Court Opinion

ID: 9557755
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 16:56:54.606522+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:06:34.536243
License: Public Domain

SLOVITER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The principal issue on this appeal, the amount of time that may elapse before the *229arresting officers must present a defendant to a federal magistrate judge, not only divides this panel — it is also the subject of a circuit split. In the past, the permissible scope of post-arrest investigation has been called “the most difficult problem in criminal procedure,” 1 Charles Alan Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure (Criminal) § 72, at 117 (3d ed.1999) (quoting a draft edition of the American Law Institute’s Model Code of Pre-Ar-raignment Procedure), and it remains a vexing issue.
The District Court concluded that federal law enforcement officers did not unreasonably delay in presenting the appellant, Johnnie Corley, to a federal magistrate judge and it therefore denied Corley’s motion to suppress the two statements Corley made before he was brought to the magistrate judge. Because I believe that the majority decision is inconsistent with two Supreme Court decisions that remain viable and precedential and that the majority erroneously interprets the statute enacted after those decisions in a manner that renders much of the statutory language superfluous, I dissent. The majority suggests that my reading of the statute, which accords with that of the Courts of Appeals for the Second, Ninth, and D.C. Circuits, might be the better interpretation of the statute, see Maj. Op. at 219, but believes we are bound by one sentence in an earlier opinion. If that is so, it may be appropriate to consider the issue en banc. It is important not only to Corley17 but to all arresting officers operating in this circuit.18
I.19
A defendant’s right to presentment before a neutral judicial officer after the defendant’s arrest was first considered by the Supreme Court in McNabb v. United States, 318 U.S. 332, 63 S.Ct. 608, 87 L.Ed. 819 (1943). In that case, federal officers were investigating the murder of an officer of the Alcohol Tax Unit of the Bureau of Internal Revenue who was killed in the Tennessee mountains while he was seeking a still where illegal whiskey was being made. Attention soon centered on the McNabb family; four of them were arrested on the day after the killing and the fifth surrendered the next day.
They were interrogated sporadically over several days and confessed before being brought before a United States commissioner or a judicial officer some days later.20 They were tried and three of the five were convicted of second degree murder in federal court, after the trial judge denied their motions to suppress the confessions. When the case came before the Supreme Court, Justice Frankfurter used the opportunity to engage in a discourse with respect to the need for the police to observe the procedural safeguards established by Congress for the effective administration of criminal justice. Id. at 347, 63 S.Ct. 608. A federal statute authorizing officers of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to make arrests required that “the person arrested shall be immediately taken before a committing officer.” Id. at 342, 63 S.Ct. 608 (quoting former 5 U.S.C. *230§ 300a). Nearly all the states had similar legislation. Id.
Justice Frankfurter stated, “[plainly, a conviction resting on evidence secured through such a flagrant disregard of the procedure which Congress has commanded cannot be allowed to stand without making the courts themselves accomplices in wilful disobedience of law.” Id. at 345, 63 S.Ct. 608. Although the Court stated that the “mere fact that a confession was made while in the custody of the police does not render it inadmissible,” it held that when the evidence was obtained in violation of the defendant’s legal rights, it must be excluded. Id. at 345-46, 63 S.Ct. 608. The Court thus overturned the conviction.
The advisory committee on the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure did not immediately codify the McNabb decision, as there was significant debate as to the extent of the holding. See 1 Wright, Fed. Prac. & Pro. § 72, at 119-23. In 1946, more than a decade after the McNabb decision, Rule 5(a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure was finally adopted. Professor Wright states that “[t]he requirement of Rule 5(a) that an arrested person be taken before the commissioner — or magistrate judge as he is now called — -‘without unnecessary delay’ was once the most controversial provision of the Criminal Rules.” Id. at 117. That Rule now provides that “[a] person making an arrest within the United States must take the defendant without unnecessary delay before a magistrate judge, or before a state or local judicial officer as Rule 5(c) provides, unless a statute provides otherwise.” Fed.R.Crim.P. 5(a)(1)(A) (emphasis added). The advisory committee’s note explains that this language “reflects the view that time is of the essence.” Fed. R.Crim.P. 5 advisory committee’s note.
