Opinion ID: 748614
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Statements Obtained in Violation of Miranda

Text: 18 The trial court suppressed the statements made by Winsett because police officers obtained them in violation of his Miranda rights. Winsett argued that this Miranda violation, standing alone, was a sufficient constitutional violation to justify exclusion of all derivative evidence as the fruit of a poisonous tree. The Supreme Court, however, established Miranda protections as prophylactic safeguards of the Fifth Amendment and has not recognized those safeguards as independent constitutional rights. See infra at 275-77. Winsett's habeas petition, then, hinges on our willingness to create a new rule of constitutional law that gives Miranda greater constitutional status than that bestowed by the Supreme Court. 19 We are forbidden from taking such a step by the Court's prohibition against applying new constitutional rules of criminal procedure on collateral review. Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 316, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 1078, 103 L.Ed.2d 334, (1989). Teague allows us to grant Winsett's petition for a writ of habeas corpus only if the dispositive rule of law was dictated by precedent existing at the time the petitioner's conviction became final, Caspari v. Bohlen, 510 U.S. 383, 390, 114 S.Ct. 948, 953, 127 L.Ed.2d 236 (1994) (quoting Teague, 489 U.S. at 301, 109 S.Ct. at 1070), or, put another way, if a state court considering [his] claim at the time his conviction became final would have felt compelled by existing precedent to conclude that the rule [he] seeks was required by the Constitution. Gray v. Netherland, 518 U.S. 152, ----, 116 S.Ct. 2074, 2083, 135 L.Ed.2d 457 (1996) (quoting Saffle v. Parks, 494 U.S. 484, 488, 110 S.Ct. 1257, 1260, 108 L.Ed.2d 415 (1990)). 20 Neither party addressed the application of Teague to this case, but the Supreme Court has noted that a court may raise the issue of its own volition. See Goeke v. Branch, 514 U.S. 115, 116-18, 115 S.Ct. 1275, 1276, 131 L.Ed.2d 152 (1995) (noting that Teague is not jurisdictional and that a court need not entertain the defense if the state has not raised it); Caspari, 510 U.S. at 389, 114 S.Ct. at 953 ([A] federal court may, but need not, decline to apply Teague if the State does not argue it.); Collins v. Youngblood, 497 U.S. 37, 41, 110 S.Ct. 2715, 2718-19, 111 L.Ed.2d 30 (1990) (stating that the Teague rule is not jurisdictional but that courts may raise it where applicable). Several decisions of this Court emphasize the discretionary nature of our decision to raise the Teague rule when the Government waives it. See Spreitzer v. Peters, 114 F.3d 1435, 1442 n. 1 (7th Cir.1997); Young v. United States, 124 F.3d 794, 797 (7th Cir.1997); Jones v. Page, 76 F.3d 831, 850 (7th Cir.1996); Eaglin v. Welborn, 57 F.3d 496, 499 (7th Cir.1995) (en banc); Stewart v. Lane, 60 F.3d 296, 299 (7th Cir.1995). We exercise our discretion to consider the application of Teague to Winsett's petition before addressing the merits of his constitutional challenge. 3 21 In determining whether Teague bars consideration of this claim of Winsett's habeas petition, we follow the Supreme Court's instruction to proceed in three steps. See Caspari, 510 U.S. at 390, 114 S.Ct. at 953. First, we must ascertain the date on which Winsett's conviction and sentence became final. In the second step, we must determine whether the Illinois courts denied Winsett's fruit of the poisonous tree claim based on reasonable, good-faith interpretations of precedent existing at that time. Butler v. McKellar, 494 U.S. 407, 414, 110 S.Ct. 1212, 1217, 108 L.Ed.2d 347 (1990). Finally, if the second step establishes that Winsett seeks the benefit of a new rule, we must decide whether this new rule fits within either of two narrow exceptions to the nonretroactivity principle. 22 The first inquiry is very straightforward. Winsett pressed his direct appeal to the Illinois Appellate Court, which affirmed his conviction and sentence in an unpublished order on October 2, 1986. People v. Winsett, 147 Ill.App.3d 1161, 111 Ill.Dec. 234, 512 N.E.2d 138 (1986) (table). The Supreme Court of Illinois denied his petition for leave to appeal on February 6, 1987, and his opportunity to seek review by the United States Supreme Court expired ninety days later when he failed to file a petition for a writ of certiorari. See SUP.CT. R. 13. His conviction and sentence, therefore, became final on May 7, 1987. See Caspari, 510 U.S. at 390, 114 S.Ct. at 953 (A state conviction and sentence become final for purposes of retroactivity analysis when the availability of direct appeal to the state courts has been exhausted and the time for filing a petition for a writ of certiorari has elapsed or a timely petition has been finally denied.). 