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Transcripts
October 18, 2004
Host:
Michael Grant
Topics:
· Debate Candidate Rhetoric;
· Miranda Rights
In-Studio Guests:
· Steve Corman, Professors, Hugh Downs School
of Human Communication, ASU;
· Kevin Dooley, Professor, W.P. Carey School of Business,
ASU
· Gary Stuart, author of "Miranda: The story of America's
Right to Remain Silent, " long-time attorney and current
President of the Arizona Board of Regents
Michael Grant:
Tonight on "Horizon", now that the presidential debates
have come and gone, it's time to check the mud meter. Also, the
importance of the Miranda decision decades after the case. Author
Gary Stuart joins us. Those stories are coming up.
"Horizon" is made possible by the friends of Channel
8, members who provide financial support to this Arizona PBS station.
Thank you.
Michael Grant:
Good evening, I'm Michael Grant. Mud has been slinging from both
presidential campaigns. The debates offered an opportunity for
both parties to toss some more. Two ASU professors have come up
with a way to quantify the amount of mud tossing. Mike Sauceda
tells us about the "Crawdad Campaign Tracking Dashboard".
Kevin Dooley:
This over here represents the amount of mud that Kerry is throwing
at Bush and this side over here represents the amount of mud that
Bush is throwing at Kerry.
Reporter:
Arizona State professor Kevin Dooley explaining the crawdad campaign
tracking dashboard. It uses technology called centering resonance
analysis that he and fellow ASU professor Steve Corman developed.
It uses that technology to automatically cruise the websites of
the Bush and Kerry campaigns, mining web blogs for certain words.
Kevin Dooley:
The way that our technology works is it looks at the text and
extracts the sentences. Just like one did a sentence diagraming
in grade school, that's what the computer does. By identifying
nouns and adjectives and noun phrases and how they are related
to one another, our technology creates a complete picture of what
the text is talking about. The words in the document and then
how those words related to one another. The connections represent
intentional connections by the speaker and we find that the way
a person uses a particular noun or adjective says a lot about
the way they're thinking and the arguments that they are trying
to frame.
Reporter:
All that complex applied linguistic theory is presented on the
dashboard in the form of meters that provide a one week long look
at campaign messages. The website is located at www.crawdadtech.com\campaign.
The mud meter is one of the gauges.
Kevin Dooley:
What the mud meter is attempting to do is measure the amount of
negative language that is used in connection with one candidate
talking about the other.
Reporter:
The Kerry side measures the amount of mud he is tossing at Bush
and vice versa. To the right of the mud meter are three bar gages,
which indicate the focus, tone and intensity of messages.
Kevin Dooley:
We have three different ways of measuring the characteristics
of the campaign messages. The first is focus. Something higher
on the focus meter would indicate that the campaign communications
are talking about a few things in a very focused way. Lower in
focus would indicate that more things were being discussed. We
can see right now that the two campaigns are relatively equivalent
in their focus. The next measure we have is tone. This means exactly
what you think it would. Things can be relatively positive or
negative in tone. Finally, we measure intensity, which measures
how much positive and negative words are used.
Reporter:
Top words used by the candidate is the next panel.
Kevin Dooley: What a user is going to learn from the word list
is across the vast amount of communications that are being done,
what are the campaigns focusing on right now. And we see the content
of the communications changes day-to-day, so this gives a front
page headline of what the campaigns are talking about. Over here,
we have a panel that measures the number of words and the number
of stories that are coming out of each news source. The one thing
that sticks out here is that you will see that the Bush news site
puts out a lot more words than any of the other sources. This
has been true throughout the campaign. On this panel, we show
the two week trends of the various trends on the campaign dashboard.
We see in terms of focus, tone and intensity, they have relatively
remained the same over the two-week period.
Reporter:
The final panel on the dashboard uses web-like graphs to connect
words most recently used by the campaigns to describe their own
candidate and the opposing candidate. Words in green boxes are
the most recently used.
Kevin Dooley:
It represents how each campaign is representing, for instance
in this case, the Kerry-Edwards campaign is representing Bush
and how the Bush campaign is representing George Bush. The words
surrounding the names represents words communications are using
to frame each candidate. This draws a picture of each candidate.
Reporter:
Because the searching and the analyzing is done by computer, Dooley
says the dashboard provides an unbiased look at campaign rhetoric
that can be used by various people.
Kevin Dooley:
The dashboard is aimed at people who are obsessed with the political
race. That gives them deep insight into the strategy of each campaign.
But it's also aimed at voters. Because the volume of communications
beyond what a typical voter is going to analyze or read for themselves,
and because any analyst's interpretation of the communications
is necessarily biased by their perspective, this gives people
an ability to view what's happening in an unbiased way.
