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The ruling limited the scope of Miranda v. Arizona (1966). In that case, the Court held that a person in police custody must be advised of her rights before the police may ask questions. Instead of holding that "police custody" includes questioning that takes place inside a police station, the Mathiason Court held that a person must be arrested or somehow confined before Miranda warnings are requi…
The Mathiason case began when an officer of the Oregon State Police was called to investigate a burglary at a home near Pendleton, Oregon. The victim of the burglary named Carl Mathiason as a possible suspect. Mathiason was a friend of the victim's son and was on parole from prison. After the officer tried in vain to contact Mathiason, he left a card for Mathiason, asking him to call on the teleph…
In a per curiam opinion (one that is not credited to any particular justice), the Court recounted the facts and procedural disposition of the case and conducted a quick analysis. Miranda, according to the Court, was directed toward police procedures in "custodial interrogations." Citing Miranda, the Court explained that custodial interrogation is "questioning initiated by law enforcement officers …
Justices Brennan, Marshall, and Stevens dissented. Justice Brennan disagreed with the Court's decision to deny oral arguments and limit its review of the case. Justice Marshall objected to the Court's strict reading of Miranda. Marshall conceded that Mathiason may not have been under arrest, "but surely formalities alone cannot control." If Mathiason "entertained an objectively reasonable belief t…
The ruling in Mathiason gave police more freedom to question criminal suspects and left uninformed persons more susceptible to coercive police interrogations. The decision pared down the significance of Miranda and signaled its demise. Preceded by Michigan v. Tucker (1974) and succeeded by several other cases, Mathiason became part of a string of cases that slowly drained Miranda of its precedenti…
On 23 April 1964, George Whitmore, Jr., witnessed an assault on Elba Borrero in Brooklyn and volunteered a description of the attacker to the police. Similarities between the Borrero case and the recent murder of Minnie Edmonds in the same neighborhood prompted detectives to have another talk with Whitmore. After questioning him for 22 hours without the presence of an attorney, detectives announce…
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