23 Under the second step, the question now becomes whether the Illinois courts in 1987 reasonably could have denied Winsett the relief he seeks in his federal petition. Winsett claims that the police officers' violation of his Miranda rights is a constitutional violation sufficient to support the exclusion of all evidence derived from his tainted statements as fruit of the poisonous tree. As discussed supra at page 273, the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine applies only to evidence discovered as a result of the Government's infringement of a defendant's constitutional rights. We must deny Winsett's petition if the Illinois courts reasonably could have concluded in 1987 that a Miranda violation did not support exclusion under the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine. 24 Miranda v. Arizona created several procedural safeguards effective to secure the privilege against self-incrimination. 384 U.S. 436, 444, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 1612 (1966). To underscore the obvious fact that the Court had no authority to create new constitutional rights, Chief Justice Warren indicated that these newly-prescribed protections shall exist unless other fully effective means are devised to inform accused persons of their right to silence and to assure a continuous opportunity to exercise it.... Id.; see also id. at 457, 86 S.Ct. at 1618 (describing the motivating force behind the decision as a concern for adequate safeguards to protect precious Fifth Amendment rights). The Court believed that compliance with these safeguards would reduce violations of defendants' Fifth Amendment rights or at least provide a bright-line presumption that would obviate the need to conduct difficult, fact-intensive voluntariness inquiries in which all facts, most likely, could never be known. It is important to see through the broad sweep of Miranda to the Court's ultimate pronouncement: Until a better system is developed, these safeguards should be employed to protect a defendant's Fifth Amendment rights. See id. at 467, 86 S.Ct. at 1624 ([W]e cannot say that the Constitution necessarily requires adherence to any particular solution for the inherent compulsions of the interrogation process as it is presently conducted. Our decision in no way creates a constitutional straitjacket which will handicap sound efforts at reform, nor is it intended to have this effect.). Thus, while Miranda provided safeguards to defendants, those protections were not themselves constitutional rights. 25 The Court emphasized this distinction in two cases interpreting Miranda before 1987: Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U.S. 433, 94 S.Ct. 2357, 41 L.Ed.2d 182 (1974), and Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298, 105 S.Ct. 1285, 84 L.Ed.2d 222 (1985). In Tucker, a defendant accused of rape provided police with an alibi witness who, rather than exculpating the defendant, contradicted the defendant's version of events and implicated him in the crime. 417 U.S. at 435-37, 94 S.Ct. at 2359-60. Even though this interrogation occurred before the announcement of Miranda, the defendant sought to exclude the witness's testimony at trial as a fruit of the poisonous tree because the police failed to issue the appropriate warnings during his interrogation. The Court rejected the defendant's fruit claim because the interrogating officers did not abridge [Tucker's] constitutional privilege against compulsory self-incrimination, but departed only from the prophylactic standards later laid down by this Court in Miranda to safeguard that privilege. Id. at 446, 94 S.Ct. at 2364-65. The Court also added that these procedural safeguards were not themselves rights protected by the Constitution but were instead measures to insure that the right against compulsory self-incrimination was protected. Id. at 444, 94 S.Ct. at 2364. 