This research paper discusses the political, social and cultural dynamics of the decision by the United States Supreme Court in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966). Its thesis is that the Miranda holding was in the field of criminal procedure the most politically controversial and socially divisive decision in the history of the Supreme Court. The decision itself represented the high watermark in efforts by the Earl Warren Court (1954-1969) to afford criminal defendants in federal and state courts enhanced federal constitutional procedural protections. By requiring police for the first time to give such defendants in police custody certain warnings and advice concerning their constitutional rights (the Miranda Warnings), the Court reflected to some extent the dominant political culture of the early and mid-1960s. However, by the time Miranda was decided public opinion was already beginning to swing toward more effective control of crime and counter to the views of the narrow (five to four) majority on the Court in favor of the Miranda Warnings. Miranda produced a significant conservative political and popular backlash against the Court which itself under Chief Justices Warren Burger in the 1970s and 1980s and William Rehnquist after 1987 took on an increasingly more conservative hue and issued a series of rulings which restricted the scope and significance of the Miranda Warnings. The Rehnquist Court in 2000 refused to overrule Miranda, which by that time had become less of a polarizing issue; however, its continued survival remains in doubt if the Court should turn further to the right.
Warren Court and Political Culture of the 1960s
According to Lasser (1988), 1961-1966 was "a five-year period during which the Court virtually restructured American criminal procedure" (p. 189). Walker (1986, Spring) said that "controls over police behavior began to emerge in the late 1950s and early 1960s, spurred primarily by the civi...