The Impact of Miranda Revisited
72 Pages Posted: 19 May 2008
Abstract
The second of a two-part series, this article analyzes the long-term impact of the Court's ruling in Miranda v. Arizona on the behavior, attitudes, and culture of American police interrogators. The study is based on nine months of observation in an urban police department involving 122 interrogations and 45 detectives. It also relies on 60 videotaped custodial interrogations from two additional police departments. The article reviews the history and evolution of judicial attempts to regulate police interrogation methods through the constitutional law of criminal procedure. The author evaluates the desirability of Miranda as public policy and argues for the adoption of a constitutional rule that requires videotaping of custodial interrogations in all felony cases. Recording interrogations will provide greater credibility and legitimacy to police work, improve the quality of interrogation practices, and preserve the details of the interrogation for future review.
Keywords: Criminal procedure, Miranda, law enforcement, interrogation techniques, empirical legal research
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