26 The Court took another step down this road in Elstad. Police officers in that case willfully omitted the required warnings in their interrogation of a burglary suspect, who eventually made an inculpatory statement regarding his participation in the crime. Based on this statement, the officers took the suspect to the police station whereupon he received and waived his Miranda rights in the process of executing a second confession (this one in writing). Elstad, 470 U.S. at 300-01, 105 S.Ct. at 1288-89. The defendant in Elstad claimed that his written confession should have been excluded as a fruit of the poisonous tree because the earlier Miranda violation uncovered information that made subsequent denials seem futile. 27 The Supreme Court rejected this contention and held that the Fifth Amendment did not require suppression of the voluntary, second confession. Id. at 318, 105 S.Ct. at 1297-98. The Court in Elstad provided a cogent statement of the critical distinction between Miranda and Fifth Amendment violations: 28 The Oregon court assumed and respondent here contends that a failure to administer Miranda warnings necessarily breeds the same consequences as police infringement of a constitutional right, so that evidence uncovered following an unwarned statement must be suppressed as fruit of the poisonous tree. We believe this view misconstrues the nature of the protections afforded by Miranda warnings and therefore misreads the consequences of police failure to supply them. 29 Id. at 304, 105 S.Ct. at 1290. The Court went on to explicate this point in greater detail: 30 The Miranda exclusionary rule ... sweeps more broadly than the Fifth Amendment itself. It may be triggered even in the absence of a Fifth Amendment violation.... Miranda's preventive medicine provides a remedy even to the defendant who has suffered no identifiable constitutional harm. 31 Id. at 306-07, 105 S.Ct. at 1291-92; see also Michigan v. Payne, 412 U.S. 47, 54, 93 S.Ct. 1966, 1970, 36 L.Ed.2d 736 (1973) (explaining that Miranda did not confer[ ] a constitutional right that had not existed prior to [that] decision). Utilizing this analytical framework, the Court noted that, while Miranda commands that a violative statement itself must be suppressed, the Miranda violation in Elstad's case could not--without more--support exclusion of derivative evidence as a fruit of the poisonous tree. Id. at 308, 105 S.Ct. at 1292-93. The Court stated: Since there was no actual infringement of [Elstad's] constitutional rights, the case was not controlled by the doctrine expressed in Wong Sun that fruits of a constitutional violation must be suppressed. Id. 4 32 The Supreme Court also recognized this dichotomy in a number of other cases before 1987. The Court held that a Miranda violation prevented introduction of a particular statement in the prosecution's case-in-chief, but that prosecutors could nevertheless use the statement as impeachment material unless it was involuntary under the Fifth Amendment. Harris v. New York, 401 U.S. 222, 225-26, 91 S.Ct. 643, 645-46, 28 L.Ed.2d 1 (1971). The Harris Court underscored the difference between the protections of Miranda and the Fifth Amendment by stating that it would be an extravagant extension of the Constitution to extend Miranda's power of exclusion beyond the initial suppression of a violative statement. Id. at 226 n. 2, 91 S.Ct. at 646. See also Connecticut v. Barrett, 479 U.S. 523, 528, 107 S.Ct. 828, 831, 93 L.Ed.2d 920 (1987) ([T]he Miranda Court adopted prophylactic rules designed to insulate the exercise of Fifth Amendment rights....); Moran v. Burbine, 475 U.S. 412, 425, 106 S.Ct. 1135, 1143, 89 L.Ed.2d 410 (1986) (The purpose of Miranda warnings instead is to ... guard against abridgement of the suspect's Fifth Amendment rights.); New York v. Quarles, 467 U.S. 649, 654, 104 S.Ct. 2626, 2630, 81 L.Ed.2d 550 (1984) (citing approvingly Tucker's recognition that [r]equiring Miranda warnings before custodial interrogation provides 'practical reinforcement' for the Fifth Amendment right) (quoting Tucker, 417 U.S. at 444, 94 S.Ct. at 2364). 5 In a case factually similar to Winsett's, the Court extended its holding in Harris by allowing the prosecution to use for impeachment purposes a defendant's statement obtained after police willfully denied the defendant's request to consult counsel in violation of his Miranda rights. Oregon v. Hass, 420 U.S. 714, 722, 95 S.Ct. 1215, 1220-21, 43 L.Ed.2d 570 (1975). Under Winsett's proposed reading of the Constitution, the determination of a Miranda violation in these cases should have settled the issue and rendered the subsequent voluntariness inquiries superfluous. 