WASHINGTON (AP) --The Supreme Court is taking another look at its 37-year-old mandate that police officers give suspects the familiar warning that begins "You have the right to remain silent ..." before starting interrogations.

The landmark Miranda v. Arizona ruling has been criticized harshly over the years, and some people believe the court could roll back some of its protections.

Justices were starting the review Tuesday by hearing arguments in two Miranda cases. The eventual rulings, in those two cases and two others that will follow, will clarify rules for police questioning and let courts know when they must bar confessions or evidence from trials.

At issue in the first of the cases is what happens when police fail to read suspects their rights before seizing evidence they plan to use at trial and whether authorities can question suspects intentionally before telling them their rights, to get information to use in a second, "official" interrogation.

In the first case, a Colorado man accused of harassing his girlfriend in 2001 told police not to bother reading him the warning when officers came to his house to question him. He then told them he had a gun in his bedroom. Samuel Patane, who had a felony record, was charged with illegal possession of a firearm.

The Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the gun could not be used as evidence against Patane because it was the tainted fruit of a statement made without a Miranda warning.

In the other case, a lower court threw out a woman's murder conviction because of police strategy in questioning her twice, the first time without having read the Miranda warning. The Missouri Supreme Court ruled that the two-step interrogation process was improper.

Patrice Seibert was convicted of plotting to set a 1997 fire that killed a teenager who had been staying at the Seibert family trailer in Rolla, Missouri, a rural town in the Ozarks. Police said she arranged to have her home burned to cover up the death of her 12-year-old son, who had cerebral palsy, to avoid neglect allegations.

The other cases involve the questioning of juvenile suspects and the interrogation of someone without the presence of a lawyer.

The Supreme Court reaffirmed Miranda in 2000, and probably will use the four cases to fine tune the standard, said Kent Scheidegger, legal director for the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation.

"I do not think there will be a major move in either direction. There will be a resolution of some unsettled questions," he said.

The Tuesday cases are United States v. Patane, 02-1183 and Missouri v. Seibert, 02-1371.

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