Legal Question in Constitutional Law in Georgia

Re: Required Usage of Miranda Warning in Imminent Arrest Cases

Many people believe that police must always give Miranda warnings when they arrest someone and that the case must be thrown out if they fail to do so. This is not how the law works.

Police are not required to give Miranda warnings before they make an arrest, or even after. Miranda limits the prosecutor's ability to use a defendant's statements against him in court, but that is all it does. This limitation can be critical in many cases, but there are also many cases in which it doesn't matter. Most DUI cases fall into this latter category.

If the police question someone *while he is in custody* and have not Mirandized him then nothing he says in response can be used against him in court, and and neither can any evidence found as a result of these statements.

Many cases can be proven without using the defendant's statements at all, and in such cases the absence of a Miranda warning is not a problem. This is true of the typical DUI case, since the officer can testify that he saw the defendant was driving erratically, that he administered a blood alcohol test and that the defendant's test revealed levels of alcohol above the legal limit. That is all the state has to prove to win a conviction. What the defendant said to the officer doesn't really matter most of the time, so prosecutors generally don't try to use these statements. As long as the defendant's statements are not used against him, Miranda does not come into play.