Over nearly four decades, Miranda warnings have become so culturally ingrained - from America's courtrooms to television dramas - that the timeworn declaration by police would seem to be settled and routine.
Far from it.
An Anne Arundel County judge recently threw out an alleged confession in a high-profile Annapolis killing, ruling that an eight-word query from a police officer was improper. Defense lawyers for the Washington-area sniper suspects have argued - unsuccessfully - that police illegally obtained incriminating statements.
And the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear three cases that could give police more leeway with the warnings. In one case, Missouri police, who were trained to sidestep the Miranda protections, used a two-part interrogation to obtain a confession in a murder case.
"These cases pose a great danger to Miranda," says supporter Yale Kamisar, a law professor at the University of Michigan and the University of San Diego who has been writing about confessions for 40 years. "If the court backs away, the original opinion doesn't mean anything."
The warnings, which begin "You have the right to remain silent," combine two rights aimed at preventing police abuses in questioning suspects: the constitutional rights to a lawyer and to not incriminate oneself.
The warnings are named for the landmark 1966 Supreme Court ruling Ernesto Miranda vs. Arizona, which was designed to prevent coerced confessions. In tossing out Miranda's rape conviction, the court said he was not told of his right to a lawyer. On top of his written confession was a typed paragraph stating that he knew his legal rights, but that did not show he had intelligently waived those protections, the court said.
Today, the four warnings are a staple of American culture - so ingrained that suspects in Italy and Spain, where the protections do not apply, have asked to be read their rights, says Robert McCrie, chairman of the Department of Law and Police Science at New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
The warnings have long been a target of conservative groups and others concerned about the effect on crime control. Although critics and supporters of Miranda point to studies and anecdotal evidence to back their positions, there is no definitive study about the case's effect.
"So many of us in law enforcement are going to seek to confine Miranda. And people in criminal defense want to expand Miranda," says Joshua K. Marquis, who is district attorney for Clatsop County, Ore., and a board member of the National District Attorneys Association.
