Amplification of Miranda

Of all the Supreme Court decisions that have come under withering attack in recent years, one of those that angered the court's critics most was Miranda v. Arizona. In that case, three years ago, the court reversed the kidnap-rape conviction of a man named Ernesto Miranda, who had not been advised of his constitutional rights before he confessed at a Phoenix police station. A 5-to-4 majority of the Justices declared that any criminal suspect is at an enormous disadvantage in the inherently coercive atmosphere of a station house unless fully informed of his rights.

Risking further criticism last week, the court amplified its earlier decision by ruling that Miranda should not be interpreted to cover only station-house interrogations. This time, a 6-to-2 majority of the Justices* threw out the murder conviction of a man named Reyes Arias Orozco, who had been questioned not at the station house but in his own bedroom. Writing for the majority, Justice Hugo Black denied that he was broadening the restrictions imposed by Miranda "to the slightest extent." Instead, Black cited a sentence from the earlier decision requiring that a person be warned of all his rights whenever he is "in custody at the station or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any way."

Incriminating Statements. Orozco was accused of shooting down another man after a quarrel outside a Dallas bar back in 1966. He later returned to his boardinghouse and went to sleep. At about 4 a.m., four policemen burst into the room and began to question him. Orozco not only admitted that he had been at the scene of the shooting but also confessed to owning a gun that proved to be the murder weapon. At Orozco's trial, one of the arresting officers was permitted to testify to these incriminating statements.

Black noted that from the moment Orozco gave the officers his name, according to their testimony, he "was not free to go where he pleased but was under arrest." The police had thus acted improperly, said Black. They had not advised him--as required by Miranda--of his right to remain silent, to have the advice of a lawyer before making any statement and to have a lawyer appointed for him if he could not afford one.

In his dissent, Justice Byron White protested that the ruling carries Miranda to "new and unwarranted extremes." He argued that the previous decision emphasized interrogations in the station house because the "isolation and unfamiliar surroundings" there created special pressures for the accused. Orozco's bedroom, White insisted, could hardly be considered unfamiliar to him. Moreover, the majority had made no effort to demonstrate that any of the psychological pressures in Miranda were present in Orozco's case.

One thing that the new decision will do is to discourage police from trying to avoid the Miranda warnings, as some have done, by interrogating suspects on the street or in the patrol car before reaching the station house. Now, they must give the warnings wherever they question a man who is in custody. A number of constitutional lawyers were already convinced that Miranda was meant to cover all "in custody" situations --and that the court would eventually make this clear. Conceding that the latest ruling is perfectly consistent with the court's previous holdings, Justice John Marshall Harlan, who dissented in Miranda, joined the majority last week, even while affirming that "the passage of time has not made the Miranda case any more palatable to me."

* Justice Abe Fortas did not take part in the decision because of illness.

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