Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 - Miranda Warning

Miranda Warning

In 1966, the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Miranda v. Arizona had created the requirement, between arrest and interrogation of virtually any criminal defendant in the United States, for what came to be called Miranda warnings. Responding to various complaints that such warnings let too many criminals go free, Congress (in provisions codified under 18 U.S.C. § 3501) -- with clear intent to reverse the effect of the court ruling—included a provision in the Act directing federal trial judges to admit statements of criminal defendants if they were made voluntarily, without regard to whether he had received the Miranda warnings.

The stated criteria for voluntary statements depended on such things as:

(1) the time between arrest and arraignment;

(2) whether the defendant knew the crime for which he had been arrested;

(3) whether he had been told that he did not have to talk to the police and that any statement could be used against him;

(4) whether the defendant knew prior to questioning that he had the right to the assistance of counsel; and,

(5) whether he actually had the assistance of counsel during questioning.

It also provided that the "presence or absence of any of" these factors "need not be conclusive on the issue of voluntariness of the confession." (As a Federal statute, it applied only to criminal proceedings either under federal laws, or in the District of Columbia.)

That provision was disallowed by a Federal appeals court decision that was not appealed, and escaped Supreme Court review until 32 years after passage, when another appeals court (the Fourth Circuit, covering states from South Carolina to Maryland) failed to follow suit and reversed one of its district courts in Dickerson v. United States. It reasoned, following a paper by University of Utah law professor Paul G. Cassell, that Miranda was not a constitutional requirement, that Congress could therefore overrule it by legislation, and that the provision had supplanted the requirement that police give Miranda warnings.

The Supreme Court then agreed to hear the case. Typically, it overrules constitutional decisions only when their doctrinal underpinnings have eroded, and the majority justices found, in 2000, both that it had intended Miranda as an interpretation of the Constitution, and that "If anything, our subsequent cases have reduced the impact of the Miranda rule on legitimate law enforcement while reaffirming the decision's core ruling that unwarned statements may not be used as evidence in the prosecution's case in chief."