Shortly after the adoption of Rule 5(a), the Supreme Court confirmed that confessions obtained when a defendant was not brought promptly before a committing magistrate are inadmissible under the McNabb rule. See Upshaw v. United States, 335 U.S. 410, 69 S.Ct. 170, 93 L.Ed. 100 (1948). Although the Court had previously stated in United States v. Mitchell, 322 U.S. 65, 64 S.Ct. 896, 88 L.Ed. 1140 (1944), that a confession made within a few minutes after the defendant was taken to the police station was admissible, even though the defendant was thereafter held eight days before being taken to a committing magistrate, the Upshaw Court rejected the court of appeals’ interpretation of McNabb as holding that a confession voluntarily given is admissible in evidence. Instead, the Court in Upshaw explained that the Mitchell confession had been made before any illegal detention had occurred. It stated that, in contrast, it was clear that the delay in bringing Upshaw promptly before a committing magistrate was for the purpose of securing the confession, a purpose inconsistent with the requirement to bring the defendant before the magistrate “without unnecessary delay” as required by Rule 5(a). It reaffirmed that “confessions thus obtained are inadmissible under the McNabb rule.” Id. at 414, 69 S.Ct. 170.
Professor Wright notes that even after the Upshaw decision, “the lower courts continued to be uncertain about the reach of the exclusionary rule, and were reluctant to believe that mere delay in bringing a defendant before a commissioner could, without more, prevent use of a confession obtained in the interim.” 1 Wright, Fed. Prac. & Pro. § 72, at 124. The decision in Mallory v. United States, 354 U.S. 449, 77 S.Ct. 1356, 1 L.Ed.2d 1479 (1957), resolved some of the confusion as to the meaning of the exclusionary rule first announced in McNabb.
*231Mallory was convicted by a jury in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia of rape and sentenced to death. He argued that his confession, obtained by the police following a detention of some seven hours, should be suppressed because he was not brought before a commissioner until the next morning, and the police did not attempt to reach a commissioner until seven and a half or eight hours after his arrest, when the commissioner was no longer available. In its decision, the Supreme Court reviewed what it characterized as the “plainly defined” scheme for initiating a federal prosecution:
The police may not arrest upon mere suspicion but only on “probable cause.” The next step in the proceeding is to arraign the arrested person before a judicial officer as quickly as possible so that he may be advised of his rights and so that the issue of probable cause may be promptly determined. The arrested person may, of course, be “booked” by the police. But he is not to be taken to police headquarters in order to carry out a process of inquiry that lends itself, even if not so designed, to eliciting damaging statements to support the arrest and ultimately his guilt.
Id. at 454, 77 S.Ct. 1356 (emphasis added).
The Court noted that an earlier arraignment21 could easily have been had in the same building in which the police headquarters were housed, and rejected the explanation that the police were merely trying to check on the information given by the petitioner. The Court held it was error not to have suppressed Mallory’s confession.
It should be noted that the defendants in McNabb, Upshaw, and Mallory had not been advised of their rights. Those cases were all decided before the Supreme Court’s decision in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), which alleviated some of the problems identified in those decisions. Nonetheless, the significance of prompt presentation to a magistrate judge is not diminished.
After the Mallory decision, Congress turned its attention to the issue of pre-presentation delay and, in particular, to the admissibility of confessions by detained arrestees who were not brought before a judicial officer without unreasonable delay. In the original draft of what was later enacted as Title II of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 18 U.S.C. §§ 3501-3502, voluntariness was the only criterion for admission of such confessions. See United States v. Supervine, 40 F.Supp.2d 672, 682-83 (D.V.I. 1999) (discussing legislative history). However, amendments made on the Senate floor restored the essence of the McNabb-Mallory exclusionary rule. Thus, the federal statute, codified in 18 U.S.C. § 3501, was enacted essentially as it appears today.
