Because fidelity to the Constitution is too often a nuisance, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Dickerson v. U.S. (2000), ruled that a suspect in custody must receive the Miranda warning if his confession is to be admissible -- as a matter of constitutional law.
The Miranda checklist, the court's amendment to the Fifth Amendment, is intended to prevent police from profiting by misbehavior. Practically, it releases the nation's criminal courts from the duty to decide, from all the circumstances, if a confession is voluntary.
The Constitution requires no recitation of "Miranda" rights. But it's a done deal, and it works, so why mess with it⢠That, in sum, was the court's opinion.
" ... (T)his Court has the power, not merely to apply the Constitution but to expand it, imposing what it regards as useful 'prophylactic' restrictions upon Congress and the States. That is an immense and frightening anti-democratic power, and it does not exist," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in dissent, in which Justice Clarence Thomas joined.
In a new case, we shall see whether a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of the court's mind.
Before police could finish the Miranda checklist, the defendant, a convicted felon, said he knew his rights and told police where he kept his gun. Felons are not allowed to have guns.
The pivotal question may well be if the police had to dot every "i," as the confession was not coerced.
We also may see if the court thinks it has a wisdom that supersedes one forged from the crucible of revolution and the birth of this nation.
