In the United States, the Miranda warning is a type of notification customarily given by police to criminal suspects in police custody advising them of their right to silence and, in effect, protection from self-incrimination; that is, their right to refuse to answer questions or provide information to law enforcement or other officials. These rights are often referred to as Miranda rights. The purpose of such notification is to preserve the admissibility of their statements made during custodial interrogation in later criminal proceedings. The idea came from law professor Yale Kamisar, who subsequently was dubbed "the father of Miranda."
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution restricts prosecutors from using a person's statements made in response to interrogation in police custody as evidence at their trial unless they can show that the person was informed of the right to consult with an attorney before and during questioning, and of the right against self-incrimination before police questioning, and that the defendant not only understood these rights, but voluntarily waived them.
Ernesto Arturo Miranda was an American criminal and laborer whose conviction on kidnapping, rape, and armed robbery charges based on his confession under police interrogation was set aside in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Miranda v. Arizona, which ruled that criminal suspects must be informed of their right against self-incrimination and their right to consult with an attorney before being questioned by police. This warning is known as a Miranda warning.
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. is a leading United States civil rights organization and law firm based in New York City.
Dickerson v. United States, 530 U.S. 428 (2000), upheld the requirement that the Miranda warning be read to criminal suspects and struck down a federal statute that purported to overrule Miranda v. Arizona (1966).
The Trenton Six is the group name for six African-American defendants tried for murder of an elderly white shopkeeper in January 1948 in Trenton, New Jersey. The six young men were convicted in August 1948 by an all-white jury of the murder and sentenced to death.
Lisenba v. California, 314 U.S. 219 (1941), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court upheld the criminal conviction and death sentence imposed upon a man who confessed to murder after being detained for more than 24 hours, slapped and deprived of sleep and food. The petitioner argued that the confession was coerced, and that it violated his due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Walter Lee Irvin, a United States Army veteran of World War II, was one of the so-called Groveland Four—four young African-American men of Lake County, Florida who, in a racially charged case, were accused of raping and assaulting a white woman. Three of the young men were convicted: Irvin was sentenced to death, as was another of the defendants; the third, a minor, was sentenced to life in prison. The fourth had fled after being accused, but a few days later and 200 miles away, was found by a posse of 1,000 white men who, on July 26, 1949, shot him over 400 times while he was asleep under a tree. No one was arrested for his murder.
The Groveland Four were four African American men, Ernest Thomas, Charles Greenlee, Samuel Shepherd, and Walter Irvin. In July 1949, the four were accused of raping a white woman and severely beating her husband in Lake County, Florida. The oldest, Thomas, tried to elude capture and was killed that month. The others were put on trial. Shepard and Irvin received death sentences, and Greenlee was sentenced to life in prison. The events of the case led to serious questions about the arrests, allegedly coerced confessions and mistreatment, and the unusual sentencing following their convictions. Their incarceration was exacerbated by their systemic and unlawful treatment—including the death of Shepherd, and the near-fatal shooting of Irvin. Greenlee was paroled in 1962 and Irvin in 1968. All four were posthumously exonerated by the state of Florida in 2021.
Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U.S. 278 (1936), was a United States Supreme Court case that ruled that a defendant's involuntary confession that is extracted by the use of force on the part of law enforcement cannot be entered as evidence and violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
McNeil v. Wisconsin, 501 U.S. 171 (1991), held that the right to counsel secured by the Sixth Amendment and the right to counsel protected by Miranda v. Arizona are separate and distinct, such that invoking one does not implicitly invoke the other.
Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201 (1964), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the government from eliciting statements from the defendant about themselves after the point that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel attaches.
Colorado v. Connelly, 479 U.S. 157 (1986), was a U.S. Supreme Court case that was initiated by Francis Connelly, who insisted that his schizophrenic episode rendered him incompetent, nullifying his waiver of his Miranda rights.
Michigan v. Jackson, 475 U.S. 625 (1986), was a case decided by the United States Supreme Court regarding the Sixth Amendment's right to counsel in a police interrogation. In a decision written by Justice Stevens, the Court held that once an accused individual has claimed a right to counsel at a plea hearing or other court proceeding, a waiver of that right during later police questioning would be invalid unless the accused individual initiated the communication.
Montejo v. Louisiana, 556 U.S. 778 (2009), is a 5–4 decision by the United States Supreme Court that overruled the Court's decision in Michigan v. Jackson. The case concerned the validity of a defendant's waiver of his right to counsel during a police interrogation. In reversing Jackson, the Court said such a waiver was valid.
Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477 (1981), is a decision by the United States Supreme Court holding that once a defendant invokes his Fifth Amendment right to counsel, police must cease custodial interrogation. Re-interrogation is only permissible once defendant's counsel has been made available to him, or he himself initiates further communication, exchanges, or conversations with the police. Statements obtained in violation of this rule are a violation of a defendant's Fifth Amendment rights.
Watts v. Indiana, 338 U.S. 49 (1949), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court ruled that the use of a confession obtained through rigorous interrogation methods by Law Enforcement violates the Fourteenth Amendment.
Brewer v. Williams, 430 U.S. 387 (1977), is a decision by the United States Supreme Court that clarifies what constitutes "waiver" of the right to counsel for the purposes of the Sixth Amendment. Under Miranda v. Arizona, evidence obtained by police during interrogation of a suspect before he has been read his Miranda rights is inadmissible. Here, however, the defendant had been indicted in court and had asserted his desire to have counsel, thus his Sixth Amendment right to counsel had attached. At issue was whether a voluntary admission of incriminating facts in response to police statements made while the defendant was in custody and outside the presence of his lawyer constituted a waiver of this right to counsel.
Pitts and Lee v. Florida (1963) was a criminal case in which two African-American defendants were charged with murder. The case is remembered for its Civil Rights implications, and because it involved two death-row inmates who were later exonerated. The prosecutors deliberately tampered with evidence, and the men were sentenced to death by an all-white jury, Freddie Lee Pitts and Wilbert Lee were imprisoned for twelve years before being pardoned by then-Florida Governor Reubin Askew on September 20, 1975.
Lyons v. Oklahoma, 322 U.S. 596 (1944), was a United States Supreme Court case about the beatings and subsequent coerced confessions of William Douglas Lyons, a man convicted of a triple-murder in Oklahoma. His attorneys included Thurgood Marshall.
