Miranda vs. Arizona Ernesto Miranda was born March 19, 1941 and died January 31st, 1976. He committed his first serious crime in eighth grade, and was convicted of felony burglary. He was sentenced to one year in reform school, in his case, Arizona State Industrial School for Boys. After being released from a separate sentence from the reform school, Miranda moved to Los Angeles. While in L.A. Ernesto was arrested for lack of supervision, violating curfew and being a “peeping tom”. He was in custody for forty-five days in the county detention home. Miranda enlisted in the United States Army at the age of approximately 19 on September 03, 1946. Ernesto was a private in the Philippine Scouts branch of the Philippine Scouts during World War II. …show more content…
After two hours of interrogation by the police, Miranda wrote a complete confession, admitting to the kidnapping and rape of an eighteen-year-old girl ten days earlier. Alvin Moore was assigned to represent Miranda at his trial which began June 20th, in front of Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Yale McFate. It was pointed out that Miranda had not been informed of his Fifth Amendment right to have an attorney present during police questioning. Despite that he had not been informed of his rights, Miranda was convicted, forcing him to appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court. The charges as well as the verdict remained the same. Miranda appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in June of 1965. Criminal Defense Attorney John Flynn agreed to represent Miranda in Alvin Moore’s stead. The Supreme Court agreed that the written confession was not acceptable evidence because of Ernesto’s ignorance of his Fifth Amendment rights, and the police’s failure to inform him of them. Then state of Arizona re-tried him without the confession but with Twila Hoffman’s testimony. He was still found guilty and was sentenced to twenty to thirty years in prison, but this case set precedence for all other cases of this …show more content…
The Supreme Court ruled that due to the coercive nature of the custodial interrogation by police, no confession could be admissible under the Fifth Amendment self-incrimination Clause and Sixth Amendment right to an attorney unless a suspect has been made aware to his rights and the suspect had then waived them
The police responded to a tip that a home was being used to sell drugs. When they arrived at the home, Gant answered the door and stated that he expected the owner to return home later. The officers left and did a record check of Gant and found that his driver’s license had been suspended and there was a warrant for his arrest. The officers returned to the house later that evening and Gant wasn’t there. Gant returned shortly and was recognized by officers. He parked at the end of the driveway and exited his vehicle and was placed under arrest 10 feet from his car and was placed in the back of the squad car immediately. After Gant was secured, two officers searched his car and found a gun and a bag of cocaine.
The Case of Arizona v. Hicks took place in 1986; the case was decided in 1987. It began on April 18th 1984, with a bullet that was shot through the floor in Hick’s apartment; it had injured a man in the room below him. An investigation took place. Officers were called to the scene. They entered Mr. Hicks’ apartment and discovered three weapons and a black stocking mask.
In an article written by a Senior student they discuss a monumental moment in Mexican American history concerning equality in the South. The student’s paper revolves around the Pete Hernandez V. Texas case in which Hernandez receives a life in prison sentence by an all white jury. The essay further discusses how Mexican Americans are technically “white” americans because they do not fall into the Indian (Native American), or black categories and because of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848. The student’s paper proceeds to discuss the goals connecting the Hernandez V. Texas case which was to secure Mexican American’s right within the fourteenth amendment [1].
Elsen, Sheldon, and Arthur Rosett. “Protections for the Suspect under Miranda v. Arizona.” Columbia Law Review 67.4 (1967): 645-670. Web. 10 January 2014.
Arizona’s Constitution was written sometime in 1910; amended, ratified, and approved by Congress in 1911. Then Arizona became the 48th state and the last adjoining state to be welcomed in the Union; on February 14, 1912. Since then the citizens of Arizona has amended their Constitution many times. The Constitution consists of thirty articles. There were quite a lot of events that impacted the process of Arizona becoming its own state. The first section will examine the events that developed Arizona Constitution. The next section will summarize the powers and functions of Arizona's three branches of government. In the following section will discuss the procedures for amending this Constitution. Finally, a reflection on the amendment process for the Arizona Constitution will close this document.
This is derived from the rights Americans have to not be forced to testify against themselves in a criminal case. But, the Fifth Amendment also protects against double jeopardy and gives people charged with a felony the right to a grand jury indictment (Bohm & Haley, 2011). Double jeopardy basically states that if a conviction or acquittal was reached in a criminal case, the person can no longer be tried again for the same offense (Bohm & Haley, 2011). The procedural rights for self-incrimination are also applied to any custodial situations the police conduct. To ensure that statements, or confessions a suspect makes are allowed in court there is a two-prong tests that should be followed. First, is the person considered to be in a custodial situation and two, are the police intending to ask incriminating questions. If yes is the answers to both then the suspect must be read his or her rights. This is known as giving someone his or her Miranda rights derived from the famous case
This decision requires that unless a suspect in custody has been informed of his constitutional rights before questioning anything he says may not be introduced in a court of law.