18 U.S.C. § 3501(a) provides that “In any criminal prosecution brought by the United States or by the District of Columbia, a confession ... shall be admissible in evidence if it is voluntarily given.”22 Sub*232section (b) provides that “[t]he trial judge in determining the issue of voluntariness shall take into consideration all the circumstances surrounding the giving of the confession,” and sets forth five factors that “need not be conclusive on the issue[.]” 18 U.S.C. § 3501(b).23
Finally, subsection(c), the section of principal relevance to us today, provides a safe harbor, stating, in relevant part:
In any criminal prosecution by the United States ..., a confession made or given by a person who is a defendant therein, while such person was under arrest or other detention in the custody of any law-enforcement officer or law-enforcement agency, shall not be inadmissible solely because of delay in bringing such person before a magistrate or other officer empowered to commit persons charged with offenses against the laws of the United States ... if such confession is found by the trial judge to have been made voluntarily and if the weight to be given the confession is left to the jury and if such confession was made or given by such person within six hours immediately following his arrest or other detention: Provided, That the time limitation contained in this subsection shall not apply in any case in which the delay in bringing such person before such magistrate or other officer beyond such six-hour period is found by the trial judge to be reasonable considering the means of transportation and the distance to be traveled to the nearest available such magistrate or other officer.
18 U.S.C. § 3501(c) (emphasis added).
As the court aptly noted in Superville, “Congress flatly refused to ‘overrule’ McNabb or Mallory .... and 18 U.S.C. § 3501(c) only excised the first six hours after arrest or detention from the scope of the McNabb-Mallory exclusionary rule.” 40 F.Supp.2d at 683.
The majority chooses not to dispute Cor-ley’s argument that the District Court erred in concluding that the agents’ interrogation was within that six-hour safe-harbor period. See Maj. Op. at 220 note 7. As the majority opinion notes, Corley was arrested at 8:00 a.m. and was taken to the Sharon Hill police station for processing. He was then escorted at approximately 11:45 a.m. from the police station to the hospital where he was admitted at 12:12 *233p.m. [4 hours and 12 minutes after the arrest]. He was discharged from the hospital at approximately 3:20 p.m. after re: ceiving five sutures. [7 hours and 20 minutes after the arrest], Corley arrived at the Philadelphia Federal Bureau of Investigation office at 3:30 p.m. [7% hours after the arrest]. At 5:07 p.m., the officers advised Corley of his Miranda rights, and he was given the advice of rights form. From 5:27 p.m. through 6:38 p.m., Corley orally confessed to the June 16, 2003 bank robbery. [Confession began 9 hours, 27 minutes after the arrest].
It is evident that Corley’s first confession was not made within six hours of his arrest as that period expired at 2:00 p.m. In reaching its conclusion that Corley’s confession fell within the safe-harbor period, the District Court excluded the time during which Corley was treated at the hospital. There is no legal basis for that exclusion. The statute does not provide an exception for emergency visits to the hospital.24 There is only one statutory proviso to the safe harbor, and that proviso states that the six-hour time limitation “shall not apply in any case in which the delay in bringing such person before such magistrate or other officer beyond such six-hour period is found by the trial judge to be reasonable considering the means of transportation and the distance to be traveled to the nearest available such magistrate or other officer.” 18 U.S.C. § 3501(c). The government does not contend that the delay in presenting Corley to the Magistrate Judge was related “to the means of transportation and the distance to be traveled to the nearest available magistrate.”
The District Court also stated that the delay in presenting Corley to the Magistrate Judge was not “unnecessary” for the purposes of Rule (5)(a) because Corley requested the break after beginning his confession. App. at 6. Once again, there is no statutory provision that time requested by the defendant should be excluded from the six-hour safe harbor. Indeed, at the argument before us the government retreated from the position taken in its brief and conceded that the District Court erred in concluding that the statement was made within the safe harbor. I therefore believe that the safe-harbor period should be deemed expired. The remaining question, therefore, is whether Corley’s confession was nonetheless admissible.
The majority adopts the government’s argument that even if the confession was not forthcoming within the six-hour safe-harbor period provided in 18 U.S.C. § 3501(c), Corley’s confession was admissible because it was voluntary.25 It is, of course, a sine qua non that a confession must be voluntary before it can be admitted into evidence. Crane v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 683, 687-88, 106 S.Ct. 2142, 90 L.Ed.2d 636 (1986); Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 376-77, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 12 L.Ed.2d 908 (1964). The converse does not follow.
