Cloning Miranda: Why Medical Miranda Supports the Pre-Assertion of Criminal Miranda Rights

Abstract

Courts across the country have concluded that suspects cannot assert their Miranda rights before being subjected to custodial interrogation. This reluctance to credit pre-assertions can be traced to dicta from McNeil v. Wisconsin, in which the Supreme Court noted that “[m]ost rights must be asserted when the government seeks to take the action they protect against.” This article challenges this notion by drawing an analogy between criminal suspects and patients. In 1990, Congress passed the Patient Self-Determination Act (“PSDA”), the so-called medical Miranda, which requires health care providers who accept money from Medicaid or Medicare to inform patients of their rights regarding advance directives and the refusal of medical treatment prior to admission.

The goal of the PSDA is to inform patients of their health care rights prior to admission so that they can assert those rights before pressed into an unfamiliar environment in which they face possible isolation and coercion. This article contends that the same principles that led to the passage of the PSDA support the ability of suspects to be able to pre-assert their Miranda rights when custodial interrogation is “imminent.” It also sets up a framework for determining whether a suspect properly pre-asserted his Miranda rights.

Keywords: Miranda, Right to Counsel

JEL Classification: K14, K32