Tracking the Circulatory of Confession Jurisprudence after Massiah & (and) Miranda: Can a Superficial Application of Property Law Make Sense out of Nonsense?

Authors

Rory Bahadur

First Page

287

Document Type

Article

Abstract

After Miranda v. Arizona and Massiah v. United States, there were arguably three doctrinally separate methodologies for determining the admissibility of confessions in criminal proceedings. The interaction of these three doctrines has generated a complex, contradictory, somewhat inexplicable, and chaotic jurisprudence. This paper re-examines the post- Miranda interaction of the three doctrines, and argues that basic property law provides a conceptual framework for reconciling what appears to be an otherwise arbitrary and unpalatable collection of Supreme Court decisions. Section one briefly examines the totality of the circumstances test and the Miranda and Massiah decisions themselves, not from the standpoint of what the decisions now represent, but for what they originally held. Section two draws superficial analogies from property law, anthropomorphizing the jurisprudence of Miranda and Massiah in an attempt to explain and chart the jurisprudential shift away from the Fourteenth Amendment to the Fifth and Sixth Amendments and then back to the Fourteenth Amendment. The article analogizes the analytical sphere of the Fourteenth Amendment's totality of the circumstances test to a discrete piece of real property. Miranda is analogized to a trespasser because of its obvious and intentional encroachment on the constitutional territory of "voluntary" and "compulsion" originally controlled by the Fourteenth Amendment. By analogizing encroachment to trespass on property "owned" by the Fourteenth Amendment, the Court's rapid relegation of Miranda to a toothless and irrelevant doctrine, inseparable from the totality of the circumstances test, can conceivably be viewed as punishment for trespass. Section two continues by examining the Massiah doctrine. Massiah, unlike Miranda, did not expressly purport to replace or fine-tune the "land" of confession admissibility that before was "owned" exclusively by the Fourteenth Amendment. Massiah, it is argued, sort of drifted onto the constitutional landscape like a hobo, moving between the periphery of territory owned by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments and into its own Sixth Amendment territory. Eventually the Court, by blurring the distinction between Massiah and Miranda doctrine, was able to "fine" Massiah for trespass by infusing Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence into this allegedly separate constitutional doctrine.' Section three briefly employs the concept of tenancy in common, providing an example of how the interaction of the three doctrines has affected the totality of the circumstances test. The article concludes by examining a recent case that demonstrates that the present day relationship between the doctrines is akin to ownership of property as joint tenants.

Recommended Citation

Rory Bahadur, Tracking the Circulatory of Confession Jurisprudence after Massiah & (and) Miranda: Can a Superficial Application of Property Law Make Sense out of Nonsense?, 16 St. Thomas L. Rev. 287 (2003).
Available at: https://scholarship.stu.edu/stlr/vol16/iss2/13