I find irrefutable Corley’s argument that if a confession only had to be voluntary to *234be admissible despite the delay in presentation to a magistrate judge, there would be no reason for 18 U.S.C. § 3501(c) because voluntariness is already covered in § 3501(a) and (b). Section 3501(a) expressly states that a confession shall be admissible if it is voluntarily given. In its compelling statutory analysis, the court in Superville rejected the government’s contention “that the sole test under 18 U.S.C. § 3501 for admission of any defendant’s post-arrest statements is whether the defendant voluntarily confessed, and delay in presentation is only one factor in this determination.” 40 F.Supp.2d at 681. The court noted that “[i]f every voluntary confession were admissible, as section 3501(a) read alone appears to require, there would be no need for section 3501(c) to provide that voluntary statements obtained in the first six hours following arrest or detention cannot be suppressed for pre-presentation delay. Subsection (c) would be entirely superfluous.” Id. Other courts have recognized the same. See United States v. Wilbon, 911 F.Supp. 1420, 1426 (D.N.M. 1995) (“It is completely illogical to interpret subsection (c) as providing that volun-tariness is the sole test” because the “time limitation and the accompanying proviso would be totally superfluous.”); accord United States v. Erving, 388 F.Supp. 1011, 1016 (W.D.Wis.1975). The majority recognizes that both the Courts of Appeals for the Second Circuit and the Ninth Circuit have agreed with this interpretation of the statutory language. I discuss those cases in detail hereafter.
The government did not provide a persuasive response to this court’s question at oral argument: “If (a), which talks about voluntariness, is it, why don’t you just stop there? Why did they do a (c) where they talk about a safe harbor for delay? Why is there a (c) at all?” Mar. 6, 2007 Oral Argument Tr. at 33. The government’s only response was to refer us to a statement in our opinion in Gov’t of the V.I. v. Gereau, 502 F.2d 914 (3d Cir.1974), where we upheld the convictions of five defendants for murder, assault and robbery following a jury trial. A group of young men had entered the clubhouse area of the Fountain Valley Golf Course in St. Croix armed with a variety of weapons, including a machine gun, robbed some of the guests and killed eight persons. It is undoubtedly difficult after more than 35 years to recreate the agitation and ferment the killings caused in the Virgin Islands, the Caribbean area generally, the United States and the tourist industry. This was only partially abated by the time of the trial and the appeal. All but one of the challenges raised by defendants to their convictions were rejected on appeal.26
The opinion of this court covered a wide range of issues. Most of the opinion addressed the validity of the searches and the failure to suppress the evidence seized, but it also covered the initial warrantless arrest of defendant Gereau, the sufficiency of the evidence, the motions to disqualify the trial court, a challenge to a juror for bias, the trial court’s instructions to the jury regarding the voluntariness of the confessions and continuing deliberations, and the sentencing. Gereau, 502 F.2d at 921-22, 924-37. Slightly more than one paragraph of the lengthy opinion was focused on the admissibility of Gereau’s statement given more than six hours after he was arrested and before he (and his co-defendants) were presented to a magistrate. Id. at 924.
*235On appeal, this court held that defendants had not demonstrated clear error in the district court’s factual finding that Ger-eau’s confession was voluntary. Id. at 924. Instead, the focus of this portion of the opinion was the effect of the recent statute codified in 18 U.S.C. § 3501 on the admissibility of Gereau’s confession in light of his claim of pre-arraignment delay. Much of the analysis in Gereau on that issue remains applicable and indisputable today, including the statements that “confessions are admissible if voluntarily given” and “in determining voluntariness the trial judge shall take into consideration all relevant circumstances including the time between arrest and arraignment (where, as here, the challenged statements were made within that time), whether defendant knew he was suspected of the crime concerned when he made his statement, whether defendant was informed that he was not required to make a statement and that he had a right to counsel.” Id. at 923. As authority for these propositions, the Ger-eau court cited 18 U.S.C. § 3501(a) and (b).
The opinion then reviewed the requirements of the safe-harbor provision as set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3501(c), which it summarized by stating that the “express declaration of § 3501(c) makes clear that a statement voluntarily given within six hours of arrest is not excludable because of delay in presentment after the statement was given.” Id. at 924. The court declined to draw the negative implication that statements given before presentment but more than six hours after arrest must be excluded unless due to transportation problems, and then stated, in the two sentences on which the government places its entire reliance, “Section 3501 makes admissibility of confessions dependent on their voluntariness. Delay in a defendant’s presentment to a magistrate is only one factor relevant to voluntariness.” Id.
