever he told Grigson during their 90-minute talk could be used to sentence him to death. Second, he was not allowed to consult his lawyer beforehand. Said Burger: "Just as the Fifth Amendment prevents a criminal defendant from being made 'the deluded instrument of his own conviction,' it protects him as well from being made the 'deluded instrument' of his own execution." Smith was not the only suspect to be deprived of these warnings; some 60 other condemned prisoners in Texas are now entitled to be resentenced.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.