Ernesto A Miranda was arrested ion March 13, 1963 and charged with kidnapping and rape. He was interrogated without benefit of counsel or witnesses for 2 hours after which he confessed to the charges and signed a written confession. The confession was used as evidence at his trial which resulted in his conviction and sentencing. His conviction was appealed to the State Supreme court on the grounds that he had never been told of his right to counsel or his right to remain silent or the fact that his statements would be used against him in court. The state supreme court upheld the trial court's decision.

On June 13, 1966, the U.S. Supreme court overruled the Arizona State Supreme Court and sent the case back for a retrial. In their ruling, the Supremes held that custodial interrogations as conducted in this country were so inherently coercive that confessions obtained therein could not be deemed to have been made voluntarily. As a result, such a confession would be inadmissible under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments unless the defendant had been made aware before any interrogation began of their right to remain silent as well as their right to counsel both during the interrogations and their trial and had affirmatively waived said rights. The court further ruled that that they had to be informed that anything they said could be used against them at trial. This led to the now famous "Miranda Warning" and to the proliferation of "Miranda Rights" cards such as the one pictured above.

Needless to say, it didn't take the police to find assorted ways to circumvent the intent of this warning. and at least one such method was so egregious that the court ruled that it doesn't fly in Missouri v. Seibert, 542 U.S. 600. Referring to the court's holding in Dickerson v. United States, 530 U.S. 428 turning back an attempt by Congress to overturn Miranda legislatively, Justice Souter said

"Strategists dedicated to draining the substance out of Miranda cannot accomplish by training instructions what Dickerson held Congress could not do by statute."

It appears that all that this means is that the court has reserved that power for itself as it has slowly proceeded to gut Miranda judicially. For example, the court rules in 1984 that there is a "public safety exception" where the recitation of a Miranda warning would put such a strain on police resources as to render them incapable of protecting the public. I cannot imagine such a circumstance that doesn't also involve real coercion and most likely actual torture, which is now presumably given the nod in some specific circumstances. The court rules in Harris v. New York, 401 U.S. 222 that confessions inadmissible as evidence of guilt may nonetheless be introduced for purposes or impeaching the credibility of the defendant. Allegedly "spontaneous" statements or utterances otherwise in violation of Miranda are acceptable if not in direct response to police questioning (Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U.S. 291). In fact, currently one need not be lucid but can be cognitively or mentally impaired at the time they are read their rights and/or waive them and the making of utterances prior to affirmatively invoking one's right to remain silent and/or have an attorney present effectively waives those rights. Not only must one affirmatively invoke one's rights, the police are not required to cease their interrogations if one does. Like the first and fourth, the fifth and sixth are slowly being whittled down to nothing, Miranda notwithstanding.

On this day in history:

313 – The Edict of Milan's grant of religious freedom throughout the Roman Empire, was published in Nicomedia.

1381 – The English Peasants' Revolt came to a head, when rebels set fire to the Savoy Palace

1740 – James Oglethorpe began an unsuccessful attempt to take Spanish Florida during the Siege of St. Augustine.

1774 – Rhode Island became the first of Britain's North American colonies to ban the importation of slaves.

1777 – Marquis de Lafayette landed near Charleston to help the Continental Congress train its army.

1805 – Meriwether Lewis and four companions sight the Great Falls of the Missouri River.

1855 – Giuseppe Verdi's Les vêpres siciliennes premiered

1886 – A fire devastated much of Vancouver, British Columbia.

1895 – Emile Levassor won the world's first real automobile race, from Paris to Bordeaux and back

1898 – Yukon Territory was formed and Dawson was chosen as its capital.

1944 – Germany launched the first V1 attack on England

1952 – A Swedish Douglas DC-3 spy plane was shot down by a Soviet MiG-15 fighter.

1966 – The US Supreme Court ruled that the police must inform suspects of their Fifth Amendment rights before questioning them (Miranda v. Arizona)

1967 – LBJ nominated Thurgood Marshall to become the first black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.

1971 – The New York Times began publication of the Pentagon Papers.

1981 – Marcus Sarjeant, fired six blank shots at Queen Elizabeth II at the Trooping the Colour

1983 – Pioneer 10 became the first man-made object to leave the central Solar System

1994 – A jury in Anchorage, Alaska, blamed recklessness by Exxon and Captain Joseph Hazelwood for the Exxon Valdez disaster

1996 – The Montana Freemen surrendered after an 81-day standoff with the Feebs

2000 – Kim Dae-jung of South Korea met Kim Jong-il of North Korea, for the first inter-Korea summit

2002 – The US withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

2005 – A jury acquitted Michael Jackson of allegedly sexually molesting a child

2007 – The Al Askari Mosque was bombed a second time

2010 – A capsule of the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa returned samples to Earth

2012 – A series of bombings across Iraq killed at least 93 people and wounded over 300 others.

2018 – Volkswagen was fined one billion euros over the emissions scandal

Some people who were born on this day:

Life is a long preparation for something that never happens.

