Iowa Criminal Lawyer: is Miranda overrated?

Potential clients calling Iowa criminal lawyers are without blame if they wonder why they didn’t have their rights read to them. Since 1966, televisions dutifully recite the warning at the end of every crime drama to denote an arrest.

So clients and potential clients alike are to be forgiven when they ask whether the absence of the Miranda warning invalidates an arrest, or, more colloquially, “can I get my case dismissed because of this technicality?” Miranda is a little bit of a one-trick pony, however, and it does nothing—on its own—to dismiss prosecutions. Let’s dive in.

The unsung hero of the Miranda decision was Alvin Moore, a court appointed attorney who, during representation of Ernesto Miranda, “preserved error” by objecting on the spot during the trial to a prosecution “offer” of Miranda’s verbal and written confession. The Court admitted into evidence the confession over Moore’s objection thus setting the stage for a famous United States Supreme Court case that would forever change television crime dramas—just not necessarily how you think it did.

The Supreme Court should have named the Miranda case the Alvin Moore case. Had Alvin Moore not had the foresight to object to the prosecution offer of Ernesto’s confession, there would have been no US Supreme Court case at all. “Preserving error” means moving the court or objecting to the introduction of evidence and obtaining an adverse ruling to an objection or motion. Once the Court rules on the objection or motion, it is “locked in,” so to speak, to an appeal point for the Defendant. The introduction of evidence or procedure that damages a defendant’s case during the course of a trial without such an objection “waives” it. So kudos to Alvin Moore, a champion among court appointed counsel who suffer the undeserved reputation of substandard indigent representation every day, also a misleading television crime drama trope.

Miranda was, alas, a bit of a hollow victory. It doesn’t require dismissal in all cases in which officers fail to read a list of magic words. It doesn’t even require suppression, or, exclusion at trial, of all confessions that result from so-called “un-Mirandized” interrogations in the absence of the now-familiar warning.

It requires only that officers read to a suspect in custody a general warning that their words can be used against them and they are entitled to an attorney before questioning if they so desire. The phrase “in custody” is key. Custody means what the judge thinks it means but, generally speaking, is defined roughly as objectively unfree to leave. There are many places suspects feel subjectively unfree to leave but it matters most whether the law views them so. For example, at the roadside during a traffic stop is generally not considered custodial although it may evolve into custody.

Even if officers violate the cardinal rule that suspects in custody must receive the warning prior to interrogation, dismissal is sadly not the remedy. Exclusion of un-Mirandized custodial interrogation responses is the consolation prize. It is true that this can unravel a case if police derive evidence from that un-Mirandized custodial interrogation—called “fruit of the poisonous tree,” but the prosecution will go to great lengths that they obtained that evidence through other means—that the confession was sufficiently attenuated from obtaining further evidence or that it was inevitable they would have obtained it anyway.

If you have appeared in an Iowa court on a criminal prosecution, contact us for a free initial consultation.