Explainthe holding of miranda & its significance in criminal procedure in the USA

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Request for Question Clarification by tutuzdad-ga on 16 Feb 2003 18:52 PST

Please define "holding" as it pertains to your question? Can you
rephrase this perhaps?

Regards;
tutuzdad-ga

In  Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), the Supreme Court
established general principles for determining whether confessions
given during custodial interrogations were admissible under the
Self-Incrimination Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
See: Miranda v. Arizona -
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=384&invol=436

The Court held that statements stemming from custodial interrogation
of a suspect would not be admissible in criminal proceedings unless
the police first provided four "warnings" to the suspect. That
decision led to the familiar " you have the right ..." warning that
are required to be read by law enforcement officers prior to
interrogating a suspect.

There was a widespread belief that this ruling would, in effect, tie
the hands of law enforcement officers; and in 1968 Congress enacted
the "Admissibility of Confessions" law,  18 U.S.C. §3501, which
provides, "a confession . . . shall be admissible in evidence if it is
voluntarily given". This had the effect of making “voluntariness” the
sole criteria for determining the admission of a confession.

Miranda has thus far been unsuccessfully challenged, as being
overridden by 18 U.S.C. §3501 ~ however, to date, absent the reading
of Miranda, confessions have been challenged and ruled inadmissible.

There are numerous learned discussions on Miranda:

"Punch & Jursts Weekly Newsletter"
http://www.punchjurists.com/visitors/punchltd/1999/10-18-99.html

"Handcuffing the Cops: Miranda's Harmful Effects on Law Enforcement",
National CENTER FOR POLICY ANALYSIS, August, 1998,
http://www.ncpa.org/studies/s218/s218a.html

"Supreme Court Declines To Overrule Miranda v. Arizona", Labor
Relations Information System, September, 2002
http://www.mule57.org/news/News_Archives/MULE%20-%20Miranda.htm

And FindLaw ... http://www.findlaw.com ... has an interesting
selection of significant cases citing Miranda at:
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/casesearch.pl?court=us&CiRestriction=384+u.s.+436&


Search terms used:

  -- Miranda
  -- Miranda v. Arizona
  -- significance  Miranda
  -- challenges Miranda

Hope this helps,
Serenata