U.S. SUPREME COURT TO REVIEW MIRANDA WARNING

"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you."

Countless Americans are familiar with these words, usually from popular cop-and-robbers television shows and movies. They are known in legal and law-enforcement circles as the Miranda warning from the 1966 case bearing that name.

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear an important case that will update our law on the famous case of Miranda v. Arizona. Earlier this year, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a defendant's confession that was otherwise voluntary wouldn't be thrown out because the accused didn't receive a proper Miranda warning. In effect, the court wasn't overturning Miranda. Far from it, It was merely saying that whether a proper Miranda warning was given is just one test for the court to include in determining whether the confession was voluntary.

That ruling would let prosecutors use incriminating statements that Charles Dickerson of Maryland made to FBI agents even though he may not have received a proper Miranda warning. Dickerson was charged with seven bank robberies in two states.

At issue before the High Court will be an obscure 1968 law Congress enacted known as Section 3501. This law, on the books but largely ignored, says that "the presence or absence" of any factor such as a Miranda warning "need not be conclusive on the issue of voluntariness." In giving new life to Section 3501, the appeals court was saying that failure to give Miranda warnings is just one of several factors in deciding whether statements to police were made voluntarily. This was the U.S. Congress, speaking in a self-conscious response to the court a scant two years after the Miranda decision came down.

Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, phrased the issue this way: "If a suspected bank robber in police custody makes an incriminating statement that a judge finds he made voluntarily, should the jury be allowed to hear that statement at the suspect's trial? The answer ought to be obvious. Why would anyone (other than the bank robber) want to hide such important evidence from the jury?"

A leading Supreme Court justice who sat years before Miranda was decided once mused aloud in an opinion on what he regarded as an absurdity. "Shall the criminal go free," he asked, "because the constable has blundered?" For him the answer was clearly no, but since Miranda, this hasn't always been clear. The Dickerson case presents an opportunity for the High Court to restore some balance to Miranda jurisprudence, admitting truly voluntary confessions while preserving prisoners' rights and doing nothing to harm them. We hope the appellate court's sensible approach will be followed by the supreme court.