At some primal level, you’re all over the Miranda rights. That is, and especially if you’re of the age demographic that was weaned on television cop dramas, you know they apply to certain police-citizen interactions, often need to be uttered at some point by enforcement agents and grant individuals who are squared off against the cops some legal rights.
As noted in one article discussing Miranda, “Most of us can recall at least the beginning of a typical Miranda warning as easily as recalling the pledge of allegiance.”
Recalling some words and fundamentally understanding their meaning and the context to which they apply equate to different things, though, right? And unless a resident of Indiana or elsewhere has personally been on the receiving end of a Miranda warning a few times, it is easily understandable that he or she might lack in-depth knowledge regarding what it really is and does.
In fact, it seems altogether unsurprising that the contours of Miranda can be a bit slippery.
Here’s one quick reason why: A person must be in custody before a Miranda warning potentially kicks in.
What exactly does that mean? Does “custody” attach when an individual feels he or she is being detained outside the police precinct and cannot freely walk away, or only following a formal arrest? Can custody be a reality when a police officer never formally utters the word, yet a person interacting with that officer feels an implied threat of coercion?
In addition to the custody prerequisite, police officers must also be interrogating an individual in order for Miranda to apply.
Once again, there is that slippery slope and base fluidity. When do questions cross over into interrogation territory? How and when would a lay person ever know?
Miranda is protective, fascinating and unquestionably complex on occasion.
That complexity renders the following advice offered in the above-cited Miranda primer important to note.
That article counsels any person who is arrested by police (and impliedly, even individuals who are being questioned prior to a formal arrest) to, “Be cooperative, be polite, provide identification, but say nothing [else] other than to request a lawyer.”