How Have Miranda Rights Hurt Law Enforcement?

        The Miranda Law has enhanced the efficacy of U.S. law enforcement, not hindered it.
In 1963, Mexican Iimmigrant Ernesto Arturo Miranda was accused of raping a mildly retarded teen. At the time, some police read suspects a very vague statement telling them they could remain silent until their attorney  was present. But Miranda was not told this when he was interrogated for two hours, and he eventually confessed under presssure.


        Professionalized interrogation procedures serve two purposes: minimize abuses by officers, and advance law enforcement's credibility by helping interrogators obtain trustworthy and (more inmportant) court-admissible confessions.


        Miranda's court-appointed lawyer argued that his constitutional rights were denid by a forced, unwitnessed confession, specifically the Sixth Amendment's right to counsel and the Fourteenth's due-process voluntariness test.


This became the center of a legal controversy that tore apart the Supreme Court, resulting in a re-delineation of the Sixth Amendment's right-to-counsel intent. But eventually, the justices decided the backbone of the Miranda case involved the Fifth Amendment: the right to free expression. Miranda's confesson was ruled inadmissible and the conviction appealed (later to be reinstated after another trial). From then on, when a suspect confessed, the case was not necessarily closed.
The Miranda Law protects both suspects and law enforcement, and is a tenent of free societies all over the world now.


        The text officer must read to suspects (in the suspect's own language) is:
"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to the presence of an attorney to assist you prior to questioning and to be with you during questioning if you so desired.  If you cannot afford an attorney, you have the right to have an attorney appointed for you prior to questioning. Do you understand these rights?

The Miranda rights make the law enforcers advice suspects of their privilege to remain silent and be represented by an attorney during interrogation. The suspects are also informed that anything that they say could be used against them in the court of law. The Ryan Harris case, where an 11 year old girl was accused of molestation and murder by two seven and eight year old children should how police would flout the rules smartly and use coercive tactics to take information from the children. Eventually it was found out that a 29 year old was the murderer.

The only plausible condition that could rule out the possibility of the children to commit murder was that semen traces were found in the victim's body. It is necessary to ask for reform of police interrogation tactics. The Harris case is testimony to how vulnerable minds and young people can be coerced into confessing to a crime they had not committed.  It is better still if confessions are video-taped or recorded.