33 The opinions of both this Court and Illinois courts have followed, as they must, the Supreme Court's example. See, e.g., Stawicki v. Israel, 778 F.2d 380, 382 (7th Cir.1985) (noting that the Supreme Court has rejected a fruit of the poisonous tree analysis for Miranda violations where the defendant's statement is voluntary), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 842, 107 S.Ct. 150, 93 L.Ed.2d 91 (1986); Hayes v. Cady, 500 F.2d 1212, 1214-15 (7th Cir.) (refusing to exclude objects discovered as a result of an interrogation that violated Miranda), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 1058, 95 S.Ct. 642, 42 L.Ed.2d 655 (1974); United States v. Oliver, 505 F.2d 301, 304 (7th Cir.1974) (We recognize that the warnings specified in the Court's opinion in Miranda are not mandated by the Constitution itself ....), overruled on other grounds, United States v. Fitzgerald, 545 F.2d 578 (7th Cir.1976); People v. White, 61 Ill.2d 288, 335 N.E.2d 457, 462 (1975) (The Miranda warnings are prophylactic measures designed to guard against infringement of the privilege against self-incrimination.), cert. denied, 424 U.S. 970, 96 S.Ct. 1469, 47 L.Ed.2d 738 (1976); People v. Althide, 71 Ill.App.3d 963, 27 Ill.Dec. 428, 433, 389 N.E.2d 240, 245 (1979) (stating that, because the defendant's statement to police was involuntary, [w]e deal here not merely with a violation of the 'prophylactic rules' designed to protect a defendant's right against self-incrimination, but with a violation of that constitutional right itself). 34 Despite this apparent clarity in the law, an Illinois court in 1987 might have perceived some ambiguity regarding the nature of Miranda's constitutional foundation. The first relevant set of cases concerned the Supreme Court's holding in Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 484-85, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 1884-85, 68 L.Ed.2d 378 (1981), in which the Court established a bright-line rule that a court must suppress statements taken by police after a suspect in custody requests an attorney (unless the suspect re-initiates the communication). In Edwards, the Court held that the defendant's confession was inadmissible because police obtained it after the defendant's invocation of his right to counsel guaranteed by Miranda. Edwards seems at first glance to be merely another layer of protection for a suspect's Fifth Amendment rights. 6 The Edwards Court, however, described the protection it was creating in much broader terms: Miranda thus declared that an accused has a Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment right to have counsel present during custodial interrogation, id. at 482, 101 S.Ct. at 1883, and [t]he Fifth Amendment right identified in Miranda is the right to have counsel present at any custodial interrogation, id. at 485-86, 101 S.Ct. at 1885. See also Oregon v. Bradshaw, 462 U.S. 1039, 1043, 103 S.Ct. 2830, 2833, 77 L.Ed.2d 405 (1983) (describing the use of statements obtained in derogation of the Edwards rule as a violat[ion] of the rights secured to the defendant by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments). Indeed, the Illinois Appellate Court granted Winsett's petition for post-conviction relief based on the Supreme Court's pre-Edwards statement in Fare v. Michael C., 442 U.S. 707, 719, 99 S.Ct. 2560, 2569, 61 L.Ed.2d 197 (1979), that the Court fashioned in Miranda the rigid rule that an accused's request for an attorney is per se an invocation of his Fifth Amendment rights, requiring that all interrogation cease. See People v. Winsett, 222 Ill.App.3d 58, 164 Ill.Dec. 673, 679, 583 N.E.2d 589, 595 (1991). In light of these descriptions of the Miranda right to counsel, and inasmuch as Oregon v. Elstad in 1984 concerned a failure to provide proper Miranda warnings rather than a violation of the Edwards protection, an Illinois court might have felt justified in concluding that an Edwards violation could sustain the exclusion of derivative evidence as fruit of the poisonous tree. 35 Confusing signals emanated from sources other than the Supreme Court. Soon after the Court announced the decision in Edwards, a panel of the First Circuit affirmed the suppression of physical evidence found as a result of a defendant's statements obtained in violation of his Miranda and Edwards rights. United States v. Downing, 665 F.2d 404, 405 (1st Cir.1981). An Illinois appellate court also clouded the waters by stating in dicta that derivative evidence obtained as the result of a Miranda violation should be suppressed along with any statements made.... People v. Creach, 69 Ill.App.3d 874, 25 Ill.Dec. 886, 896, 387 N.E.2d 762, 772 (1979) (finding no Miranda violation), overruled on other grounds, 79 Ill.2d 96, 37 Ill.Dec. 338, 402 N.E.2d 228, and cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1010, 101 S.Ct. 564, 66 L.Ed.2d 467 (1980). 