Regarding Miranda, White rejects the regulation of police discretion in interrogations, as it will only cause a loss of human dignity by limiting all confessions and returning the criminal to the environment that produced him. Thus, White implies that police regulation will only lead society into the abyss of anarchy. This contrasts sharply with White’s desire in Garner to regulate police conduct as a means of protecting the dignity of an individual’s life, even if that individual is a criminal.White would concur with both Justice Burger in Brewer and Justice Rhenquist in Quarles. Justice Burger objects to the mechanical application of the exclusionary rule and prefers to subject criminal rights to a cost-benefit analysis. This is the same balancing method that White uses when competing interests of the felon and the policeman are at stake. Rhenquist also uses a balancing method in determining that public safety outweighs criminal rights. Rhenquist’s interest in public safety mirrors White’s interest in the supreme value of human life.White’s hesitation in imposing a standard on the police that would hinder effective law enforcement reflects Leventhal’s point of view. Leventhal suggests that police should be given controlled freedom to serve in the best interest of public safety. Cover believes that law is a top-down, hierarchical bureaucracy in which, judges make the decisions that must be obeyed by all other legal actors. Leventhal is thus the ‘anti-Cover’ in that he recognizes that police officers have the power to make law. In Garner White rejects common law because it was constitutionally unreasonable with regards to the totality of circumstances. Thus, by rejecting common law, White, like Leventhal, understands that law in the books is different from law in action. As the police govern law in action, White hesitates to hinder the police from using discretion, which is es...
