Did Miranda Diminish Police Effectiveness?

The question of whether the Supreme Court's 1966 Miranda' decision has significantly hampered law enforcement is fascinating from both a substantive and a methodological perspective. On the substantive front, Professors Paul Cassell and Richard Fowles observe that Justice John Harlan's Miranda dissent insightfully warned that the majority decision could hamper law enforcement in a way that imposed large social costs.2 How large these costs might be, Harlan admonished, only time can tell.3 In a remarkable series of papers, Professors Paul Cassell and Steve Schulhofer debate the effect of Miranda, with Cassell articulating the case for the prosecution, both literally and figuratively, and Schulhofer mounting a spirited defense.4 As part of this exchange, Cassell published a simple graph of national arrest rates for violent and property crimes, which showed a sharp reduction in