One goal of the Miranda warning is to make sure that suspects' rights under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the Constitution are protected. Another goal is to make sure suspects know about their rights, and know that they can use them.
In "Miranda v. Arizona", a man named Ernesto Miranda confessed to raping and murdering a 17-year-old girl. Miranda was convicted and sent to prison. However, he and his lawyers appealed his conviction all the way to the Supreme Court. They argued that Miranda's confession should not have been used as evidence because:
The Sixth Amendment protects the right to a lawyer, but the Supreme Court had also just recently made two landmark decisions about this right. In 1963, the Court ruled in "Gideon v. Wainwright", , that anyone being tried for a crime had the right to a lawyer. If the person could not pay for a lawyer, the state had to assign them a free lawyer. The next year, the Court ruled in another landmark case called "Escobedo v. Illinois", , that anyone suspected of a crime had the right to have a lawyer with them while the police questioned them.
The Supreme Court decided the police got Miranda's confession by ignoring his rights, and they threw out Miranda's conviction. (Miranda was re-tried, and even without the confession as evidence, he was convicted again.)
The Court also ruled that police have to make sure suspects know and understand their rights before being interrogated. Specifically, police have to give a "Miranda warning" that tells suspects they have these rights:
An example of a Miranda warning often used in the United States is:
Many people from all over the world know these words from television and think of this as ""the" Miranda warning." However, there is no one version of the Miranda warning. Different people, police departments, and states use different words. The Supreme Court has said the words can change, as long as the four basic parts of the warning are there. In Simple English, they are:
There are at least 945 different versions of the Miranda warning just in English. Some versions warn non-citizens of their right to consult their nation's consulate before questioning continues. Some try to make the warning easier for juveniles or people with learning disabilities, intellectual disabilities, or mental illnesses to understand. Some may ask the suspect to confirm that he or she understands the warning. However, studies have shown that in fact, people in these groups often have even "more" trouble understanding the 'simpler' versions.
The Miranda warning has also had to be translated into many different languages. Many different police departments carry cards that show the warning in different languages. Others use translators to give the warning.
The law says the police have to give a suspect a Miranda warning before they start questioning them. If they do not, and the suspect gives a confession, that confession could later be thrown out in court. This means a court could rule that the confession cannot be used as evidence in a trial. A confession can also be thrown out if the police gave a Miranda warning, but gave it the wrong way, or did not make sure the suspect understood it. (This is discussed more in the "Problems" section.)
For Miranda rights to be an issue at a trial, six things must be true:
If these six things are true, then the prosecution has to prove that:
If the prosecution cannot prove each of these things, the confession can be thrown out.
Studies of many different versions of the Miranda warning have shown that most of them are complex. The more complex the Miranda warning is, the harder it is to understand.
For example, one study from 2008 looked at how complex the sentences were in the average Miranda warning. They found a "sentence complexity" score of 48.96 which meant the sentences were as complicated as the instructions on United States tax forms. In some of the warnings, the information about Miranda rights was more complex than a college-level accounting textbook.
Some areas have "simplified" versions of the Miranda warning. However, researchers have found that these versions are not always easier to understand. A person would need high school-level reading and language skills to understand some of them.
In a study of 560 different English versions of the Miranda warning, researchers found that a person would need 7th-grade reading skills to understand the simplest versions. To understand the most complicated Miranda warnings, a person would need a doctoral-level education (the highest level of education you can get at a university).
According to the American Psychological Association, people are so used to hearing the Miranda warning on television that they think they understand their rights. However, a 2011 study by Richard Rogers says that many people do not understand their Miranda rights, or have wrong beliefs about them. For example, Rogers found that 31% of defendants waiting for trials in Texas and Oklahoma did not understand their right to remain silent. They believed that if they did not answer questions, the court would use that as evidence of their guilt. Rogers also found that 36% of college students believed the same thing.
Other studies have shown that most juveniles (children and teenagers) "and" many adults do not understand their rights well enough to decide when to use them and when to waive them (not use them). For example, in one study, a researcher asked juveniles and adults to repeat back the Miranda warning in their own words. The researcher also asked them to define six of the most important words in the Miranda warning, like "consult," "appoint," and "attorney." Finally, the researcher tested whether they could understand different versions of the Miranda warning. He found:
No Supreme Court ruling or federal law has ever said that children must have a parent or lawyer with them while being questioned. About 12 states have chosen to add extra protections for juveniles in their states, like not letting juveniles waive their Miranda rights without a parent or guardian there. However, most states have not done this. This means that in most states, juveniles can waive their rights on their own.
A famous study done by Richard Rogers and others in 2008 looked at Miranda warnings that were meant to be simplified versions for juveniles. He found that these warnings were longer than the non-simplified versions; some had as many as 526 words. Understanding them also required "higher" reading levels and abilities than the adult versions.
Another study, done in 2013, found that 16- and 17-year-olds charged with a felony almost always waived their Miranda rights. They waived their rights 93% of the time, while adults waived their rights 80% of the time. Especially when juveniles waive their rights and agree to talk to police without a lawyer, they are much more likely to confess to something they did not actually do. Looking at people who were proven to be innocent, studies found that one-third to two-fifths of untrue confessions came from juveniles. Police got almost 7 out of every 10 of these false confessions from children ages 15 and under.
A report from the American Bar Association suggests this version of the Miranda warning for juveniles:
Translating the Miranda warning into other languages brings up special problems. There have been many cases where suspects' confessions have been challenged and thrown out in court because of problems giving the Miranda warning in other languages. For example, since 1993, there have been lawsuits about:
The Miranda warning is also difficult to translate into some languages. Not all languages have words for the same ideas as English. For example, American Sign Language has no signs for legal words like "rights."
Douglas Wilmer