'YOU HAVE A RIGHT..' EMBEDDED IN THE SYSTEM

This past week, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Miranda vs. Arizona, a landmark ruling it had issued back in 1966 during the heyday of the Warren Court. The Miranda case is the one that gave us the warnings law-enforcement personnel are required to issue to prisoners at the time of their arrest: "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to consult with an attorney, and if you can't afford one, an attorney will be appointed for you. ..."

The court, far more liberal and activist in the 1960s than now, sought to remedy what it deemed "excessively conservative" interrogations by creating guidelines in its Miranda version. In the years since, the court has spawned a set of rulings further refining the Miranda doctrine.

A federal appeals court last year had thrown the future of these warnings in doubt, ruling that Congress in effect overturned the Miranda decision by enacting a long-ignored 1968 law known as Section 3501.

Writing for the seven-member majority, Chief Justice William Rehnquist held, "Miranda has become embedded in routine police practice to the point where warnings have become part of our national culture. ... Miranda announced a constitutional rule that Congress may not suspend legislatively. We decline to overrule Miranda ourselves."

It is noteworthy that Rehnquist wrote the opinion. Rehnquist, who was appointed in 1971 by President Richard Nixon, is part of what is frequently referred to as the court's conservative bloc.

As a result, police are still required to give the warnings made familiar to millions of Americans by movies and television or else risk getting suspects' confessions excluded as evidence against them.

At the time, many law-enforcement and conservative leaders decried a result that, as former Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes had earlier phrased it, "that the criminal might go free because the constable has blundered." Now our high court has ruled that, whether that be true or not, Miranda will stand.