Meese’s View of Miranda Rule

As professors at the University of San Diego, we, the undersigned, are on record deploring Meese’s selection and subsequently his performance as attorney general of the United States.

Because Meese is on leave as an adjunct professor at this university, we wish to disassociate ourselves from his monumental ignorance and distortion of the law, the Constitution, and the role of the Supreme Court in American government.

His recent comments regarding Miranda vs. Arizona and Mapp vs. Ohio, where he misrepresented the meaning and intent of the two rulings, is merely the latest example demonstrating his unfitness for the office. Couple this with convoluted misstatements on such subjects as: the Bill of Rights and its application to the states (apparently he believes we should return to a dual standard of justice in criminal procedure, one in federal courts, and another that would leave state courts free to decide if and when the guarantees of the first 10 amendments should apply in their jurisdiction), his widely and accurately quoted remarks indicating he doesn’t comprehend the meaning of a fundamental aspect of American jurisprudence, the presumption of innocence, his criticism of the “exclusionary rule” that prohibits illegally obtained evidence from being used in a court of law, not to mention his handling of the “white collar crime” in the E.F. Hutton fiasco; and we have in Washington a woefully incompetent attorney general who is making an oxymoron of the words “Department of Justice.”

GILBERT L. ODDO

PATRICK J. HURLEY

RICHARD J. WHARTON

THERESA J. PLAYER

ROBERT SIMMONS

PATRICK F. DRINAN

A. JOHN VALOIS

DENNIS ROHATYN

BART THURBER

GARY JONES

D.B. PETERSON

RAY WHITE

DENNIS CLAUSEN

VIRGINIA MULLER

San Diego