If a seventh grade boy is interrogated by a police officer, he has the pressure to tell the truth; however if an adult was to be interrogated they would know that they have the right to remain silent. This correlates with the Miranda v. Arizona case, stating that you have the right to remain silent, and after you are told these rights anything you say can be used against you in the court of law. And because children are psychologically and socially different from adults this raises the question- if the age of a child subjected to police questioning is also relevant when determining police custody for Miranda purposes? There is no strict or absolute way in interrogating a child after a crime has been committed; nonetheless it is settled by
The Self-Incrimination Clause of the Fifth-Amendment to many American citizens and law makers is considered abstract. The complexity of this concept can easily be traced back to its beginning in which it lacked an easily identifiable principle. Since its commencement in 1789 the United States Judicial system has had a hard time interpreting and translating this vague amendment. In many cases the courts have gone out of their way to protect the freedoms of the accused. The use of three major Supreme Court disputes will show the lengths these Justices have gone through, in order to preserve the rights and civil liberties of three criminals, who were accused of heinous crimes and in some cases were supposed to face up to a lifetime in federal prison.
The Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides, "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury…nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property… nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation"(Cornell). The clauses within the Fifth Amendment outline constitutional limits on police procedure. Within them there is protection against self-incrimination, it protects defendants from having to testify if they may incriminate themselves through the testimony. A witness may plead the fifth and not answer to any questioning if they believe it can hurt them (Cornell). The Bill of Rights, which consists of the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, enumerates certain basic personal liberties. Laws passed by elected officials that infringe on these liberties are invalidated by the judiciary as unconstitutional. The Fifth Amendment was ratified in 1791; the Framers of the Fifth Amendment intended that its revisions would apply only to the actions of the federal government. After the Fourteenth was ratified, most of the Fifth Amendment's protections were made applicable to the states. Under the Incorporation Doctrine, most of the liberties set forth in the Bill of Rights were made applicable to state governments through the U.S. Supreme Court's interpretation of the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment (Burton, 2007).
Miranda v Arizona went all the way to the Supreme Court. There the Supreme Court ruled that the police do have a responsibility to inform a subject of an interrogation of their constitutional rights. The constitutional rights have to do with self-incrimination, and the right to counsel before, during and after questioning.
One of the Judicial Branch’s many powers is the power of judicial review. Judicial review allows the Supreme Court to decide whether or not the other branches of governments’ actions are constitutional or not. This power is very important because it is usually the last hope of justice for many cases. This also allows the court to overturn lower courts’ rulings. Cases like Miranda v. Arizona gave Miranda justice for having his rules as a citizen violated. The court evalutes whether any law was broken then makes their ruling. Also, the Weeks v. United States case had to be reviewed by the court because unlawful searches and siezures were conducted by officers. One of the most famous cases involving judicial review was the Plessey v. Ferguson
Arizona V. Hicks discusses the legal requirements law enforcement needs to meet to justify the search and seizure of a person’s property under the plain view doctrine. The United States Supreme Court delivered their opinion of this case in 1987, the decision is found in the United States reports, beginning on page 321, of volume 480. This basis of this case involves Hicks being indicted for robbery, after police found stolen property in Hick’s home during a non-related search of the apartment. Hicks had accidentally discharged a firearm into the apartment below him, injuring the resident of that apartment. Police responded and searched Hicks apartment to determine the identity of the shooter, recover the weapon, and to locate other victims.
Miranda v. Arizona is a very important activist decision that required police to inform criminal suspects of their rights before they could be interrogated. These rights include: the right to remain silent, that anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law, you have a right to an attorney, if you cannot afford an attorney one will be appointed to you be the court. In this case the Fifth Amendment's right that a person may not be forced to incriminate one's self was interpreted in an activist way as meaning that one must be aware of this right before on is interrogated by the police. Prior to this ruling it was common practice to force and coerce confessions from criminal suspects who did not know they had the right not to incriminate themselves.
Ernesto Miranda grew up not finishing high school. He didn’t finish the 9th grade, and he decided to drop out of school during that year. He also had a criminal record and had pronounced sexual fantasies after dropping out of high school. Ernesto Miranda was arrested in Phoenix in 1963. He had raped an 18 yr. girl who was mildly mentally handicapped in March of 1963. He was charged with rape, kidnapping, and robbery. When he was found and arrested, and he was not told of his rights before interrogation. After two hours of interrogation, the cops and detectives had a written confession from Miranda that he did do the crimes that he was acquitted for. Miranda also had a history mental instability, and had no counsel at the time of the trial. The prosecution at the trial mainly used his confession as evidence. Miranda was convicted of both counts of rape and kidnapping. He was sentenced to 20-30 years in prison. He tried to appeal to the Supreme Court in