Harris v. New York

On two occasions in early January of 1966, Viven Harris of New Rochelle, New York, was involved in the sale of heroin to undercover police. He claimed to have acted as a middleman in both transactions, and for the second sale was promised part of the heroin. After Harris was arrested on 7 January, he admitted to police that he had made both sales, but asserted that the undercover officer had instructed him to do so. He also mentioned that he thought he should talk to a lawyer before answering any more questions. At his jury trial, the police officer was the chief witness for the prosecution, and provided evidence that Harris had sold him drugs. Harris took the stand in his own defense, and made statements that contradicted what he had said while in police custody, in which he admitted to both sales. Under oath, he denied making the first sale, and said that the second sale had merely been a scam, that the packet contained only baking powder.

When Harris was cross-examined by the prosecution, he was asked whether or not he had made confessional statements on 7 January. He claimed he could not remember what he had said to police after his arrest, nor what the questions were. Later, his lawyer would argue that at the time, Harris was suffering from heroin addiction withdrawal symptoms and had a host of other medical problems affecting his judgement and memory. The cross-examination that challenged Harris's assertions did not become part of the transcript upon which the jury would decide his guilt or innocence. The statements initially made in police custody were inadmissible to convict him, since they qualified as evidence not obtained within proper legal guidelines. This was a recent development in American criminal law known as the Miranda warnings.