Document Type
Article
Publication Title
University of Chicago Law Review
Abstract
Few decisions of the Warren Court have attracted as much attention and controversy as its 1966 ruling in Miranda v. Arizona. Miranda relied upon the fifth amendment privilege against compulsory self-incrimination to impose limits on custodial police interrogation. The Court was vilified for "handcuffing the police" and for "favoring the criminal forces over the peace forces." Recently Miranda has become the focus of renewed debate. The Department of Justice, in a 120-page report endorsed by Attorney General Edwin Meese III, attacks the Miranda decision as an illegitimate act of judicial policy-making that the Court should now overrule. It is not inherently improper, of course, for a public official to urge legal positions different from those accepted by the Supreme Court. But in order to do so he should have some good reasons. In this case the report's objections to the legal basis for Miranda are misdirected, and its claims about Miranda's harmful effects on law enforcement prove surprisingly thin.
First Page
435
DOI
https://doi.org/10.2307/1599796
Volume
54
Publication Date
1987
Recommended Citation
Stephen J. Schulhofer,
Reconsidering Miranda,
54
University of Chicago Law Review
435
(1987).
Available at:
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-articles/1020
