home > newsroom ACLU of Utah Concerned about the Fourth Circuit Court’s Decision on Miranda Rights February 9, 1999 On Monday, February 8, 1999, the Fourth Circuit Court in Richmond, Virginia held that "Congress overruled the 1966 Miranda decision with a 1968 law that sought to make it easier for Federal prosecutors to use confessions that are given willingly. The Justice Department has never enforced that 1968 law, and now argues that it was unconstitutional." The ACLU of Utah believes the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in the case of United States v. Dickerson is wrong and the statute it discusses is unconstitutional. The decision is also troubling to the extent, still unclear, it signals judicial participation in University of Utah Law Professor Cassell’s jihad against Miranda and other constitutional protections in the name of "victims’ rights." The Fourth Circuit proceeds on the assumption that the Miranda warnings are somehow divorced from the issue of voluntariness. Just the opposite is true -- the Miranda warnings were adopted because the Supreme Court had learned through decades of experience that it was otherwise impossible to enforce the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee against coerced confessions. The best that can be hoped for is that the decision will have little practical effect. Fortunately, Miranda has become part of the warp and woof of law enforcement. There is no credible evidence in the 33 years since Miranda that it has interfered with effective law enforcement. To the contrary, it has helped to professionalize police forces around the country. The popular notion that criminals routinely get off on Miranda technicalities has no basis in reality. Unfortunately, this decision will likely redound to the detriment of the poor and the disadvantaged. For the well-to-do, who rarely become involved in the criminal justice system and, because they travel with lawyers in tow, even more rarely are coerced to confess, nothing will change. The civil rights of the rest of us will surely suffer to the extent that law enforcement views this ruling as a license to use heavy-handed tactics (carefully administered to fall just short of coercion) to extract confessions from unrepresented suspects. The ACLU of Utah believes the government should not do its business by keeping people ignorant of their rights.

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