~~ William Butler Yeats

1508 – Alessandro Piccolomini, astronomer and philosopher
1539 – Jost Amman, printmaker
1555 – Giovanni Antonio Magini, mathematician, cartographer and astronomer
1580 – Willebrord Snell, astronomer and mathematician
1595 – Jan Marek Marci, physician and scientist
1752 – Frances (Fanny) Burney, novelist and playwright
1761 – Antonín Vranický, violinist and composer
1763 – José Bonifácio de Andrada, poet, academic, and politician
1773 – Thomas Young, physicist and physiologist
1822 – Carl Schmidt, chemist and academic
1827 – Alberto Henschel, photographer and businessman
1831 – James Clerk Maxwell, physicist and mathematician
1854 – Charles Algernon Parsons, engineer,
1865 – W. B. Yeats, poet and playwright
1868 – Wallace Clement Sabine, physicist and academic
1870 – Jules Bordet, immunologist and microbiologist
1876 – William Sealy Gosset, chemist and statistician
1884 – Leon Chwistek, painter, philosopher, and mathematician
1884 – Étienne Gilson, philosopher and academic
1885 – Henry George Lamond, farmer and author
1887 – Bruno Frank, author, poet, screenwriter, and playwright
1888 – Fernando Pessoa, poet and critic
1893 – Alan Arnold Griffith, engineer
1893 – Dorothy L. Sayers, author and poet
1894 – Jacques Henri Lartigue, photographer and painter (
1897 – Paavo Nurmi, awesome runner and coach, The Flying Finn, look him up.
1899 – Carlos Chávez, composer, conductor, and journalist, founded the Mexican Symphonic Orchestra
1902 – Carolyn Eisele, mathematician and historian
1903 – Willard Harrison Bennett, physicist and chemist
1906 – Bruno de Finetti, mathematician and statistician
1910 – Gonzalo Torrente Ballester, journalist, author, and playwright
1911 – Luis Walter Alvarez, physicist and academic
1911 – Erwin Wilhelm Müller, physicist and academic
1912 – Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau, poet and painter
1914 – Frederic Franklin, ballet dancer and director
1916 – Wu Zhengyi, botanist and academic
1917 – Augusto Roa Bastos, novelist
1920 – Rolf Huisgen, chemist and academic
1920 – Iosif Vorovich, mathematician and engineer
1923 – Lloyd Conover, chemist and inventor
1927 – Slim Dusty, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1928 – Renée Morisset, pianist
1928 – John Forbes Nash, Jr., mathematician and academic
1929 – Ralph McQuarrie, illustrator
1931 – Nora Kovach, ballerina
1932 – Bob McGrath, singer and actor
1934 – Uriel Jones, drummer
1934 – Leonard Kleinrock, computer scientist and engineer
1935 – Christo, sculptor and painter
1935 – Jeanne-Claude, sculptor and painter
1937 – Andreas Whittam Smith, journalist and publisher, co-founded The Independent
1940 – Bobby Freeman, singer, songwriter, pianist, and producer
1941 – Serge Lemoyne, painter
1941 – Marv Tarplin, guitarist and songwriter
1946 – Paul L. Modrich, biochemist and academic
1949 – Ann Druyan, popular science writer
1949 – Dennis Locorriere, singer and musician
1949 – Ulla Schmidt, educator and politician
1949 – Red Symons, musician, television, and radio personality
1951 – Howard Leese, guitarist and producer
1963 – Sarah Connolly, soprano and actress
1963 – Audrey Niffenegger, author and academic
1964 – Christian Wilhelm Berger, organist, composer, and educator
1965 – Lukas Ligeti, drummer and composer
1966 – Grigori Perelman, mathematician
1968 – David Gray, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1968 – Denise Pearson, singer and songwriter
1969 – Søren Rasted, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1970 – Rivers Cuomo, rock musician
1972 – Natalie MacMaster, fiddler
1973 – Mattias Hellberg, singer and songwriter
1973 – Ville Laihiala, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1975 – Jaan Pehk, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1976 – Kym Marsh, singer, songwriter, and actress
1986 – Lea Verou, computer scientist and author
1986 – Måns Zelmerlöw, singer

Some people who died on this day:

“You must understand that there is more than one path to the top of the mountain”

~~ Miyamoto Musashi

D1256 – Tankei, sculptor
1550 – Veronica Gambara, poet
1645 – Miyamoto Musashi, samurai and author, read The Book of Five Rings
1861 – Henry Gray, anatomist and surgeon
1881 – Joseph Škoda,physician and dermatologist
1904 – Nikiforos Lytras, painter and educator
1917 – Louis-Philippe Hébert, sculptor
1931 – Kitasato Shibasaburō, physician and bacteriologist
1965 – Martin Buber, philosopher and theologian
1972 – Georg von Békésy, biophysicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
1972 – Stephanie von Hohenlohe, spy
1979 – Demetrio Stratos, singer, songwriter, and pianist
1981 – Olivério Pinto, zoologist and physician
1984 – António Variações, singer and songwriter
1986 – Benny Goodman, clarinet player, songwriter, and bandleader
1998 – Reg Smythe, cartoonist (
2005 – David Diamond, pianist and composer
2010 – Jimmy Dean, singer and businessman
2012 – Graeme Bell, pianist, composer, and bandleader
2012 – Mehdi Hassan, ghazal singer and playback singer for Lollywood
2013 – Sam Most, flute player and saxophonist
2013 – Albert White Hat, educator and activist
2014 – Jim Keays, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
2014 – Robert Peters,poet, playwright, and critic
2015 – Buddy Boudreaux, saxophonist and clarinet player

Some Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such:

International Albinism Awareness Day (international)

Today's Tunes

Slim Dusty

Uriel Jones

Bobby Freeman

Marv Tarplin

Benny Goodman

Jimmy Dean

Graeme Bell

Mehdi Hassan

Sam Most

Jim keays

Ji Hye Jung performs 'Thinking Songs' by Lukas Ligeti

Please save Covid-19 commentary for a separate thread. Thank you.

Ok, it's an open thread, so it's up to you folks now. So what's on your mind?

I wont be here when this posts due to an early appointment in Healdsburg