Miranda vs. Arizona (1966)

In 1963, a man named Ernesto Miranda created history when he was arrested in Phoenix, Arizona and convicted of kidnapping and rape. Miranda had signed a written confession which he later deemed to be invalid because he claimed that the police never advised him of his rights to an attorney and his right to avoid self-incrimination. Miranda thought this was unreasonable and decided to fight the legal system; thus leading to the landmark Supreme Court case if Miranda v. Arizona.

At the time, it was Chief Justice Earl Warren who ran the Supreme Court, and collectively, his court was named the Warren Court. Chief Justice Warren was known to have a strong belief that all people deserved to be treated with respect by the government. Warren argued that when suspects are being interrogated by the police, the situation is "inherently intimidating" which would therefore leads to statements that are not "the product of free choice." This means that in a situation in which there are intimidating factors (such as the police), the decisions made could therefore only be an affect of pressure to relieve oneself of the situation. The Fifth Amendment guarantees that a accused person cannot be forced "to be a witness against himself". Due to the amendment as well as Warren's argument, the Court majority found that Miranda's confession could not be used as evidence and he was acquitted from that case. Miranda was later found guilty on other evidence and was subsequently sent to jail.

The Miranda decision was very controversial. Critics, mostly conservatives, argued that the case would "protect the rights of criminals at the expense of public safety." They said that by reading the rights, it would become more difficult of the justice system to convict criminals. Over the subsequent years that followed Miranda v. Arizona, there were several cases that softened the ruling of the Miranda case, but in 2000, the Supreme Court affirmed the decisions made in the Miranda case in a 7 to 2 majority in the Dickerson v. United States Supreme Court case. Today, police officers are required to read the arrested person their Miranda rights after their arrest.