Anyone
who has ever seen an episode of Law and Order or almost any
crime drama on American television can probably recite a suspect's
“Miranda rights” by heart. You know - the right to remain silent, the right to an
attorney, etc. But what most people don’t know is that these rights had their roots in
the compelling case of a young Chinese man accused of murdering three
of his countrymen in Washington, DC in 1919.
The nation's capital had never seen anything quite like it: three
foreign diplomats with no known enemies assassinated in the city's tony Kalorama neighborhood, and
no obvious motive or leads. The Washington police were baffled. But
once they zeroed in on a suspect, they held him incommunicado
without formal arrest for more than a week until they had browbeaten
him into a confession.
Part murder mystery, part courtroom drama and part landmark legal
case, this award-winning book tells the forgotten story of a young man’s abuse by the
police and his arduous, seven-year journey through the legal
system that drew in Warren G. Harding, William Howard Taft, Oliver
Wendell Holmes, John W. Davis and even J. Edgar Hoover. It culminated in a
landmark Supreme Court ruling penned by Justice Louis Brandeis that
set the stage for Miranda v. Arizona many years later.
Today, when the treatment of suspects between arrest and trial remains
controversial, when bias against immigrants and minorities in law
enforcement continues to deny them their rights and when protecting
individuals against compulsory self-incrimination is still an uphill
battle, this century-old legal spellbinder contains important lessons
for our time.
© 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 Scott D. Seligman