Miranda V. Arizona Case Analysis

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The Court ruled in the case of Miranda v. Arizona that interrogations are in inherently stressful and pressure the defendant to cooperate based on a lack of knowledge regarding their specific rights during questioning. Because of this finding they concluded officers have a duty to advise the defendant of their rights through the Miranda warning. The requirement is only required when the suspect is in custody and subject to interrogation [7].” The Court focused on the two conditions triggering the need for the Miranda warning because of the impermissibly high risk of coerced confessions [13]. The very nature of in which defendants are questioned alone by law enforcement officers trained in using tactics to “persuade, trick, or cajole [the defendant] out of exercising [her] constitutional rights.” The common practice of “isolating suspects and depriving them of outside support” was adopted by the court to define “custody.”
The court went onto further defining custody by asking the following questions: “[W]ould a reasonable person have felt he or she was not at liberty to terminate the interrogation and leave [?], [14].” The reviewing court must take into account the relevant circumstances to objectively determine whether there was “formal arrest or restraint on freedom of movement of the degree associated with a formal arrest [15].” Relevant factors include the location of questioning, the length of the interrogation, the accusatory tone of officers, the use of subterfuge to induce a suspect to speak, the presence or absence of physical restraints on a suspect’s movement, the ability of the suspect to leave at the end [16] and the age of the suspect in some circumstances [17].
The Court's restriction requiring the administer...

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...red since the setting was non-custodial [22]. The court further reasoned that all police interrogations by their very nature involve some amount of coercive pressure. This coercive pressure becomes a constitutional problem requiring the Miranda warning “when a reasonable person would not feel free to leave [23].” They further concluded; “officers do not have to cease questioning after a request for an attorney or to remain silent in a noncustodial interrogation because suspects can decide to leave when they no longer feel like speaking with the officers [24].” Meaning when a defendant is reasonably sure they are free to leave of their own free will or the interrogation occurs in a non-custodial setting the Miranda warning is not required and all statements, positive admissions and confessions are legally admissible as evidence of their guilt in a court of law.

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