Jamie Payne Ms. Davenport March 2, 2010 G Period Miranda v. Arizona (1966) Ernesto Miranda had been living a somewhat poverish life in Phoenix,Arizona in the year of 1963. A woman had been kidnapped and raped. After she reported to the police, there had been a line up and she was able to identify Mr. Miranda. He was therefore arrested, charged with the two horrendous crimes, and questioned by police for an estimate of two hours. The officers who had been questioning Miranda had failed to inform him of his 5thamendment right which had protected him against self incrimination. During his interrogation, Miranda had written his confession to kidnapping and raping the young woman. His statement had also said he was aware of his rights so of course during his trial the prosecution had used his confession to get a conviction and put him away for 20 to 30 years for each count. Ernesto had appealed his case to the Arizona Supreme Court. Heand his attorney had argued that his confession was far from valid seeing as he had not been informed of his rights and that he hadn’t had an attorney present during his questioning. The officers who questioned him had openly admitted that they did not explain Ernesto Miranda’s rights to him at any time from his arrest to his interrogation. The state had given a good argument in that Miranda had been convicted of crime in his past years so that he clearly knew his rights. Because of this the Supreme Court of Arizona had denied the appeal to Ernesto and his conviction was not dropped. Before seeing the ruling of this case I had hoped that Ernesto Miranda would not be released from prison because of the violation of his Fifth Amendment right because he was clearly guilty. Not only did the woman he had taken advantage of identify him in the lineup, but the fact that he had been previously arrested simply gave it away he understood his rights even though he had not been informed of them at the time of the most recent arrest. Therefore these two pieces of evidence and his confession had made his whole idea to attempt to appeal a complete joke since he was clearly guilty. I feel like the Fifth Amendment is definitely necessary because there are some innocent people who could easily be intimidated into confessing to a crime they did not commit. While this is not a real life example it’s something the class could somewhat relate to or at least understand since we’ve been reading Frankenstein by Mary Shelly. Poor Justine had been pressured by those interrogating her to falsely confess to murdering poor little William. Had she been entitled to the right against self incrimination, she could have said I plead the fifth and it would have been dropped. This amendment also helps undercover FBI agents to keep from blowing their cover while on a job. For example if an undercover agent pretended to be dating a suspect, and she was called to the stand during his trial, if the question what is your full name had been asked the agent could plead the fifth because if she said her alias, she would be committing perjury. However, in this specific case, I feel like upholding the Fifth Amendmentwould have helped a guilty man get away. He had known his rights and had wanted to use the clumsiness of the cops to manipulate the system and get away with what he had done. Looking at this case he had no reason to plead the fifth especially since the fact he had previously been arrested showed what a farce the fact that he hadn’t known his rights was. Chances are if he had been released he would have gone out and committed his crimes again in some kind of revenge and way to release his anger against the woman who had identified him. The whole intention of the Fifth Amendment in my opinion is to keep police from getting false confessions from those whom they expect to have committed the crimes one had been accused of. This amendment could be used for both good and bad. Not only does it help to keep innocent people from being intimidated into making false confessions and keeps the identities of undercover FBI agents concealed, but it also assists guilty persons to attempt to walk away having tricked the jurors and judge into believing in his or her innocence. n. pag. Web. 2 Mar 2010. http://www.landmarkcases.org/miranda/background2.html. {draw:frame} “I didn’t know my rights.” Ernesto Miranda was a very manipulative man who had tried to get away with kidnapping and raping a young woman who had lived in the same city as him.