actually understates the case, Jonah. The question raised is not only why have state-constitutional provisions, but why have federal ones either. The Court’s opinion in the Dickerson case–which re-affirmed the Miranda rules as requirements–referred constantly to those rules’ “constitutional underpinnings” without ever quite saying that failing to issue the Miranda warnings would actually violate the Constitution. Justice Scalia pointed that out, of course. Such observations seem to be considered bad form in some quarters.