Michael Grant:
Here now to talk about the Crawdad Campaign Tracking Dashboard
and the debates, are Steve Corman, professors in the Hugh Downs
School of Human Communication at ASU, and Kevin Dooley, of the
W.P. Carey School of Business at ASU. Gentlemen, good to see you
again.
Kevin Dooley:
Thanks for having us.
Michael Grant:
Kevin, we did that tape piece, we were trying to figure it out.
That was about 10 days ago. Between the first and second debate.
We wanted to apply the technology to the debates themselves. Before
we do that, what's happened with the dashboard since we aired
that 10 days or so ago?
Kevin Dooley:
If you can believe it, there's a little less mud being thrown.
I think the candidates themselves are still throwing lots of mud.
We look at all the communications that the campaigns are pushing
out they are backing off a little bit on the mud meter.
Michael Grant:
I think it's important to stress, we covered it in the taping,
but the sources of data that you normally apply this to are press
releases and other information appearing on the candidate's official
website.
Kevin Dooley:
That's right. We have the speeches, which is what you hear on
the TV and whatnot, and we've got the press releases and also
the testimonials. Especially President Bush's site right now pushing
out a lot of those testimonials, which are mostly about Bush and
not Kerry.
Michael Grant:
Steve, we wanted to apply this to the debates. We have a couple
of clips to help us do that. Why don't you set up the first piece
of tape.
Steve Corman:
We took the transcripts of the debates and separated them out
into the different speaking turns for Bush and Kerry. For each
debate, for each candidate we had separate set of statements and
analyzed them using many of the same measures we use on the campaign
dashboard. And the first one we started with and really the most
interesting one was the focus measure. The most kind of interesting
result is that in the first two debates especially, Kerry was
about twice as focused as Bush.
Michael Grant:
We have a video excerpt. Let's roll that right now.
John Kerry:
This really underscores the problem with the American health care
system. It's not working for the American family and it's gotten
worse under President Bush over the course of the last year. 5
million Americans have lost their health insurance in this country.
You've got about a million right here in Arizona, just shy, 950,000
who have no health insurance at all. 82,000 Arizonans lost their
health insurance under President Bush's watch. 223,000 kids in
Arizona have no health insurance at all. All across our country.
Go to Ohio. 1.4 million Ohioans have no health insurance. 114,000
lost it under President Bush. Wisconsin, 82,000 lost it under
President Bush.
Michael Grant:
Do we want to run the comparison now or do we want to set up the
clip from President Bush?
Steve Corman:
There is an example of a highly focused message. So Kerry mentioned
President Bush by name four times, and basically, every single
thing he said was about health care and problems that President
Bush had with health care under his term. We can contrast that
with a statement from President Bush in the first debate of almost
the exact same length.
Michael Grant:
Okay, let's run it.
George W. Bush:
I'm not exactly sure what you mean, it passes the global test.
If you pass a global test. My attitude is, you take preemptive
action in order to protect the American people, that you act in
order to make this country secure. My opponent talks about me
not signing certain treaties. Let me tell you one thing I didn't
sign. I think it shows a difference of our opinions. That is,
I wouldn't join the international criminal court. The body based
in The Hague where unaccountable judges and prosecutors could
pull our troops, diplomates up for trial.
Michael Grant:
For comparison and contrast purposes, walk through those two clips
for us.
Steve Corman:
Kerry mentioned Bush by name, focused like a laser beam on health
care. On this with Bush, we have about 12 different ideas. We
have global test, preemptive action, security -- I won't go through
the whole list, but he sort of skipped from topic to topic and
it's hard for somebody to have a takeaway from a passage like
this. I think that's indicated in the first graphic for the focus
on debates. And you can see, the first and second debates we have
Bush in the red, Kerry in the blue. Kerry is about twice as high
as Bush. On the third debate we see that Bush pulls up almost
even. This is the debate that people say Bush did the best on,
had the clearest message and so forth.
Michael Grant:
The next indicator.
Steve Corman:
We applied the mud meter to the two debaters and we see, first
of call, across the three debates the amount of mud slinging went
down. This was negative language used with respect to the opponent,
but Bush in all three debates was much higher than Kerry. He used
more negative language with respect to Kerry, but then on the
next graph we show the overall positive or negative tone. Here
we see on the first debate Bush was more positive than Kerry,
same thing on the third debate, but on the second Bush was less
positive than Kerry. Essentially, the story is on the third debate,
Bush got it together, he got almost as focused as Kerry, he got
back on his positive message and he pulled almost even with Kerry
in terms of mud slinging.
Michael Grant:
Now, Kevin, what were the differences in how the candidates framed
their responses?
Kevin Dooley:
One thing was that Kerry was relentless on focusing his responses
on President Bush. Almost all of his responses talk about President
Bush in some way and that was through all three debates. We saw
much less of this from President Bush. He would mention Kerry
as his opponent and make remarks about Senator Kerry, but the
focus was not nearly the same. Another key difference was that
President Bush used value laden terms such as free and freedom,
faith, hope, much, much more than Senator Kerry did and so that
was appealing to his base.
