Interrogation and the Criminal Process

Abstract

The relative absence of formal provision for the resolution of conflict among organizations in the American legal system results in each one controlling others in the system through constraints on the processing of people and information as inputs to their own organization. This paper focuses on the specific case where the courts attempt to control the behavior of the police through the exclusionary rule, particularly as set forth in the Miranda decision. Data on interrogations of suspects in field patrol settings show that arresting officers always had evidence apart from the inter rogation itself as a basis for arrest. It would appear that the introduction of Miranda-type warnings into field settings would have relatively little effect on the liability of suspects to crimi nal charges, particularly in felony cases, assuming current police behavior with respect to arrest.