Miranda v. California
486 U.S. 1038
SCOTUS
1988
Check Treatment

MIRANDA v. CALIFORNIA

No. 87-6746

Supreme Court of the United States

1988

486 U.S. 1038

over, some courts have treated more adventurous police practices, which are in no sense any part of the formal arrest or charging procedures, as the “functional equivalent” of interrogation. In

, for example, a Miranda violation was found where the police took furs allegedly stolen by the suspect and spread them out, without a word, in front of the suspect‘s cell for him to ponder. See also
, cert. denied,
. The decision below in this case is to the contrary. I would grant certiorari to consider the construction of Innis rendered by the court below and to resolve the significant disagreement on this general issue among the state and federal courts, which has led those courts both to handicap the police in pursuing some apparently legitimate law enforcement practices and to approve the use of other ploys that have nothing to do with the usual and accepted procedures for arresting and charging a suspect.

No. 87-6746.

. Sup. Ct. Cal. Certiorari denied.

JUSTICE MARSHALL, with whom JUSTICE BRENNAN joins, dissenting.

Adhering to my view that the death penalty is in all circumstances cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments,

(MARSHALL, J., dissenting), I would grant the petition for writ of certiorari. But even if I did not hold this view, I would grant the petition because it raises the question whether the State may introduce evidence of unadjudicated criminal conduct at the sentencing phase of a capital trial.

A jury convicted petitioner Adam Miranda of first-degree murder and assault with intent to commit murder. At the sentencing phase of the trial, the only evidence the State introduced to support the death penalty concerned a wholly unrelated murder. Petitioner had been charged with committing this murder, but had not been tried for or convicted of the crime. Moreover, the trial court refused to instruct the jury that it could consider the evidence of the unrelated murder in making a sentencing determination only if it found beyond a reasonable doubt that petitioner had committed the offense. The jury imposed the death sentence. I have stated twice this Term that the Court should consider the question whether the admission of evidence of unadjudicated criminal conduct at the penalty phase of a capital trial violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. See

(dissenting from denial of certiorari);
(dissenting from denial of certiorari). I have noted that this question has prompted a number of conflicting decisions nationwide. Compare
(unadjudicated-crimes evidence not admissible), cert. denied,
, and
(en banc) (same), with
(en banc) (unadjudicated-crimes evidence admissible). In addition, I have argued that the admission of unadjudicated-crimes evidence at the sentencing phase of a capital trial is difficult to reconcile with the unique constitutional concern for reliability in death sentencing proceedings. This case again demonstrates that the Court should resolve this important question.