◆ SpookStack

G J "Some threads of this June 20 opinion (i.e. the Johnson opinion) can be found in the briefs and oral arguments of the State of New Jersey and the State of New York as amicus curiae. But the unique and almost arbitrary deadlines the Court announced for the application of its Miranda ruling is a creation of the Court's own making without the aid of anything counsel argued. "The total effect of Johnson is a discriminatory array of remedies, of very differing degrees of effectiveness, for persons ° tried or convicted at different points of time. Those tried after Miranda may use the Miranda ruling. Those tried between Escobedo and Miranda may use the Escobedo ruling but not Miranda. “Those tried before Escobedo may only use the earlier Supreme Court doctrine on voluntary confessions which requires no warning of rights by police, but treats the absence of a warning as one of the factors in the determi- nation of whether the confession was voluntary made. "It is ironic that for four people alone the Court applied Miranda retrospectively -- Miranda, himself, Vignera, Westover ana stewart." In the course of describing the various documents used in the appeals of the Post-Escobedo Cases leading to the Miranda Opinion, Dash also wrote in his Foreword: ‘Perhaps the most striking lesson to learn from these materials is the role an amicus brief can play in shaping a majority opinion, even without oral argument. Undoubtedly, the most effective presentation to the Court was the amicus brief of the American Civil Liberties Union. Although the full ACLU brief is not reproduced here, from the excerpts printed, it is clear that it presented a conceptual, legal and structural formulation that is practically identical to the majority opinion -- even as to use of language in various passages of the opinion. Also, it is from this brief and its appendix that the Court apparently draws its lengthy discussion of the contents of leading and popular police interrogation manuals. Both the ACLU brief and the Court explain that resort to the manuals is necessary because of the absence of information on what actually goes on in the privacy of police interrogation rooms. And both the Court and the ACLU brief point out that these manuals, shocking as they may seem, should be understood as presenting the enlightened and fair-minded police point of view. " 3.