Key
Excerpts from the Dissenting Opinion
The
case was decided 5 to 4.
Mr. Justice Harlan, with Justices Stewart and White joining,
wrote the main dissenting opinion.
I believe the decision of the Court
represents poor constitutional law and entails harmful consequences
for the country at large. How serious these consequences may
prove to be only time can tell. But the basic flaws in the
Court's justification seem to me readily apparent now once
all sides of the problem are considered. . . .
The new rules are not designed to guard against police brutality
or other unmistakably banned forms of coercion. Those who
use third-degree tactics and deny them in court are equally
able and destined to lie as skillfully about warnings and
waivers. Rather, the thrust of the new rules is to negate
all pressures, to reinforce the nervous or ignorant suspect,
and ultimately to discourage any confession at all. The aim
in short is toward "voluntariness" in a utopian
sense, or to view it from a different angle, voluntariness
with a vengeance. . . .
Without
at all subscribing to the generally black picture of police
conduct painted by the Court, I think it must be frankly
recognized at the outset that police questioning allowable
under due process precedents may inherently entail some
pressure on the suspect and may seek advantage in his ignorance
or weaknesses. . . .
The
Court's new rules aim to offset . . . minor pressures and
disadvantages intrinsic to any kind of police interrogation.
The rules do not serve due process interests in preventing
blatant coercion since . . . they do nothing to contain
the policeman who is prepared to lie from the start. The
rules work for reliability in confessions almost only in
the . . . sense that they can prevent some from being given
at all. In short, the benefit of this new regime is simply
to lessen or wipe out the inherent compulsion and inequalities
to which the Court devotes some nine pages of description.
What
the Court largely ignores is that its rules impair, if they
will not eventually serve wholly to frustrate, an instrument
of law enforcement that has long and quite reasonably been
thought worth the price paid for it. There can be little
doubt that the Court's new code would markedly decrease
the number of confessions. To warn the suspect that he may
remain silent and remind him that his confession may be
used in court are minor obstructions. To require also an
express waiver by the suspect and an end to questioning
whenever he demurs must heavily handicap questioning. And
to suggest or provide counsel for the suspect simply invites
the end of the interrogation.
How
much harm this decision will inflict on law enforcement
cannot fairly be predicted with accuracy. . . . We do know
that some crimes cannot be solved without confessions, that
ample expert testimony attests to their importance in crime
control, and that the Court is taking a real risk with society's
welfare in imposing its new regime on the country. The social
costs of crime are too great to call the new rules anything
but a hazardous experimentation. . . .
Though
at first denying his guilt, within a short time Miranda
gave a detailed oral confession and then wrote out in his
own hand and signed a brief statement admitting and describing
the crime. All this was accomplished in two hours or less
without any force, threats or promises and . . . without
any effective warnings at all.
Miranda's
oral and written confessions are now held inadmissible under
the Court's new rules. One is entitled to feel astonished
that the Constitution can be read to produce this result.
These confessions were obtained during brief, daytime questioning
conducted by two officers and unmarked by any of the traditional
indicia of coercion. They assured a conviction for a brutal
and unsettling crime, for which the police had and quite
possibly could obtain little evidence other than the victim's
identifications, evidence which is frequently unreliable.
There was, in sum, a legitimate purpose, no perceptible
unfairness, and certainly little risk of injustice in the
interrogation. Yet the resulting confessions, and the responsible
course of police practice they represent, are to be sacrificed
to the Court's own finespun conception of fairness which
I seriously doubt is shared by many thinking citizens in
this country. . . .
Nothing
in the letter or the spirit of the Constitution or in the
precedents squares with the heavy-handed and one-sided action
that is so precipitously taken by the Court in the name
of fulfilling its constitutional responsibilities. The foray
which the Court makes today brings to mind the wise and
farsighted words of Mr. Justice Jackson in Douglas
v. Jeannette: "This Court is forever adding
new stories to the temples of constitutional law, and the
temples have a way of collapsing when one story too many
is added."
Questions to Consider:
- Why
does Justice Harlan say the Miranda warnings are
not designed to guard against "police brutality or
other unmistakably banned forms of coercion"?
- According
to Justice Harlan, how will the Court's new rules impair
"an instrument of law enforcement that has long and
quite reasonably been thought worth the price paid for
it"?
- Why
does Harlan say the Court's new rules are "hazardous
experimentation"?
- This
case involves the balancing of individual rights against
the desire of society to fight crime. How do Justice Harlan
and Chief Justice Warren disagree in how they believe
these rights and values should be balanced?
- Has
reading the excerpts from the majority and dissenting
opinions changed your opinion about this case? How?
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