NCJ Number
182000
Journal
ABA Journal Volume: 86 Dated: March 2000 Pages: 44-47
Date Published
2000
Length
4 pages
Annotation
This article focuses on the efforts of Paul Cassell, a professor at the University of Utah College of Law, to use 18 U.S.C., section 3501 to challenge the strict requirements for Miranda rights in interrogating criminal suspects.
Abstract
The law, known as 3501, has gone virtually unused by Federal prosecutors since its inception. This is surprising, given that it spares voluntary confessions from being thrown out on technical violations of the Miranda rules. Critics say this is because successive administrations have believed the law to be unconstitutional. Cassell disagrees with this analysis and says the right cases have come along and fizzled; however, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals based in Richmond, Va., accepted Cassell's arguments, as had the 10th Circuit in 1975, and ruled that section 3501 is constitutional. The defendant, Charles Dickerson, appealed the case, and the Supreme Court agreed to take it, after which the Federal Government joined with Dickerson. Yale Kamisar, the University of Michigan law professor whose writings in 1965 brought him the unofficial title of "Father of Miranda," often duels with Cassell in both live debate and written articles. In an upcoming article in the "Cornell Law Review," Kamisar writes that 3501 was a congressional slap at the Supreme Court by a group of law-and-order legislators trying to appear they were doing something to combat the social upheaval of 1968.