Michael Grant:
And Steve, I would think overall that would reinforce this notion
that it drifted toward a more positive tone in the third debate.
Steve Corman:
Exactly. This is what you might expect because Bush is trying
to talk about his good record and all the good things he has done,
his appeal to ordinary values, and Kerry is trying to make Bush's
record look like a failure. So we could expect that Senator Kerry
would be a little more negative on average and Bush would be a
little more positive.
Michael Grant:
On the three elements that you have listed here, from a campaign
strategy standpoint, I would tend to think that focus would be
the most important intuitively, am I correct?
Kevin Dooley:
When we look at the three debates, it's apparent when Bush comes
up to focus on Kerry that's when people say he does the best.
Especially when he is negative, he does the worst.
Michael Grant:
On the other hand, people profess not to like negative campaigning.
I sometimes look at results of campaigns and wonder if they are
being completely truthful about that. Campaigns trying to steer
away from that somewhat again from a strategic standpoint?
Kevin Dooley:
I think it might depend on who is throwing the mud. We are hearing
lots of mud being thrown by the candidates themselves, but the
campaign messages being sent to the base are more positive talking
about their own candidate, so I think they are trying to energize
the base more with talking about their own candidates.
Michael Grant:
What about the vice presidential debate? Any interesting stuff
there?
Kevin Dooley:
When we looked at how for example Kerry and Bush talked about
economic and health care issues, we found that they talked about
the same things. They differed on their approach but they agree
with what's important. We found that type of agreement between
the vice presidential candidates across the board. What they talked
about was really very similar even when they had very different
opinions on how to move forward on those topics.
Michael Grant:
Kevin Dooley, thank you very much for joining us. Steve Corman,
appreciate the effort.
Steve Corman:
My pleasure.
Michael Grant:
In 1963, Ernesto Miranda was arrested in Arizona for a number
of sexual assaults. He confessed to them and was convicted. His
appeal, however, found its way to the Supreme Court. In 1966,
the high court decided that Miranda's rights had been violated.
From that case came the well-known "Miranda warnings".
Gary Stuart wrote about the case in his book, "Miranda: The
story of America's right to remain silent." Stuart is a long-time
attorney and is currently president of the Arizona Board of Regents.
Recently, I spoke with the author.
Michael Grant:
So Gary, what brought your attention to Miranda 38 years after
the decision was handed down?
Gary Stuart:
I took constitutional law in the fall of 1966 from John C. Frank.
He had won the Miranda case in June and came to the University
of Arizona in September and taught an advanced seminar in constitutional
law. That began a life of fascination with that decision in particular
and the process by which suspects are interrogated in general.
Michael Grant:
Miranda, obviously, lost locally and it went all the way to the
U.S. Supreme Court. The F.B.I. was giving a version of the Miranda
warning before the Supreme Court handed down this decision.
Gary Stuart:
They had been giving a modified version informing suspects of
their right to avoid an interview. They would say, you do not
have to submit to this interview and you have a right to a lawyer.
They didn't tell them they had a right to a lawyer free of charge,
nor did they tell them they had a right to remain silent in that
precise language. But they did tell them they did not have to
submit to the interview.
Michael Grant:
No real feeling at the trial level that this was an historic trial
going on.
Gary Stuart:
Not at all. It was relatively short, easy, uninvolved, uncomplicated
case. Two different cases against Miranda tried back to back,
one on a Tuesday, one on a Wednesday. Neither took all day, neither
jury took more than a few minutes. The only evidence in both cases
was essentially the confession. And while there was an identification
in court, the identification was based on the circumstances that
surrounded the confession itself. They were routine, pro forma
cases. The prosecutor that tried the case is still in Phoenix,
still trying cases.
Michael Grant:
Speaking of the key players, let's focus on the Miranda side of
the equation, you mentioned John Frank. He wrote the brief.
Gary Stuart:
John Frank wrote the petition for cert. His partner, John Flynn,
argued the case before the United States Supreme Court.
Michael Grant:
John Flynn was a noted criminal defense --
Gary Stuart:
He was very prominent in the Arizona bar, but he was widely unknown
outside of Arizona. After the Miranda decision in '66, was widely
recognized in other parts of the country. John Frank was already
a widely recognized constitutional scholar. He had been a clerk
on the Supreme Court for Hugo Black, a law professor at Yale.
He had a national reputation as a constitutional scholar. As a
team, they were a perfect team to argue this. What no one knew
at the time was a historic case but became one of the most historic
cases and one of the most controversial cases out of the Warren
court.
Michael Grant:
One of the most interesting things I thought about of the book,
you looked at the way Flynn got ready for the oral argument. It
is the pinnacle of a lawyer's career to argue before the U.S.
