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Miranda
The Fifth Amendment commands that no person “shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” By this creed the Miranda rights when invoked, protects the suspect from relaying information to law enforcement which can used in a court of law against him. Even though the Miranda rights now occupy a pivotal place in American legal culture, it is still evolving and the Courts have continued to define its scope, strength and limitations since the initial ruling in 1966.
Within the fact pattern given in Appendix I there are several incident components. The basic outline describes police Officer Watson responding to a burglary in progress call at 2:00 a.m., witnessing a person in dark clothing fleeing the reported scene of the crime. Pursuit first by car and then on foot ensues, with the suspect even climbing a fence in his effort to get away from the officer. A metal object is discarded prior to when Officer Watson catches the suspect. Officer Watson asks about the discarded object, and then finds the knife and some jewelry. He places the suspect under arrest then continued to ask the suspect questions about the knife and jewelry. The suspect remains silent and Officer Watson takes him back to the station for further interrogation. There the suspect confessed to the burglary under questioning.
Ideally the Miranda rights should be read to the suspect after he or she has officially been taken into custody, but prior to any questioning or interrogation. The officer must inform the person of his or her right to remain silent and to have an attorney present during questioning as given in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966). It is the officer’s duty to ensure that the suspect fully understands his rights – and if not to provide the necessary means for the suspect to do so. A person is considered to be "in custody" anytime they are placed in an environment in which they do not believe they are free to leave. In the fact pattern the Miranda warnings should have been stated to the suspect as he was arrested and placed in the police vehicle.
In the fact pattern, the validity of questioning the suspect prior to his arrest regarding the discarding of the metal object (weapon) easily falls under the public safety exception established in New York v. Quarles, 467 U.S. 649 (1984), which states that a police officer can question a suspect without giving Miranda if the interrogation is necessary to help save a life, prevent serious injury, neutralize a substantial threat to property or discover the location of a deadly weapon in of a weapon in the vicinity easily. As noted, Miranda’s “public safety” exception covers only those questions that are reasonably necessary to eliminate the threat. In the words of the Court of Appeal, “[The officer’s inquiry] must be narrowly tailored to prevent potential harm.” For example, officers who are about to pat search a suspect could freely ask if he had any sharp objects in his possession or “anything that could hurt me.” But they could not ask general or investigatory questions, such as “What’s in your pockets?” “Why are you carrying this gun?” “Why did you shoot that guy?.” In this case the suspect abandoned the weapon and jewelry in a public place where the evidence is covered by two separate doctrines – The “inevitable discovery rule” and the “abandoned property rule” so the evidence would still be admissible in a court of law.
In addition to this, tangible evidence obtained as the result of un-Mirandized statements (such as the proceeds from a theft) can generally still be used against a suspect in a court of law even if the suspects own confession is thrown out. In this case probable cause had been established when the suspect decided to flee the scene of the crime and tried to elude the police officer. Further identification of the jewelry in question by its rightful owner would provide additional evidence against the suspect.
There are three main scenarios where the Miranda rights may not have been necessary –
(1) If the police officer had happened on the suspect while he was still at the scene of the crime and saw the suspect with his own eyes taking the jewelry in the act of the crime, then suspect would have been “caught in the act,” and could not further incriminate himself by his own words, since he had already done so by his actions.
(2) Also if the officer did not have any intention of questioning the suspect, he could be arrested without having Miranda rights read to him, if there were sufficient other tangible evidence against him for an indictment without direct questioning. Since Miranda rights only applies to custodial interrogations and does not protect detainees from standard booking questions: name, date of birth, address, and other identification questions the officers would be acting within their legal jurisdiction. If the suspect was interrogated at the stationhouse without his Miranda rights being explained to him, then the officers would violate his Fifth Amendment rights.
(3) If these proceedings were to be tried under court-martial law then Miranda would not apply, since civil laws do not apply to military jurisdiction.
The silence of the suspect prior to his arrest could possibly be used against him in a court of law as it could be introduced as unwillingness to co-operate because of certainty of guilt, however silence after the Miranda rights have been invoked cannot be used against a suspect in a court of law as given by Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610 (1976), where “Post-arrest silence following such warnings is insolubly ambiguous; moreover, it would be fundamentally unfair to allow an arrestee's silence to be used to impeach an explanation subsequently given at trial after he had been impliedly assured, by the Miranda warnings, that silence would carry no penalty. Pp. 616-620.” As much as it seems complicated to apply the specific Miranda application and Amendment jurisdictions for each individual case – one issue remains constant - Miranda rights have become a permanent part of the American legal system and are applicable in any arrest scenario where a suspect is expected to give information other than basic identification.

References
Del Carmen, R. V. (2004). Criminal procedures: Law and practice (6th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning
Findlaw.com (2007). Miranda v. Arizona. Retrieved , November 29, 2007, from http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment05/09.html#1

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