Miranda v. Arizona, and the Fascinating Science of False Confessions
Opening Arguments
Opening Arguments Media LLC
4.3 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 15 September 2025
⏱️ 66 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
OA1190 - “You have the right to remain silent.” Anyone who grew up on American crime dramas can recite the rest of these famous warnings from memory, but do you know the whole story of Miranda v. Arizona (1966)? In today’s entry in our “Still Good Law” series Matt and Jenessa voluntarily waive their rights, cautiously accept a cigarette and a Styrofoam cup of bad coffee from an alcoholic cop with a dark past, and spill everything they know about the most important criminal case in Supreme Court history. Matt provides the background on Ernesto Miranda’s literal life (and death) of crime and the circumstances of his arrest, interrogation, and appeal to the Warren Court while Jenessa breaks down the science of false confessions and why not just having but knowing our Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights is so important for all of us.
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Miranda: The Story of America’s Right to Remain Silent, Gary Stuart (2008)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The first thing you really need to know about Miranda is that he was really what we call a career criminal. |
| 0:07.2 | This is not a good person in the traditional sort of moral sense. |
| 0:18.0 | I have a right to an attorney. I have a right to remain silent. |
| 0:20.7 | You could invoke that at any time and they would have to respect it, but the issue is whether they have to inform you of that. |
| 0:35.1 | Janessa Seymour, before we begin, just a few things I'm required to tell you. |
| 0:38.7 | You do have the right to remain silent throughout this podcast. |
| 0:41.2 | Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. |
| 0:44.1 | You have the right to talk to a lawyer and have him present with you while you're being questioned. |
| 0:47.2 | If you cannot afford to hire a lawyer, one will be appointed to represent you anytime before questioning. |
| 0:51.4 | Do you understand your rights? |
| 0:53.3 | Yes. |
| 0:59.9 | Yes. Yes. And then I'm going to talk anyway because I'm not making good decisions. Well, I think if you exercise your right to |
| 1:04.6 | remain silent, that wouldn't be very good content. No, that's true. Yes. Nobody wants to |
| 1:08.7 | that. But if you are ever arrested or interrogated or talking to a cop, say yes and then shut the up. |
| 1:19.2 | That is pretty much the biggest lesson out of what we're going to be talking about today, which is, of course, Miranda v. Arizona, some of the most familiar legal language, I think probably |
| 1:27.7 | the entire legal system for anybody who's ever watched TV or any movies about crime in America. |
| 1:33.6 | Of course, Miranda v. Arizona is where we get the famous Miranda warnings, and the reason that you |
| 1:38.7 | have to be Mirandaized, that's actually what they call it. So we're going to talk today. This is just |
| 1:43.8 | going to be part one, because there's so much to talk about with this case. We're going to come back later and talk about the aftermath and the case law that developed after it and then talk about in practice how it kind of works out. But I want to talk today about the background in this case, which is super interesting, and how this got up to the Supreme Court and how they decided and what happened. |
| 2:01.3 | And then I want to hear from you about the science around all of this because, as we'll discuss, |
| 2:06.8 | I don't think most people understood at the time and certainly a lot of people don't understand now |
| 2:10.5 | how somebody might end up giving a false confession to a police officer. |
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