Supreme Court. You want try to cram in your key message before
the justices start interrupting you, and he did a good job of
that.
Gary Stuart:
He did one of the best jobs lots of studies have suggested was
ever done before the United States Supreme Court. One of the little
known facts about the case is that there were 14 briefs filed
in the case. Out of the 14 briefs, there were 9 or 10 lawyers
arguing different positions. All argued that the lynch pin was
not the 5th amendment but the 6th amendment. John Flynn was the
only one that argued the 5th amendment and the right to remain
silent.
Michael Grant:
And explained the distinction.
Gary Stuart:
And clearly explained the distinction. He said while the right
to counsel is the most important right, it is useless if you do
not know you have it. And you do not know that you have it unless
you are told that you have it and that you have a right to remain
silent and have an attorney present during the interrogation with
you. He responded that way in an early question in the examination
of lawyers that happens on the Supreme Court in response to a
question by Justice Stewart. It almost enunciated what is now
the Miranda warnings themselves.
Michael Grant:
And on the other side of the equation was a very young Gary Nelson,
who was an assistant attorney general at that point in time and
would become in two or three years attorney general of the state.
I talked to him about the case several years ago. He still thinks
the court decided that case wrongly.
Gary Stuart:
He still does. He is very good natured. As everybody who knows
Gary, he is generous about it. He doesn't like to be known as
the lawyer that lost the Miranda case. He gave a very good argument,
a solid argument. He prepared very well for it. But the handwriting
of Miranda was on the wall before it ever got to the courtroom
to argue the case. Two of the circuits, the 5th and 9th circuit
had already recognized a right to counsel at the interrogation
stage whether or not you asked for it. The California case had
confirmed as a matter of state law that you had that right a year
before Miranda. And given Escobido, that was on its way. These
were carefully selected by the U.S. Supreme Court to be argued
as a group, five cases over a three day period as a group. Miranda
was the lead case.
Michael Grant:
Now, interestingly enough, let's fast forward to today, and we're
38 years beyond the decision. Pretty good consistent feeling in
the law enforcement community and prosecutors community that Miranda
is a good decision, that it leads to more for example, professional
police work.
Gary Stuart:
It leads to more consistent decisions by investigators and prosecutors
and judges because it eliminates the old totality of the circumstances
test.
Michael Grant:
You kind of had to guess as a police officer before as to what
was right and was what was wrong. Miranda, if you do it right,
pretty much puts all those issues to bed. That's the way I have
heard it articulated by many.
Gary Stuart:
It is a bright line test. It says that a confession, if warned
pursuant to these specific warnings is admissible unless the defendant
can prove that the confession was not voluntarily. Under the bright
line test, the burden, as long as the police officer establishes
that he did give the warning in a timely fashion and secured a
waiver, the confession is admissible.
Michael Grant:
Supreme Court currently nipping at it a little bit?
Gary Stuart:
No, I don't think they are nipping at it in the least. There were
four cases argued in December of 2003, handed down by the court
in June of 2004, I listened to the arguments in the Supreme Court
in December and anxiously awaited the results in June. I had finished
the book by then and was understandably fearful. Fortunately,
for all of us, that did not happen.
Michael Grant:
As an author --
Gary Stuart:
That to be some concern.
Michael: I guess the one case I was thinking about in particular
was the one, I forget the precise, but basically say said even
though there had been a Miranda violation that the police were
free to pursue some evidence that they had obtained as a result
of what was an improper confession.
Gary Stuart:
They suppressed the confession itself but allowed in evidence
the gun that was secured during the process of obtaining the unwarned
confession. There were three other cases argued at the same time,
involving a second confession. The police would interrogate without
warning, secure a confession, interrogate with a warning, have
the second confession admitted in evidence because it was a product
of a waiver by the defendant. The court struck down that series
of cases of this second confession theory. One was an intentional
violation as a result of a police interrogation technique by which
you secure this confession by deliberately withholding Miranda
rights. Then you go back and secure the waiver by giving the warning
and then say now let's talk about what you have already told me.
So you secure a second confession. That decision came down 9-0
in 2004.
Michael Grant:
Gary Stuart, interesting book. We appreciate the information.
Best of luck with it.
Gary Stuart:
Thank you very much for having me.
Reporter:
the United States Supreme Court has the longest serving panel
of justices in more than a century. A few could retire during
the next administration. ASU law professors join Michael Grant
for a preview of the current Supreme Court session Tuesday at
7 on "Horizon".
Michael Grant:
Wednesday, we'll take a look at each of the propositions on the
ballot this election year. Thursday, we'll examine the congressional
races. Friday, join us for the journalists' roundtable as reporters
review the week's news events. Thank you very much for being here
on a Monday evening. I'm Michael Grant. Have a great one. Good
night.
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