History of Miranda

Published 12:00 am Sunday, February 28, 2010

Does the Miranda rule mean anything to you? It should.

For those handful of people who might not know, the Miranda decision was the answer to the prayers of criminals throughout the country. This 11th Commandment-like decision arrived from a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1966, and made every law enforcement officer in this nation more concerned with complying with it than in determining the actual guilt or innocence of those sometimes caught during the commission of crimes, or later suspected of committing them.

Miranda, the defendant in the case, was charged with raping and kidnapping. His first criminal conviction was in the eighth grade. Upon his release from reform school, he was arrested (but not convicted) on suspicion of armed robbery and for minor sex offenses. He wound up in Phoenix, where police believed he had been involved in abducting, kidnapping, and raping young women for a period of time.

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His truck having been identified by the brother of an earlier rape victim, Miranda was arrested, taken to meet the rape victim for positive voice identification. Asked by officers, in her presence, whether this was the victim, Miranda said, “That’s the girl.”

Appealing his 20-30 year sentence, he filed an appeal as a pauper, and the ACLU went into action, winning the 5-4 Supreme Court decision overturning the conviction. The retrial, without the confession, resulted in the same 20-30 year sentence again.

After his parole in 1972, Miranda sold autographed “Miranda Warnings” for $1.50 each, was arrested numerous times, and finally was stabbed to death with a lettuce knife over a card game argument.

As the Obama administration has approved granting suspected terrorists access to the Miranda rights, I wanted readers to know the history of this national embarrassment, and place the blame on a liberal Supreme Court acceptance of the ACLU argument in 1966.

William W. Watson

St. Joseph