Presented only with irreconcilable options and unable in our legal tradition to suggest a third approach, the court was forced to choose between stark positions. It sided with the liberal one. Lost in the confrontation are all kinds of reasonable alternatives. There might well be other ways to have fewer criminals walk because someone did not read them their rights at the right moment in the right way, while still preventing the police from forcing suspects to incriminate themselves. But we are unlikely to see such ideas in the prevailing confrontational culture.
Most state laws ban the disclosure of mental patients' records to protect their privacy.
But a study of recent serial killings and shootings at workplaces found that about half were committed by people who had been previously institutionalized and who had exhibited violent tendencies. Hence, public authorities requested that the databank include mental patients' records. An intermediate position on this issue would allow the names of mental patients to be included in the databank without attaching their records or even an indication as to why their names are there. In response, the cameras were lowered so that they now capture only offenders' license plates, rather than who is smooching with whom in the front seat. It still is possible in this way to identify the offending cars, although identifying the driver becomes considerably more difficult in the new setup.