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17 U. Pa. Asian L. Rev. 1 (2022)

handle is hein.journals/etalr17 and id is 1 raw text is: MIRANDA IN TAIWAN: WHY IT FAILED AND WHY WE
SHOULD CARE
Shih-Chun Steven Chien
In 1997, the Taiwanese legislature amended the Code of
Criminal Procedure to incorporate the core of the American
Miranda rule into the legal system. The Miranda rule requires
police officers and prosecutors to notify criminal suspects subject to
custodial interrogation of their right to remain silent and their right
to retain legal counsel. In subsequent amendments, the legislature
enacted a series of laws to further reform interrogation practices in
the same vein.
What happened next is a study in unintended consequences
and the interdependence of law and culture. Using ethnographic
methods and data sources collected over the past four years from 48
police officers and 99 prosecutors in metropolitan Taiwan, this
Article relates a cautionary tale. Under Taiwan's abbreviated
Miranda system, suspects are encouraged to cooperate and give
statements under the perception that they have been, and will
continue to be, treated with politeness, dignity, and respect. Police
and prosecutors use the Miranda mechanism (providing dignity,
respect, and voice to suspects) to build rapport with suspects and
distract them from the actual consequences of their full cooperation.
Such concerns were implicated at a high level in the indictment of
former Taiwanese president Ma Ying-Jeou in 2018, when
prosecutors publicly denounced Ma for his bad attitude in
exercising his right to remain silent during prosecutorial interviews.
Research Social Scientist, American Bar Foundation. For extremely valuable comments
and discussions I thank Ronald J. Allen, Elliot Aronson, John J. Donohue III, John Hagan,
Deborah Hensler, Hsieh Meng-Chao ( EAi), Tonja Jacobi, Saul M. Kassin, Joshua
Kleinfeld, Richard A. Leo, Robert J. MacCoun, Lawrence C. Marshall, Jonathan Simon,
Charles D. Weisselberg, and Franklin E. Zimring. I owe special thanks to my mentors-
Lawrence M. Friedman, David A. Sklansky, and Yang Yun-Hua (M NW)-for their
encouragement and guidance from the very beginning of this project. I am forever grateful
for the kindness and wisdom of the late Joan Petersilia. Many thanks to the police officers,
prosecutors, lawyers, media reporters, and advocates in Taiwan for sharing their stories and
offering their friendships. I thank Tsai I-Tung (R #IfD J,) for her excellent research
assistance. For significantly improving the piece, thank you to George D. Wilson, as well
as to the superlative editors at University of Pennsylvania Asian Law Review.

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