The Sixth Amendment’s main goal is to give all Americans the right to a fair trial. The Sixth Amendment’s main points are best stated directly in the Sixth Amendment:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public …show more content…
Zerbst ensured the Sixth Amendment right to counsel in all states for any type of court case- even if the defendant does not have a possibility of capital punishment. In another famous case, Miranda v. Arizona, Ernesto Miranda did not understand the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, so the Supreme Court created a law that would change the judicial process forever. In 1963 Ernesto Miranda was arrested for the abduction of an eighteen year old girl. He was placed in a police lineup and identified by her, after which he confessed to the crime and was sentenced to twenty to thirty years in prison. During the court case, Miranda stated that he was not informed of his Fifth Amendment right to stay silent during the police questioning. The court eventually ruled him guilty because of previous offenses where he knowingly ignored the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. Miranda was unhappy with the court’s decision, so he took the case to the United States Supreme Court, calling the case Miranda v. Arizona. The Supreme Court ruled, with a vote of five to four, that the police officers in America would now have to recite the citizens’ rights before questioning. These rights-from the Fifth and Sixth Amendments-include the right to stay silent during questioning and that the defendant may be appointed a state attorney if they cannot afford one. This law became known as the Miranda rights or the Miranda warning. The Miranda warning helps ensure that the American police officers do not go against the citizens’ Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights (Dodson 1-2). The Miranda warning forever changed the way that Americans understood the Sixth Amendment by forcing police to state it before arresting