NCJ Number
154924
Date Published
Unknown
Length
0 pages
Annotation
This video informs police officers about approaches that should and should not be used in the presentation of the Miranda warnings prior to the questioning of deaf persons who are in police custody.
Abstract
A legal researcher who has examined cases in which the Miranda warning was issued to a deaf suspect prior to questioning advises that virtually all evidence obtained subsequent to the issuing of the warning was excluded in all the cases. The video then dramatizes various approaches to issuing the Miranda warnings to deaf persons. In one case, the questioner seeks a waiver based on the suspect's lip-reading ability. The researcher notes that this method is inadequate, since generally only 5 percent of spoken words can be understood by deaf persons through lip-reading. Another dramatized approach involves giving a written copy of the Miranda warning to the deaf persons for reading. The researcher again advises that this is inadequate, since the reading of Miranda warnings requires reading at a sixth to eighth grade level of reading ability; only a small percentage of deaf persons can read up to this level. A third dramatized approach is the use of an interpreter to communicate the Miranda warnings in sign language to the deaf person. This approach is also deemed inadequate by the legal researcher, since few legal or technical terms are encompassed in sign language. The advice given by the researcher to police is that they not even attempt to issue the Miranda warnings or question a deaf suspect unless the person's attorney is present. All meetings between police personnel, attorneys, interpreters, and deaf suspects should be videotaped.