Transcript: Rehnquist's Views on the Miranda Decision

NARRATOR: But this didn't look like the revolution the Right had intended. So far, the Rehnquist Court hadn't outlawed abortion, hadn't attacked obscenity or put prayer back into the public schools. They hadn't even rolled back one of the most reviled of the Warren Court decisions: the Miranda warnings -- the very notion of telling cops what to say.

The Rehnquist Court had a chance to wipe out Miranda in the year 2000, in Dickerson versus United States. Congress itself had enacted legislation that seemed to overrule the Miranda decision. The Supreme Court could simply uphold the legislation.

REPORTER: Police have been reading criminal suspects their Miranda rights since 1966. But today, the Supreme Court considered a case that might make reading those rights an option, not a requirement.

DELLINGER: William Rehnquist hated Miranda, hated the Miranda rights, thought the Court had no business imposing those rules on the police.

HOWARD: If one reads Miranda, it's not clear whether it comes out of the Constitution, or whether it's simply something which the Court has created as a Court-made remedy.

KOBYLKA: Rehnquist, throughout the '70s in his Lone Ranger days, was more than happy to say Miranda is not a constitutional decision. It should be reversed. So Dickerson comes to the Court, Miranda's gotta go, the logic would be.