Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-499_gfbh.pdf
Page Number: 7.0

Cite as:  597 U. S. ____ (2022) 

3 

Opinion of the Court 

established a prophylactic rule and that such a rule could 
not alone provide a ground for §1983 liability.  Instead, the 
jury was asked to decide whether Tekoh’s Fifth Amendment 
right  had  been  violated.    The  court  instructed  the  jury  to 
determine, based on “the totality of all the surrounding cir-
cumstances,”  whether  Tekoh’s  statement  had  been  “im-
properly  coerced  or  compelled,”  and  the  court  explained
that “[a] confession is improperly coerced or compelled . . . 
if  a  police  officer  uses  physical  or  psychological  force  or
threats not permitted by law to undermine a person’s abil-
ity to exercise his or her free will.”  App. to Pet. for Cert. 
119a.  The jury found in Vega’s favor, and Tekoh appealed. 
A Ninth Circuit panel reversed, holding that the “use of 
an un-Mirandized statement against a defendant in a crim-
inal  proceeding  violates  the  Fifth  Amendment  and  may
support a §1983 claim” against the officer who obtained the 
statement.  Tekoh v. County of Los Angeles, 985 F. 3d 713, 
722  (2021).  The  panel  acknowledged  that  this  Court  has
repeatedly  said  that  Miranda  adopted  prophylactic  rules 
designed  to  protect  against  constitutional  violations  and
that  the  decision  did  not  hold  that  the  contravention  of 
those  rules  necessarily  constitutes  a  constitutional  viola-
tion.  See 985 F. 3d, at 719–720.  But the panel thought that 
our  decision  in  Dickerson  v.  United  States,  530  U. S.  428 
(2000), “made clear that the right of a criminal defendant 
against having an un-Mirandized statement introduced in 
the prosecution’s case in chief is indeed a right secured by
the Constitution.”  985 F. 3d, at 720.  Therefore the panel
concluded that Tekoh could establish a violation of his Fifth 
Amendment  right  against  compelled  self-incrimination
simply  by  showing  that  Miranda  had  been  violated.  See 
985 F. 3d, at 720.  The panel thus remanded the case for a 
new trial. 

Vega’s  petition  for  rehearing  en  banc  was  denied,  but 
Judge Bumatay, joined by six other judges, filed a dissent