The Miranda warning begins “You have the right to remain silent,” echoing the Fifth Amendment. A beautiful, simple, fundamental right that more of us should exercise, not just criminal defendants. The next two parts of Miranda concern legal representation, enshrining the basic principles of our system of justice, laid out by the U.S. Supreme Court in Gideon v. Wainwright three years before Miranda v. Arizona: “You have the right to an attorney”; and, “If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you.”
The rights of an accused are at the heart of our system of justice, which works only if there is a single-minded advocacy for each party on each side of a case. Thus all people, even those accused of a crime—especially those accused of a crime—are entitled to the same zealous representation by counsel, regardless of their seeming guilt or innocence, their ability to pay or their status in society. But this idea did not start with Miranda. It is a fundamental principle that is older than our democracy.
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