Miranda analysis starts with two triggers: custody and interrogation. If either is missing, the warning requirement is not triggered even if police conduct feels coercive or investigative.
Practice in Testify →Identify whether the suspect was in custody, then whether police words or conduct amounted to interrogation. If both are present, determine whether warnings were adequate and whether any waiver was knowing, intelligent, and voluntary. If rights were invoked, analyze the scope and effect of the invocation before considering later statements.
Not every police question is interrogation, and not every stationhouse conversation is custody. Students also confuse Sixth Amendment counsel rules with Miranda counsel rules, or assume every Miranda violation requires suppression of all derivative evidence.
Write 'C + I' at the top of the problem. Do not move to warnings or waiver until you have a factual reason for both custody and interrogation. Then track invocation and later police contact on a timeline.
A law school exam may support separate Fifth Amendment due-process, Miranda, and Sixth Amendment analyses. Use separate headings because each doctrine has a different trigger and remedy.
For bar review, pair Miranda with Fourth Amendment stops and Sixth Amendment counsel questions. The same police encounter can raise multiple constitutional issues without producing the same answer under each.