Regarding Miranda: I think it was a bad decision with horrible consequences.
I want to talk about the consequences sometime, which I am ignorant of except of course insofar as I can generate in my head sort of cartoons of pros and cons. (Not now, though.)
It's one of those POV things, considered theoretically (and putting aside how it has worked out in detail, in practical terms, which you know about and I don't):
There are moments, cases, instances, when Miranda seems patently socially destructive, an aberration, almost insane, almost an example of the classic turning of the Bill of Rights into a suicide pact.
There are other moments when the contemplation of the unlikeliness of an entity such as Miranda coming to exist in criminal law (and the contemplation of the reasons it was made law) makes me wildly proud to be an American. I can get tears in my eyes from hearing it on a cop show, its existence so amazes me.
All of the consequences weren't known when it was passed, of course. I would like to know more about that. |
