Kassin, S. K., & Norwick, R. J. (2004). Why people waive their Miranda Rights: The
power of innocence. Law and Human Behavior, 28, 211-221.
In 1966, the case of Miranda v. Arizona ruled that all police officers must inform people in custody of their constitutional rights (“You have the right to remain silent; anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law; you have the right to an attorney; if you cannot afford one, one will be provided to you free of charge.”) Since this landmark case, there have been supporters and critics of the Miranda warning. Supporters believe the warning is necessary in order to avoid police coercion. Critics claim that the warning should not be given because the number of confessions and conviction rates have dropped dangerously since the institution of the warning (although the supporters claim that the declines are small and causally ambiguous).
Even though the police are required to give this warning, an alarmingly high number of people (four out of five) do waive their rights (and are therefore usually subjected to an interrogation). The present study was conducted in order to determine under what conditions people would waive their Miranda rights.
Method
Individuals were randomly assigned to a guilty or innocent condition, as well as a neutral, sympathetic, or hostile interrogator condition. Participants in the guilty condition were instructed to go into a room, open a drawer, take a $100 bill, close the drawer, and exit the room. Participants in the innocent condition were instructed to do the same with the exception of taking the $100 bill. All participants were told that they would find themselves in an interrogation situation and that they should do whatever was necessary to convince the interrogator of their innocence, because if they confessed, they would have to undergo a “trial.” The participants completed their task and were then taken to a room where they met Detective McCarthy. Detective McCarthy was either neutral (just reading the Miranda warnings), sympathetic (reading the warning and offering the person a glass of water), or hostile (reading the warning and saying that he didn’t want to hear any lies because he was sure of the person’s guilt). Participants were then given the ability to either waive or not waive their Miranda rights. After this, participants were given a questionnaire asking them to rate their experience.
There was also a group of observers that rated the experience of the participants. They were asked to predict the decision that they would make and the decision that the actual participants made.
Results
58% of participants waived their rights. 36% of those that were guilty and 81% of those that were innocent waived their rights. There was not an effect of the behavior of the detective. 12 of the 13 guilty participants that waived their rights claimed that they thought they would look guilty if they remained silent. 11 of the 29 innocent participants that waived their rights gave similar explanations, but 21 of them also (or instead) explained that they waived their rights because they were innocent and did nothing wrong.
46% of the observers said that they would have waived their rights, but 65% of them predicted that the actual participants in the interrogation would waive their rights. Both observers and participants claimed that the sympathy and minimization techniques of the sympathetic interrogator were seen as a ploy to elicit a waiver (which might explain the not significant effect of this variable in getting waivers of the rights). Finally, in a nonsignificant interaction, observers saw participants as more innocent when they waived their rights, than when they did not.
Discussion
While a large number of participants (58%) did waive their Miranda rights, more innocent than guilty participants did so. This could be problematic in the real world, because many investigators assume guilt, and will go to every means necessary to elicit a confession from someone who has waived their rights to silence and an attorney. Kassin and Norwick claim that innocence may put innocents at risk.