Cummings v. State

Myriad eases have dealt with the issue of whether Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, 86 S. Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), has been complied with. The convictions now under review — those of William Ralph Cummings by a Baltimore City jury presided over by Judge Shirley B. Jones for automobile manslaughter and related traffic offenses — deal with the somewhat rarer threshold issue of whether Miranda is applicable.

A prefatory word is in order to keep the constitutional question straight. There is not — under the Fifth Amendment to the Federal Constitution 1 or under Article 22 of the Maryland…