Gideon, Escobedo and Miranda: How three Supreme Court Justices waged the ideological battle against communism

Abstract

The United States Supreme Court was at the center of criticism in the 1960s. Unpopular Court decisions, such as expanding the rights of the criminally accused, brought the Court a lot of attention. The Court is the most removed body of government in the United States, being that members are appointed, not elected. Thus this separation from the Court created the need to explain its behavior, i.e. why it produced the opinions it did. This paper explores three Court decisions, Gideon v. Wainwright (1963), Escobedo v. Illinois (1964), and Miranda v. Arizona (1966) and argues that the decisions in each case were due to the individual Justices experience with communism, than with any other of the theories behind the Court’s action.