Ernest Miranda

The Supreme Court decision did not free Miranda but offered him a new trial without the confession he made to the police. Ernesto Miranda's second trial for rape and kidnapping opened in mid-February 1967 at the Maricopa County Superior Court. This time his common-law wife testified that Miranda had confessed to the crime when she visited him in prison in 1963. (A common-law marriage is when a couple who can prove they have lived together for a certain period of time are considered legally married in some states under certain conditions.) He had asked her to make a personal appeal to the victim in order to have the charges dropped. The jury deliberated for an hour and twenty-three minutes before finding Miranda guilty. He was sentenced again to twenty to thirty years in the Arizona State Prison at Florence.

Released on early parole in December 1972, Miranda was back in prison by 1975 on yet another charge. In 1976 Miranda ended up in a Phoenix bar fight and was stabbed to death. The man suspected of killing him chose to exercise his right to remain silent after being read his Miranda Warning. He refused to talk to the police and, due to a lack of witnesses or other physical evidence, was never charged with Miranda's murder. Ernesto Miranda was buried at the Mesa City Cemetery in Arizona.