No doing 50 in a 35 MPH zone; no staying out after 1 AM; no texting while driving; no bribing your senator to lower the legal drinking age; no printing your own money.
Laws are a pain, right?
Not really, you anarchist.
Most laws exist to keep us safe and protect the social order from spiraling into chaos. Speed limits are meant to keep people from dying in car crashes. Texting while driving is…well, you know. The right to a lawyer is meant to protect suspects from being hurt or pressured by their interrogators. And the right to remain silent is meant to protect us from the police putting words in our mouths.
The Warren Court was aware that, in many places across the country, the police were bad, very very bad—coercing confessions, pressuring and threatening suspects, and in some cases physically torturing people who they were supposed to be just questioning. There were laws about that, natch, but in the isolation of the interrogation room, anything could (and did) happen. The new Miranda rule was supposed to prevent that kind of stuff from happening, even if it seemed like just another burdensome rule for the police.
Questions About Law and Order
- Is it okay to bend (or even break) the Miranda rules in order to make sure an obviously guilty criminal goes to jail?
- How did Warren and Harlan differ in their thoughts about what the Miranda rule would to do "order" in society?
- What did the Court think would happen without rules like the Miranda Warning?
Chew on This
The police should have a set of rules for doing their job, in order to protect against corruption and unfair practices.
It's okay for the police to sometimes break the rules, because their job requires them to do whatever it takes to catch the bad guys.