By LEE HOWELL
Contributing Writer

All of us who have watched those gritty television police dramas like Hill Street Blues or NYPD Blue — or who are fanciers of those action-packed cops movies — are familiar with the scene where the officers of the law finally get their man (or, woman, as the case may be).

The capture is usually preceded by a high-speed car chase and often by a raging gun battle in a crowded downtown street during broad daylight (to get in those dramatic scenes of the innocent bystanders running and screaming to avoid the bullets).

Then, after the good guy with the badge has subdued the bad guy by twisting his arm behind his back before slamming him down against a waiting car hood, he begins reciting — between pants, gasps, and other attempts to catch his breath after all that exertion — those familiar words we have all heard over and over.

You know, the ones that go: “You have the right to remain silent; if you choose not to, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law; you have the right to talk to an attorney and to have him present during the questioning; if you cannot afford one, one will be provided to you.”

Now, in truth, most arrests made by law enforcement agencies across the country are not so dramatic.

Most occur at the home or workplace of the suspect being sought and the words are read off the back of a business card.

But, whenever an arrest occurs, that is supposed to be the first words the suspect hears out of the police officer's mouth.

They are called the Miranda warning — and they are guaranteed by a 1966 decision from the U. S. Supreme Court in an Arizona case.

In effect, what the ruling said was that if the police did not inform the suspect of his rights before they started questioning him, then whatever he said could not be used in court — even if he voluntarily admitted that he was guilty of whatever crime for which he was being arrested.

The requirement to use the Miranda warning has long been controversial and they are often pointed to as the first downward movement in the slide toward standing up for the criminal, rather than the victim.

Now, it is being challenged in a case out of Virginia where a man confessed to a string of bank robberies but had his testimony excluded from the trial because police did not read him his rights before they started questioning him and he spilled his guts.

The basis for the appeals court ruling which has now been accepted for hearing by the nation's top court is a rarely-used 1968 federal law which said Miranda was only one of the factors which would determine whether a confession could be used in court and did not automatically disallow it if the suspect was read his rights after giving a statement implicating himself.

At first glance, one might think that the Supreme Court was about to overturn Miranda and establish a new precedent for law enforcement officers to follow.

After all, it was led by Chief Justice Earl Warren (remember all those “Impeach Earl Warren” signs that used to dot the countryside?) and it was far more liberal than the one that is currently sitting.

Still, this court has been pretty unwilling to overturn every precedent from that era.

Even if they do modify the Miranda decision, they are unlikely to toss it out completely.

(And, even if they did, it would only apply to federal prosecutions because most states have since enacted their own laws to require the practices imposed by the Miranda decision.)

Besides, there is still that “pesky” Fifth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution which says that “No person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law.”

[Lee N. Howell is an award-winning writer who has been observing politics and society in the Southern Crescent, the state, and nation for the past 25 years.]

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