Crime

EVALUATING MIRANDA

 It has been more than 30 years since the Supreme Court issued its landmark Miranda decision -- which required police officers to read suspected criminals their legal rights.  A new study, to be published in the February issue of the Stanford Law Review, argues that the Miranda ruling often thwarts the efforts of police officers to solve crimes -- even violent ones.

In the study, law professor Paul Cassell and economist Richard Fowles, both of the University of Utah, examine changes in crime "clearance" rates after Miranda. A crime is counted as cleared when police consider it solved -- even if there is no conviction.

  • They found that Miranda cut the clearance rate for violent crimes by 6.7 percentage points and for property crimes by 2.3 points.

  • Although the reductions may sound small, they translate into tens of thousands of unsolved crimes each year, the authors report.

  • The drop is primarily due to a decline in confessions -- with almost half of suspects in Pittsburgh, for example, confessing to crimes pre-Miranda, compared to only about one-third in the two years after Miranda.
A little-noted federal law is coming into play and a battle is being waged over it in federal courts.  In 1968, Congress passed a law that, in effect, overruled Miranda for federal crimes, letting prosecutors introduce any voluntary confession into court -- whether or not the police followed Miranda.  Language in the Miranda ruling gave Congress the green light to pass the legislation.  After languishing for years, the law has recently been employed by federal prosecutors.  But, curiously enough, the Justice Department has put a stop to their efforts.

Source: David A. Price, "Critics Gunning for Miranda," Investor's Business Daily, December 23, 1997.

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