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VEGA v. TEKOH 

Syllabus 

by  now-familiar  warnings  and  disallowing  the  use  of  statements  ob-
tained in violation of these new rules by the prosecution in its case-in-
chief.  384 U. S., at 444, 479.  Miranda did not hold that a violation of 
the rules it established necessarily constitute a Fifth Amendment vio-
lation.  That makes sense, as an un-Mirandized suspect in custody may 
make  self-incriminating  statements  without  any  hint  of  compulsion. 
The Miranda Court stated that the Constitution did not itself require 
“adherence to any particular solution for the inherent compulsions of
the interrogation process” and that its decision “in no way create[d] a 
constitutional straitjacket.”  Id., at 467.  Since Miranda, the Court has 
repeatedly described Miranda rules as “prophylactic.”  Pp. 4–7.

(2) After Miranda, the Court engaged in the process of charting the 
dimensions of these new prophylactic rules, and, in doing so, weighed 
the  benefits  and  costs  of  any  clarification  of  the  prophylactic  rules’ 
scope.  See  Maryland  v.  Shatzer,  559  U. S.  98,  106.    Some  post-Mi-
randa  decisions  found  that  the  balance  of  interests  justified  re-
strictions that would not have been possible if Miranda described the 
Fifth Amendment right as opposed to a set of rules designed to protect 
that right.  For example, in Harris v. New York, 401 U. S. 222, 224– 
226, the Court held that a statement obtained in violation of Miranda 
could be used to impeach the testimony of a defendant, even though an 
involuntary statement obtained in violation of the Fifth Amendment 
could not have been employed in this way.  In Michigan v. Tucker, 417 
U. S.  443,  450–452,  n.  26,  the  Court  held  that  the  “fruits”  of  an  un-
Mirandized statement can be admitted.  In doing so, the Court distin-
guished police conduct that “abridge[s] [a person’s] constitutional priv-
ilege  against  compulsory  self-incrimination”  from  conduct  that  “de-
part[s]  only  from  the  prophylactic  standards  later  laid  down  by  this 
Court in Miranda to safeguard that privilege.”  417 U. S., at 445–446. 
Similarly, in Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U. S. 298, the Court, following the 
reasoning  in Tucker,  refused  to  exclude  a  signed  confession  and  em-
phasized that an officer’s error “in administering the prophylactic Mi-
randa procedures . . . should not breed the same irremediable conse-
quences as police infringement of the Fifth Amendment itself.”  Id., at 
309. 

While  many  of  the  Court’s  decisions  imposed  limits  on  Miranda’s 
prophylactic rules, other decisions found that the balance of interests 
called for expansion.  For example, in Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U. S. 610, the 
Court held that silence following a Miranda warning cannot be used 
to  impeach.    The  Court  acknowledged  that  Miranda  warnings  are 
“prophylactic,” 426 U. S., at 617, but it found that allowing the use of 
post-warning silence would undermine the warnings’ implicit promise
that  silence  would  not  be  used  to  convict.  Id.,  at  618.  Likewise,  in 
Withrow v. Williams, 507 U. S. 680, the Court rejected an attempt to