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These days, the scales are tipped all the way to the right, and police and prosecutors have a headlock on the power in criminal cases. In New York, a city governed by a mayor who speaks proudly of his professional experience as a prosecutor, kids who jump subway turnstiles routinely spend the night in jail before they are arraigned. You can be tossed into a holding pen for walking next to somebody who is smoking a joint. And, as is well known by now, in certain circumstances a black man reaching for his wallet can become a target for police gunfire. The rest of the country isn't far behind New York on this score. In our zeal to fight crime, we have, as a nation, willfully forgotten about our civil rights. It's time to restore the balance.

Upholding the Miranda decision is one important way to do so. The warning gives the police pause and tells prosecutors that they aren't all powerful. Although between 80 and 90 percent of all defendants waive their Miranda rights, even when they are read, the warning tells people that they shouldn't be tricked or intimidated into making an unwise confession.

Upholding the Miranda decision may also mean that some guilty criminals will get off without serving time, as the law-and-order opponents of the decision maintain. But, of course, nobody gets off if everybody's rights are observed.

Would my experience in D.C. have been any different if my arresting officer had read me the Miranda warning? Probably not. Ramsey had decided that he wanted us off the streets and he was willing to damn the consequences; four annoying sentences weren't about to get in his way. Plus, we were never charged with a crime and were never questioned, so forced confessions were not really an issue.

Another cop I spoke with while I was in custody told me about the 1971 May Day arrests in D.C. He was a rookie on the force then, instructed to arrest anybody he found walking downtown on the day that Vietnam protesters vowed to bring the city to a halt. He and his colleagues arrested 14,000 people, hauled them off to RFK Stadium and held them for three days without charges. Miranda was in effect then, but the protesters went through the same song and dance that I did. Like me, they were pulled off the streets because the police didn't want any trouble and not because they had broken any laws. And, like me, they eventually walked away with nothing more than a deeper understanding of the system's flaws.

But they had been read their rights. They knew that they were under arrest and they knew that the arrest was wrongful. Eventually, they won a $14 million class-action lawsuit against the city. Sounds like the kind of happy ending that happens only in the movies.
salon.com | April 19, 2000

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