7 Finally, our circuit once suppressed third-party testimony obtained as a result of a Miranda violation and a refusal to allow the defendant to contact his attorney. United States ex rel. Hudson v. Cannon, 529 F.2d 890, 892 (7th Cir.1976). The Hudson Court, though, concluded that the defendant's statements were also involuntary under the Fifth Amendment and resulted from a violation of the defendant's Sixth Amendment right to counsel recognized in Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478, 84 S.Ct. 1758, 12 L.Ed.2d 977 (1964). Hudson, 529 F.2d at 893-94. 8 36 We need not decide whether the Illinois courts in 1987 reasonably could have suppressed Spruille's testimony as the fruit of a Miranda violation. Our inquiry here is more constrained. For Teague purposes, we can grant relief only if the Illinois courts would have acted unreasonably in refusing to suppress Glenn Spruille's testimony, or, tracking the well-worn formula, whether suppression of his testimony was dictated by precedent existing at the time [Winsett's] conviction became final. Teague, 489 U.S. at 301, 109 S.Ct. at 1070. 37 We hold that the Illinois courts acted reasonably by refusing to suppress Spruille's testimony as a fruit of a Miranda violation. The law on this question may not have been completely settled, but the decisions of the Illinois courts were substantially justified. The relief Winsett seeks in this count of his petition, therefore, is a new rule. Unless we can say confidently that controlling precedent existing in 1987 compelled an opposite result, we must follow Teague's command against announcing new rules of constitutional law on collateral review. 38 The third step of the Teague inquiry allows us to circumvent the general prohibition on announcing new rules if the rule sought by Winsett falls into one of two narrow categories. The first exception permits the retroactive application of a new rule if the rule places a class of private conduct beyond the power of the State to proscribe or prohibit[s] a certain category of punishment for a class of defendants because of their status or offense. Saffle v. Parks, 494 U.S. 484, 494, 110 S.Ct. 1257, 1263, 108 L.Ed.2d 415 (1990). Winsett's petition does not seek this sort of relief. The second exception allows courts to apply retroactively  'watershed rules of criminal procedure' implicating the fundamental fairness and accuracy of the criminal proceeding. Id. at 495, 110 S.Ct. at 1264 (quoting Teague, 489 U.S. at 311, 109 S.Ct. at 1075). The case cited most frequently as illustrative of this principle is Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799 (1963). See Saffle, 494 U.S. at 495, 110 S.Ct. at 1263. 39 A rule excluding the fruits of a Miranda violation does not qualify for this second Teague exception because it lacks the necessary connection to the fairness and accuracy of a trial. Adopting the rule sought by Winsett does not promise to save many innocent defendants from wrongful convictions and further the search for truth in criminal trials. The Miranda decision itself arguably might qualify as such a watershed rule because of its focus on eliminating unreliable confessions and its overall pathbreaking nature. 9 But Winsett's proposed rule, at its most basic level, fails because the presence of evidentiary fruits of a confession most often indicates that the confession was accurate and supported in fact. See Solem v. Stumes, 465 U.S. 638, 644-45, 104 S.Ct. 1338, 1341-43, 79 L.Ed.2d 579 (1984) (denying retroactive effect to Edwards v. Arizona because, inter alia, a defendant's statements made to police after he requests counsel are not likely to be inaccurate or unreliable, and, if they are, the voluntariness standard provides adequate protection). Coerced, but accurate, confessions and their fruits are still excludable under the Fifth Amendment voluntariness standard. Winsett's rule would serve only to exclude the corroborative fruits of voluntary, accurate confessions. 40 We conclude, therefore, that Winsett is not entitled to a writ of habeas corpus on his fruit of the poisonous tree claim because the relief he seeks would be a new rule within the meaning of Teague v. Lane.