The Ruling > Public Reaction
"It was the end of the world as we know it if you were reading the papers...People thought it would lead to lawlessness, police would be handcuffed; we wouldn't be able to investigate crimes, we couldn't punish perpetrators. "
-Professor Ed Quevedo, Mills College on the Public Reaction following Miranda ruling (2013 Interview)
-Professor Ed Quevedo, Mills College on the Public Reaction following Miranda ruling (2013 Interview)
A Fear Sweeps the Nation
The sudden introduction of Miranda Rights sparks outrage across the nation. People begin to fear that criminals will be allowed to roam free on the streets and commit more crimes with impunity.
"A concern on the part of law enforcement officers--and an understandable concern--that whatever they say to a suspect by way of Miranda requirements might later be considered inadequate by a judge or appellate court." -Fred Inbau in "Over-reaction- The Mischief of Miranda v. Arizona" (1982) Newspaper article describing the negative impact of the Miranda v. Arizona ruling on the police's ability to obtain confessions (August 21, 1966, Credit: New York Times)
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"They were opposed to it. They felt there were a lot of confessions that had been obtained that were waiting for trial, and now they weren't going to be able to convict these criminals because that's all they had those days: a crime and a confession."
- Robert Corbin, Prosecuting Attorney in Ernesto Miranda's initial 1963 trial, on the Phoenix Police Department's immediate reaction to the ruling in Miranda v. Arizona. (Interview by Josh Blackman, 2011) "The Court is taking a real risk with society's welfare in imposing its new regime on the country. The social costs of crime are too great to call the new rules anything but a hazardous experimentation. . . ."
- Supreme Court Justice Harlan in his Dissenting Opinion, Miranda v. Arizona (1966) “The Miranda and Escobedo decisions of the high court have had the effect of seriously hamstringing the peace forces in our society and strengthening the criminal forces...[t]he balance must be shifted back.”
- Richard Nixon, "Toward Freedom from Fear" (1968) |