The Miranda decision has several lessons for the capacity of judicial decisions to usher in social change. What accounts for the fact that Miranda has not been proven more effective in protecting the rights of suspects? Your textbook lists and explains several of these; select three and summarize them.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Self-interest. The Miranda rule is counter to the self-interest of the police. The job of the police is to solve crimes, and they will find ways to get around a rule that interferes with the accomplishment of their main goal.
Scope. The courts cannot supervise every interrogation that is undertaken throughout the United States. There simply are too many arrests, too many defendants, and too many interrogations and confessions. Only a small number of jurisdictions tape interrogations, making it difficult to determine precisely what transpired.
Counter-strategy. The past 40 years have demonstrated that the Miranda decision failed to anticipate the various strategies developed by the police to minimize the impact of the decision.
Psychology. The Supreme Court relied on suspects to invoke the Miranda rights. Most suspects are too intimidated and scared to invoke their Miranda rights or do not understand the Miranda rights.
Feedback. The Supreme Court has decided a number of cases that have weakened defendants’ protections under Miranda. For example, a confession that is inadmissible in evidence may be used to cross-examine a suspect who takes the stand at trial in his or her own defense (Harris v. New York, 401 U.S. 222 [1971]). The Court also has provided the police with significant flexibility on the required reading of the Miranda rights (Florida v. Powell, 559 U.S. 50 [2010]).
Expertise. An understanding of the interrogation process by Supreme Court justices may have given them a better appreciation of the limitations of Miranda in protecting defendants’ right against self-incrimination.