The Law: Catching Up with Miranda

The Supreme Court’s famous Miranda decision last June wrought vast changes in police procedure with its ruling that every defendant must be told of his post-arrest rights to remain silent and to have a lawyer present at his interrogation. But what of the principal defendant whose conviction the Court overturned?

Last week Ernesto Miranda was tried again in Arizona on the charge that he had kidnaped and raped an 18-year-old girl. His confession could not be used in evidence, since it had been thrown out by the Supreme Court. Neither could the identification testimony of the victim, since she admitted that she knew he had confessed when she fingered him. But there was still plenty of evidence left—the most damaging being the testimony of Miranda’s common-law wife. “When I visited him in jail,” she said, “he admitted to me that he had kidnaped the girl and roped her up, then took her into the desert and raped her.” The jury convicted the 26-year-old former truck driver after an hour and 23 minutes of deliberation. He is still to be sentenced; last time he got 20 to 30 years.

Miranda’s name became the shorthand title of last year’s decision because his case chanced to be first on a list of four that the Supreme Court considered together. But the other three defendants seem to be little better off than their more famous compatriot. One, Roy Allen Stewart, will be retried in Los Angeles on murder-robbery charges later this month. In New York City, Stick-up-Man Michael Vignera has already pleaded guilty to a lesser robbery charge, and is now doing 7½ to 10 years in Sing Sing; the first time his sentence was 30 to 60 years. And in Sacramento, Calif., Bank Robber Carl Calvin Westover was found guilty again and sentenced last week to a 30-year term, just as he had been before.

While Miranda does not seem to have helped Miranda and his mates, it did free a confessed murderer in Brooklyn last week. Factory Worker José Suarez, 22, told police last April that he stabbed to death his common-law wife and her five children. But he had not been advised of his right to silence, and last week Justice Michael Kern was forced to turn him loose. Said Kern with unusual rancor: “Even an animal such as this one—and I believe this is insulting the animal kingdom—must be protected with all legal safeguards. It is repulsive to let a thing like this out on the streets.”