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Miranda Vs Arizona Essay

Decent Essays

There have been many Supreme Court decisions that have greatly influenced our judicial system and the way the law is upheld. Today we’re going to talk about one of these cases, called Miranda vs. Arizona. In this case, in 1963, a man named Ernesto Miranda was tried in Phoenix, Arizona for kidnapping, rape, and robbery. He was found guilty by the jury. He was sentenced to 20 to 30 years in prison. But he was found guilty only on the basis of the confessions he made to police during an interrogation after his arrest. So Miranda made an appeal to the Supreme Court of Arizona because he said his confessions were unconstitutional. But the Arizona Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s decision. Then Miranda made another appeal, but to a higher court, the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1966, the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed Miranda’s appeal. It ruled that in the police interrogation of Miranda, the police did not follow the Fifth and Sixth Amendments of the Constitution. The Fifth Amendment says that a criminal suspect has the right not to incriminate himself, or “to be a witness against himself”. The Sixth Amendment says that a criminal defendant has the right to an attorney. Before Miranda’s interrogation, the police did not inform him of these rights. Miranda had no attorney during the interrogation. So Miranda’s conviction was reversed by the …show more content…

These rights are the right for the suspect to be silent, and the right to an attorney during interrogations. These rights are still required to be read to criminal suspects to this day, to make sure that the Fifth and Sixth Amendments are followed. The U.S. Supreme Court made the Miranda Rights because there were many incidents of police violence to get confessions, which could lead to many false confessions. Also, with an attorney, suspects would no longer be afraid to tell their

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