Opinion ID: 2190684
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Question-First Interrogation: Missouri v. Seibert

Text: Having determined that the Defendant was in custody for purposes of Miranda at the time he gave his initial unwarned confession, we next consider whether the later warnings cured the Miranda violation. In Missouri v. Seibert, 542 U.S. 600, 124 S.Ct. 2601, 159 L.Ed.2d 643 (2004), the United States Supreme Court considered a case in which the police arrested the defendant, took her to the police station, questioned her about a crime for thirty to forty minutes without the benefit of Miranda warnings, extracted a confession, and then gave her a twenty minute break. Upon resuming the questioning after the break, the police provided the defendant her Miranda warnings, and she then executed a waiver. A second confession followed. After she was charged with first degree murder, the defendant moved to suppress both her prewarning and postwarning statements. The trial court suppressed the prewarning statement but allowed the State to use the postwarning statement. A jury subsequently convicted the defendant of second degree murder. At the Supreme Court, the case generated four separate opinions, with five justices ultimately concurring that the postwarning statement was inadmissible and four justices dissenting on that issue. In addressing the interrogation tactics used by the police in Seibert , the plurality opinion first noted that [t]he technique of interrogating in successive, unwarned and warned phases, a technique the plurality referred to as question-first, had been promoted by a national police training organization with the object of render[ing] Miranda warnings ineffective by waiting for a particularly opportune time to give them, after the suspect has already confessed. Id. at 609-11, 124 S.Ct. 2601. In assessing the constitutionality of the practice in light of Miranda , the plurality determined that [t]he threshold issue when interrogators question first and warn later is thus whether it would be reasonable to find that in these circumstances the warnings could function `effectively' as Miranda requires. Could the warnings effectively advise the suspect that he had a real choice about giving an admissible statement at that juncture? Could they reasonably convey that he could choose to stop talking even if he had talked earlier? For unless the warnings could place a suspect who has just been interrogated in a position to make such an informed choice, there is no practical justification for accepting the formal warnings as compliance with Miranda , or for treating the second stage of interrogation as distinct from the first, unwarned and inadmissible segment. Id. at 611-12, 124 S.Ct. 2601. The plurality was skeptical about the efficacy of Miranda warnings under such circumstances, observing that it is likely that if the interrogators employ the technique of withholding warnings until after interrogation succeeds in eliciting a confession, the warnings will be ineffective in preparing the suspect for successive interrogation, close in time and similar in content. Id. at 613, 124 S.Ct. 2601. The plurality then set forth a five-factor test pertinent to determining whether late Miranda warnings are effective: the completeness and detail of the questions and answers in the first round of interrogation, the overlapping content of the two statements, the timing and setting of the first and the second [interrogation], the continuity of police personnel, and the degree to which the interrogator's questions treated the second round as continuous with the first [round of questioning]. Id. at 615, 124 S.Ct. 2601. Applying these factors to the case before it, the plurality held the post-warning statement to be inadmissible. Id. at 617, 124 S.Ct. 2601. In support of this conclusion that the eventual Miranda warnings were ineffective, the plurality opinion observed the following: The unwarned interrogation was conducted in the station house, and the questioning was systematic, exhaustive, and managed with psychological skill. When the police were finished there was little, if anything, of incriminating potential left unsaid. The warned phase of questioning proceeded after a pause of only 15 to 20 minutes, in the same place as the unwarned segment. When the same officer who had conducted the first phase recited the Miranda warnings, he said nothing to counter the probable misimpression that the advice that anything Seibert said could be used against her also applied to the details of the inculpatory statement previously elicited. In particular, the police did not advise that her prior statement could not be used. Nothing was said or done to dispel the oddity of warning about legal rights to silence and counsel right after the police had led her through a systematic interrogation.... The impression that the further questioning was a mere continuation of the earlier questions and responses was fostered by references back to the confession already given. It would have been reasonable to regard the two sessions as parts of a continuum, in which it would have been unnatural to refuse to repeat at the second stage what had been said before. These circumstances must be seen as challenging the comprehensibility and efficacy of the Miranda warnings to the point that a reasonable person in the suspect's shoes would not have understood them to convey a message that she retained a choice about continuing to talk. Id. at 616-17, 124 S.Ct. 2601 (footnotes omitted). In a separate opinion, Justice Kennedy agreed that the postwarning confession by the defendant in Seibert was not admissible. He disagreed with the plurality's analysis, however, explaining that the plurality's test envisions an objective inquiry from the perspective of the suspect, and applies in the case of both intentional and unintentional two-stage interrogations. In my view, this test cuts too broadly. Miranda 's clarity is one of its strengths, and a multifactor test that applies to every two-stage interrogation may serve to undermine that clarity. Id. at 621-22, 124 S.Ct. 2601 (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment) (citation omitted). Justice Kennedy preferred to apply the principles of Oregon v. Elstad which held that a simple failure to administer the warnings, unaccompanied by any actual coercion or other circumstances calculated to undermine the suspect's ability to exercise his free will, did not necessarily taint a subsequent, warned confession. Elstad, 470 U.S. at 309, 105 S.Ct. 1285. Thus, Justice Kennedy would look to whether the police deliberately employed the two-step strategy and, where they did, Justice Kennedy would exclude a postwarning statement that was related to the substance of the prewarning statement unless curative measures [were] taken before the postwarning statement [was] made. Seibert, 542 U.S. at 622, 124 S.Ct. 2601 (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment). Justice Kennedy offered as one example of a curative measure, a substantial break in time and circumstances between the prewarning statement and the Miranda warning. Id.