Before the Miranda case became a nationwide attention-getter, it went through the normal progression of the U.S. court system: federal district court, then the court of appeals, and finally the U.S. Supreme Court. In this case, the court of appeals was the Arizona Supreme Court. Miranda's lawyer, Alvin Moore, pushed Miranda's case to this court in the hopes of getting his confession thrown out and the conviction overturned.

The Arizona Supreme Court was therefore tackling the same issue that the U.S. Supreme Court would later—whether or not confessions could be used in court if suspects weren't told of their rights to silence and counsel. The Arizona Supreme Court's judges didn't agree that Miranda's confession should be thrown out. The judges focused on one central fact: that Miranda didn't request a lawyer when he was being questioned, and that therefore, his confession could be used as evidence.

Remember, the current Miranda Warning says that you must be told of your right to a lawyer (which is your Sixth Amendment right) before any interrogation, because (a) you might not know about that right or (b) you might be too afraid to ask for a lawyer. But all of that wasn't actually enforced consistently until the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court.