Police Report Assignment

This man, Ernesto Arturo Miranda had a huge part in shaping the American Miranda Rights Policy. Born March 9, 1941 in Columbus, Az. The name Ernest Miranda is well known in the state of Arizona because he fought and got his case overturned because there were mistakes by the police when they arrested him. This whole story began on the night of March 3, 1963 when Patricia McGee (not her real name) was working late due to a show that ran over, and she had to close down the theater by herself.

After doing that she had to ride the bus home and walk from the bus stop in the dark all alone. As she walked home, a car pulling out of a driveway nearly ran her over, then went down the street in the same direction Patty was walking. She noticed that the car stopped about a block from where she was and the man driving the car got out and started walking toward her. The time was around 11 p. m. and there was nobody else around. She did not pay much attention to the man as he approached her, as she was about to walk past the man, he reached out and grabbed her.

He covered her mouth with his free hand and told her that if she didn’t scream , he wouldn’t hurt her. She begged the man to let her go, but he dragged her to his car where he tied her hands behind her back and pushed her into the back seat, where he then tied her feet together after he made her get on the floor. She continued to plead with the man to let her go, but he just said he would not hurt her. He drove for about 20 minutes into the high desert and once he got to the spot he had chosen, he raped Patty.

After the assault, he asked Patty for money and she gave him the money she had in her purse (some reports say 4 dollars and some say 8). After she gave him the money, he ordered her to get back into the car and he threw a coat over her head and drove back to Phoenix. About a half-mile from her house, he dropped her off and sped away into the night. Police interviewed Patty shortly after the incident happened, when she was brought, hysterical, to a local hospital by her distraught family. Doctors told police that she had traces of semen inside her, but they disputed her claim that she was a virgin before the assault.

Based on the statement Patty gave them, the police began searching for a man in his late 20’s With a mustache, who weighed around 175 pounds and was about six feet tall. This is the first part of the story and it leads to multiple differences in information and charges filed against the man who admitted that he raped Patty then got the decision overturned, only to be recharged with the crime. There are many forms of communications used in these cases. Some of them were phone calls, letters, interoffice communications, and written reports.

These communications were all effective in getting the job done to get the case against Ernesto Miranda overturned. As a result of a letter written to his common-law wife, Ernesto got himself retried on the rape charge. He lost the second case and was sentenced to serve out his original sentence of 20 to 30 years. The letters that were written were to attorneys and the Supreme Court about representing this case to get the charges overturned and to bring it to the attention of the Supreme Court. That effort was successful because it got their attention and the case was eventually overturned.

Not too long after that happened, Ernesto wrote to his common-law wife and told her to relay the message to Patty that if she would drop the charges against him, he would marry her (Patty). The wife took this information to the police who once again tried him for rape and this time he lost his case. He was his own worst enemy. Other forms of communication were telephone which worked well to more quickly communicate needs and wants for this case and upcoming trial and reports. These communication tools were the only ones available during that time.

Telephone calls worked as long as the party was in their office or at home when they were called, otherwise the one calling would have to leave a message and await a return call. Messages then were mostly hand written. Time was not something to be wasted. It took a lot of hard work and many hours spent late into the night to win the Supreme Court case and get Miranda’s charges reduced to robbery and kidnapping. Though he was a criminal of sorts, at a very young age, the man did not deserve to be stabbed to death or have his throat slit (whichever report is true) over some change sitting on the bar.

I guess the lifestyle he chose was the one that eventually took his life though and that is sad. He should have been able to receive help for his troubles and maybe he would have changed his way of life.

As you can see from the timeline, this case happened over the course of 3 years. When Miranda finally got approved for Parole, he went back to the only way of life he knew and was in a dive bar playing poker, and a fight broke out over a handful of change on the bar and Miranda who was working as a delivery driver at the time, ended up being murdered.