Gale Encyclopedia of American Law Volume 3 P11 fully illuminates today's leading cases, major statutes, legal terms and concepts, notable persons involved with the law, important documents and more. Legal issues are fully discussed in easy-to-understand language, including such high-profile topics as the Americans with Disabilities Act, capital punishment, domestic violence, gay and lesbian rights, physician-assisted suicide and thousands more. | 88 CONFESSION conduct of the police not the mental state of the suspect. Yet the mental state of the suspect may still play a role in Burbme s second prong which considers the suspect s awareness of Miranda rights and the consequences of waiving them. Legal commentators have criticized Miranda and its subsequent line of decisions stating that criminal suspects seldom truly understand the meaning or importance of the rights recited to them. Studies have indicated that the Miranda decision has had little effect on the numbers of confessions and requests for lawyers made by suspects in custody. What is more critics of Miranda cite concerns that the police might fabricate waivers as a suspect s waiver of Miranda rights need not be recorded or made to a neutral party. Proponents argue that Miranda protects criminal suspects and reduces needless litigation by providing the police with concrete guidelines for permissible interrogation. Even though the idea behind Miranda rights is to protect suspects in custody from police coercion the . Supreme Court in 1991 held that coerced confessions nevertheless may be used in court if their use is harmless in other words if a jury would probably convict even without them Arizona v. Fulminante 499 . 279 111 S. Ct. 1246 113 L. Ed. 2d 302 . The police suspected that Oreste Fulminante had killed his 11-year-old stepdaughter whose body was found in an Arizona desert two days after he had reported her missing. Before he was charged with the murder Fulminante had received a prison sentence for an unrelated weapons-possession charge. While in prison on that charge he confessed the murder to a fellow inmate who actually was a paid federal informant. The informant had offered to protect Fulminante from other inmates in exchange for hearing the truth about the murder. Fulminante was subsequently indicted for the killing and his confession was used at trial despite his objection. A jury found him guilty of murder and sentenced him to .
