Ernesto Miranda was arrested in Arizona for kidnapping and raping an eighteen-year-old girl. After the police questioned him for two hours and the woman identified him, Miranda confessed to the crime. He was convicted in an Arizona court on the basis of that confession — although he was never told he had the right to counsel and the right not to incriminate himself. Miranda appealed his conviction, which was overturned by the Supreme Court in 1966.

The Court based its decision in Miranda v. Arizona on the fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. According to the Court, the police had forced Miranda to confess during in-custody questioning, not with physical force but with the coercion inherent in custodial interrogation . Warnings were required to dispel that coercion. Warnings were not necessary if a person was only in custody or if a person was only subject to questioning without arrest. But the combination of custody and interrogation was sufficiently intimidating to require warnings before questioning. Finally, in Miranda, the Court declared that all governments — national, state, and local — have a duty to inform suspects of the full measure of their constitutional rights.

TEXT B

Read the text below and answer the question: what does the law of your country guarantee to disabled people?

DISABLED AMERICANS

Minority status need not be confined to race or ethnicity. After more than two decades of struggle, millions of handicapped Americans gained recog­nition in 1990 as an oppressed minority with the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The law extends the protections embodied in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to people with physical or mental disabilities, including people with AIDS and recovering alcoholics and drug abusers. It guarantees access to employment, transportation, public accommodation, and communication services.

The roots of the handicapped rights movement stem from the period after World War II. Thousands of disabled veterans returned to a country and a society that were inhospitable to the needs of the handicapped.

Advocates for the disabled found a ready model in the existing civil rights laws. Opponents argued that the changes mandated by the law (such as access for those confined to wheelchairs) could cost billion of dollars, but supporters replied that the costs would be offset by an equal or greater re duction in federal aid to disabled people who would rather be working.

A change in the law, no matter how welcome, does not assure a change in attitudes. Laws that end racial discrimination do not extinguish racism, and laws that ban biased treatment of the disabled. But attitudinal barriers toward the handicapped, like similar attitudes toward other minorities, will wither, rights advocates claim, as the disabled become full participants in a society that once held them at bay.

(From : The Challenge of Democracy)

I. Read the text again and tick off the true sentences.

1) Millions of handicapped Americans were lawfully recognized in 1990.

2) The law in America guarantees the handicapped access to substantial financial aid.

3) The law doesn’t guarantee employment to people with AIDS.

4) After World War II American society didn’t care about disabled vet­erans.

5) A change in the law can’t change the attitude of the majority to the
disabled people.

I. Cross out those items which do not refer to the text.

1) handicapped Americans;

2) health service;

3) the women’s movement;

4) the handicapped rights movement;

5) racial violence;

6) ethnic minorities;

7) sex discrimination

III. Is the author’s attitude towards the handicapped    ___________

a) unfriendly; b) neutral; c) sympathetic; d) negative.

TASKS

  Task 1 . Give the English equivalents for the following:

• притесняемое меньшинство

• сторонники нового закона о людях с ограниченными возможностями

• три десятилетия назад

• свободный доступ

• из-за нетрудоспособности

• значительное сокращение помощи

• неспособный

• негостеприимные хозяева

• олицетворять новую идею о...

• гарантировать изменение

• компенсировать расходы

• барьеры в отношении к инвалидам

• наложить запрет

• гуманное отношение

Task 2. Give the opposites for the following words:

majority, obstacle, hospitable, ability, allow, set on fire, lose, increase.