The language of Miranda warnings in American jurisdictions: A replication and vocabulary analysis.

Abstract

Miranda warnings are remarkably heterogeneous in their language, length, and content. Past research has focused mostly on individual Miranda warnings. Lacking in generalizability, these studies have limited applicability to both public policy and professional practice. A large-scale survey by R. Rogers et al. [2007b, Law and Human Behavior, 31, 177-192] examined Miranda warnings from across the United States and documented striking differences in the length, content, and reading comprehension. In moving from single jurisdiction studies to nationally representative research, the replication of the Rogers et al. survey is essential. With an additional 385 general Miranda warnings, most of the original findings were confirmed; this replication allows Miranda researchers to use findings based upon nationally-representative warnings for their subsequent research. Beyond reading comprehension, the study makes an original contribution to the understanding of Miranda vocabulary that is often infused with abstruse words and legalistic terms. It provides the first analysis of sentence complexity, which affects both Miranda comprehension and retention. As a result of these analyses, preliminary guidelines are provided for increasing the comprehension and understanding of Miranda warnings.

Comprehending Canadian police cautions: are the rights to silence and legal counsel understandable?

“…As mentioned by Fenner et al (2002), the low level of caution comprehension is potentially due to the complex nature of cautions. For example, cautions often contain legalistic phrases that are not known by the general public and often exceed the capacity of working memory when presented verbally (see Rogers, Hazelwood, Sewell, Harrison, & Shuman, 2008).…”

Measuring Reading Complexity and Listening Comprehension of Canadian Police Cautions

“…A total of 17 (68%) met all of the criteria. 3 To test the validity of Rogers, Harrison, Shuman, et al's (2007) and Rogers et al's (2008) cutoff criteria in predicting listening comprehension, the 17 cautions were first organized according to how many of the five criteria were met. The cautions meeting the most and least amount of criteria were then selected.…”

“…Approximately 32% (n = 8) of the 25 cautions did not meet any of the criteria recommended by Rogers, Harrison, Shuman, et al (2007) and Rogers et al (2008). Only 3 (12%) cautions met three of the five criteria, 10 (40%) met two, and 4 (16%) met one of the criteria.…”

“…Research has yet to examine the complexity of cautions currently being used in Canada. In Study 1, we measured the reading complexity of Canadian police cautions by using the five criteria recommended by Rogers, Harrison, Shuman, et al (2007) and Rogers et al (2008).…”

Interrogation Expectations: Individual and Race/Ethnic Group Variation Among an Adult Sample

“…Specifically, researchers studied Miranda comprehension among samples with mental deficiency (Everington & Fulero, 1999;Fulero & Everington, 1995, 2004 and juvenile samples (Abramovitch, Higgins-Biss, & Biss, 1993;Abramovitch, Peterson-Badali, & Rohan, 1995;Goldstein, Condie, Kalbeitzer, Osman, & Geier, 2003). Other investigators (Greenfield, Dougherty, Jackson, Podboy, & Zimmerman, 2001;Helms, 2003;Rogers, Hazelwood, Sewell, Harrison, & Shuman, 2008;Rogers, Hazelwood, Sewell, Shuman, & Blackwood, 2008) have focused on the requisite reading level for comprehension of the rights. More recently, Rogers, Gillard, Wooley, and Fiduccia (2011) conducted a series of Miranda studies focused on assessing "cognitive abilities and psychological impairment" (p. 393) among pretrial defendants.…”