Criminal procedure: Miranda, Duncan, RoperProcedimiento penal: Miranda, Duncan, Roper
Police arrest a suspect, place him in a patrol car and, without warnings, ask where he hid the money. He answers. At trial the answer is:
Custody plus interrogation triggers the warnings; absent a public-safety emergency, the answer is suppressed (it may still impeach him if he testifies).Custodia más interrogatorio activan las advertencias; sin una emergencia de seguridad pública, la respuesta se excluye (aunque podría usarse para impugnarlo si declara).
Miranda v. Arizona (1966); New York v. Quarles (1984)
A suspect, properly warned, says: 'I want a lawyer.' The officers keep asking questions and he confesses twenty minutes later. The confession is:
Invocation of counsel is a bright line; Edwards v. Arizona adds that police may not reinitiate.Invocar el derecho a abogado es una línea clara; Edwards v. Arizona añade que la policía no puede reiniciar.
Miranda; Edwards v. Arizona (1981)
A state tries a defendant for an offense punishable by up to eighteen months in prison and denies his request for a jury. Under Duncan and Baldwin:
Duncan made the jury right binding on the states; Baldwin fixed the petty-offense line at six months of authorized imprisonment.Duncan hizo obligatorio el jurado para los estados; Baldwin fijó la línea de las faltas menores en seis meses de prisión autorizada.
Duncan v. Louisiana (1968); Baldwin v. New York (1970)
Which right in the Bill of Rights still does not bind the states?
The grand jury and the Seventh Amendment civil jury are the notable rights never incorporated; many states charge felonies by information.El gran jurado y el jurado civil de la Séptima Enmienda son los derechos notables nunca incorporados; muchos estados acusan por information.
Hurtado v. California (1884); McDonald v. Chicago (2010)
A state seeks the death penalty for a defendant who committed murder at seventeen years and eleven months. Under Roper:
The categorical rule avoids juries being swayed by brutal facts; eighteen is the line society draws for adulthood.La regla categórica evita que los jurados se dejen llevar por hechos brutales; dieciocho es la línea que la sociedad traza para la adultez.
Roper v. Simmons (2005)
What role did foreign and international practice play in Roper?
Confirmation, not control: the United States stood alone, which the majority found instructive and Justice Scalia found irrelevant.Confirmación, no control: Estados Unidos estaba solo, lo que la mayoría consideró ilustrativo y el juez Scalia, irrelevante.
Roper v. Simmons (2005)
Before custodial interrogation, police must warn the suspect of the right to remain , that statements may be used against him, and of the right to an , appointed if he cannot afford one.
Four warnings, one waiver, and invocation stops everything.Cuatro advertencias, una renuncia, y la invocación detiene todo.
In four sentences, explain the method the Supreme Court uses to decide whether a punishment is cruel and unusual, and apply it to a state that wants to execute offenders with severe intellectual disability.
AnswerRespuesta: The Court asks whether evolving standards of decency reject the punishment, first through objective indicia (how many states allow it, how often juries impose it, the direction of change) and then through its own judgment about proportionality and the culpability of the class of offenders; foreign practice may confirm the result. Applied to the intellectually disabled, Atkins v. Virginia (2002) found a national consensus against execution and concluded that diminished culpability makes the death penalty disproportionate, so the state's plan is unconstitutional. Roper extended the same reasoning to juveniles three years later.
- evolving standards
- objective indicia: states, juries, trend
- independent judgment on culpability
- Atkins bars it
Compare the Miranda rule with the Mexican guarantees of article 20 B of the Constitution in three or four sentences.
AnswerRespuesta: Both guarantee the detainee the right to remain silent, the right to counsel from the moment of detention, and the exclusion of statements obtained in violation; article 20 B II even declares a confession without counsel worthless. The difference is origin and structure: Miranda is a judge-made rule derived from the Fifth Amendment and imposed on the states through the Fourteenth, refined case by case (waiver, invocation, public safety), while Mexico wrote the guarantees into the constitutional text in 2008 and implements them through the CNPP. In practice both systems struggle with the same problem: warnings recited mechanically to suspects who do not understand them.
- same rights: silence, counsel, exclusion
- judge-made vs. constitutional text
- case-by-case refinement vs. code