Miranda
Revisted
Dickerson v.
United States

By THOMAS D. Petrowksi, J.D.

     The Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states, in part, that "...no person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." Like other Constitutional provisions, this requirement has "both the virtue of brevity and the vice of ambiguity."1 This Fifth Amendment provision formed the basis of the Supreme Court's decision in Miranda v. Arizona.^{2 Recently, in Dickerson v. United States,3 the Supreme Court further defined the impact of the Miranda decision on the law of interrogations. This article examines the Dickerson decision and its implications for law enforcement.}