What Hogwash !

There is something perversely ironic about the fact that the U.S. Justice Department has concluded, in the 200th anniversary year of the federal Constitution, that reading a prisoner his Miranda rights somehow is unconstitutional and un-American. The Miranda rule is only 21 years old, and its origins and foundation have been subject to some theoretical legal dispute. But there are few procedures in U.S. jurisprudence today that are more distinctly American than advising a suspect of his right not to incriminate himself, or to guard against being pressured into making a confession before he has been able to consult an attorney.

Yet the Justice Department has drafted a report, with the support of Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III, declaring that the Miranda rule has no foundation in American history or law and must be erased from the books as soon as a ripe case can be found to bring to the U.S. Supreme Court. The report claims that the court’s 1966 Miranda vs. Arizona decision, written by Earl Warren, “flies in the face of the principles of constitutional government” and puts the public at risk from preying criminals.

Reflect for a moment on the requirements of this rule that is so onerous to the highest federal legal official in the land. When a person is taken into police custody, he must be warned that any statement that he makes may be used against him in court. He has the right to remain silent. He has the right to have an attorney, or to have an attorney chosen for him if he cannot afford his own.

The suspect also can waive these rights. While he cannot be compelled to confess or talk about an alleged crime against his will, there is nothing to prevent him from doing so if he desires.

These requirements are so basically American, so in tune with the Constitution’s protection of individual liberties, so fundamentally fair and right , it is a wonder that the nation got along for so long without such a specific rule. The fact is that the innocent as well as the guilty were bullied by overzealous law-enforcement officers into confessing to crimes that they did not commit or, through ignorance, abdicating their right to a fair trial even if they were responsible.

This is not the twisted view of a vengeful Justice Department, however, as it seeks to wipe out this stain of the Warren court and its “discredited criminal jurisprudence.” The report claims that only if the Miranda rule is stricken will the people, through self-government, be able to suppress crime. This is just pure hogwash. Not a single criminal escapes the law because of the Miranda rule unless the police are so sloppy in their professional duties that they neglect to take the minute or so that it requires to read a suspect his rights.

The attorney general and his aides dishonor the Constitution of the United States, and their oaths of office, through such iniquitous pursuits.