How we cite our quotes: (Section.Paragraph) or (Section.Subsection.Paragraph)
Quote #1
[…] the police brutally beat, kicked, and placed lighted cigarette butts on the back of a potential witness under interrogation for the purpose of securing a statement incriminating a third party. (Opinion.I.2)
Were they really torturing someone who wasn't even the suspect—just someone they thought could ID the real perp? Where's the moral high ground in that?
Quote #2
It is not admissible to do a great right by doing a little wrong…It is not sufficient to do justice by obtaining a proper result by irregular or improper means. (Opinion.I.5).
A classic statement about the end not justifying the means. The moral and ethical thing to do is to follow the rules at all costs, otherwise we risk corrupting the justice system that exists to protect us. The greater good is in reinforcing our Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights, because it protects everyone, not just criminals.
Quote #3
In the cases before us today […] we concern ourselves primarily with this interrogation atmosphere and the evils it can bring. (Opinion.I.36)
By saying "evils" instead of say, "dangers" or "problems," they're appealing to our sense of good and bad, right and wrong; Warren is making the decision a moral issue in addition to a legal one.
Quote #4
The financial ability of the individual has no relationship to the scope of the rights involved here. The privilege against self-incrimination secured by the Constitution applies to all individuals. (Opinion.III.14)
Is it right to let some people have more protections than others just because they have more money? During deliberations, Justice Hugo Black had said, "He [an indigent defendant] is certainly not going to get treated like a man that has the money to get a lawyer," (source). That's a major moral judgment right there. Miranda levels the ethical playing field.
Quote #5
[…] the Court is taking a real risk with society's welfare in imposing its new regime on the country. The social costs of crime are too great to call the new rules anything but a hazardous experimentation. (HarlanDissent.III.6)
Observant Shmoopers will notice that the dissenting judges love to use colorful language to help make their points. Harlan calls the Miranda Warning a "new regime" as though the government is acting very authoritarian in this decision (is he right?). Harlan sees a serious ethical problem with exposing the people to criminals who might otherwise have been in jail. He's got a very different idea from the majority opinion about what's really the "greater good."