If the majority is correct that “subsection (a) makes voluntariness the sole criterion for admissibility of a confession,” Maj. Op. at 217, notwithstanding the length of the delay before the defendant is presented to the magistrate judge, not only would subsection (c) be superfluous, as many courts have noted, but the Gereau court’s own preceding analysis would have been superfluous. In that discussion, only several paragraphs before the sentences at issue, the Gereau court stated “in determining voluntariness the trial judge shall take into consideration all relevant circumstances including the time [elapsing] between arrest and arraignment (where, as here, the challenged statements were made within that time) ....” Id. at 923. A subsequent sentence clarifies that “within that time” refers to the safe-harbor period. Id. Because the court omitted from its definition of voluntariness consideration of whether the defendant’s statement was made beyond the six-hour safe-harbor period, it would be inconsistent to interpret the opinion as holding that volun-tariness alone supports admission of a confession made beyond the safe-harbor period. I decline to take the one sentence relied on by the majority out of context.
In its statutory analysis, the majority completely overlooks the significance of the statutory “and” in subsection (c) which, focusing on the relevant language, states that a confession “shall not be inadmissible solely because of delay” in presentment if such confession is found “to have been made voluntarily ... and if such confession was made or given by such person within six hours immediately following his arrest or other detention.” 18 U.S.C. § 3501(c) (emphasis added). If voluntariness is all, I ask the majority, how does it explain the “and” which explicitly makes admissibility of a confession dependent on *236both voluntariness and presentment within six hours of defendant’s arrest?
A plausible explanation for the inexplicable statement in Gereau was provided by the court in Superville, 40 F.Supp.2d at 687, which noted that Gereau relied on opinions of two other Courts of Appeals both of which have since modified their interpretation of § 3501. The Gereau opinion cited the Second Circuit’s opinion in United States v. Marrero, 450 F.2d 373 (2d Cir.1971), for its focus on voluntariness. More than a decade after the Second Circuit’s decision in Marrero, the court reexamined the issue in United States v. Perez, 733 F.2d 1026 (2d Cir.1984). The Perez district court had determined that the delay in failing to present Perez, who was arrested at 3:25 p.m., to a magistrate judge before 2:30 p.m. the following day was unnecessary and unreasonable. Id. at 1027-28. The court noted that a magistrate judge was available for defendant’s presentment until 6:25 p.m. on the day of the arrest and the government had failed to advance a compelling reason for not presenting defendant sooner than it did. Id. at 1035. On appeal, the Second Circuit rejected the argument that the vol-untariness of the confession rendered it admissible. The court explained that “[wjhere there has been a determination ... that the delay in excess of six hours is unnecessary and not reasonable, nothing in our prior cases requires that the confession obtained was ‘involuntary.’ ” Id. Rather, “section 3501 legislatively overruled the McNabb-Mallory rule only to the extent of (1) unreasonable pre-arraignment, pre-confession delays of less than six hours and (2) reasonable delays in excess of six hours.” Id. In so holding, the court noted the independence of the safe-harbor provision from the' remainder of the statute. Id. at 1030-31, 1034.
Similarly, the Gereau opinion cited United States v. Halbert, 436 F.2d 1226, 1232-37 (9th Cir.1970), to support its statement about voluntariness, but the Ninth Circuit, like the Second Circuit, revised the approach it took earlier. In United States v. Alvarez-Sanchez, 975 F.2d 1396, 1400-01 (9th Cir.1992), rev’d on other grounds, 511 U.S. 350, 114 S.Ct. 1599, 128 L.Ed.2d 319 (1994), the court rejected a literal interpretation of § 3501(a). It stated, “in light of the provisions of § 3501(c), there must be circumstances in which delay in arraignment will require suppression of a confession regardless of the voluntariness of the confession.” Id. at 1401. These subsequent decisions from our sister circuits interpreting the eases on which we relied in Gereau are persuasive. I would therefore hold that the standard gleaned from the statute, Rule 5(a), and McNabb and Mallory is that even a voluntary statement may be excluded if the presentment delay is unreasonable or unnecessary.
The enactment of § 3501 does not displace Rule 5(a) and therefore the standard established in Rule 5(a) that an arrestee must be taken to a magistrate judge “without unnecessary delay” remains effective. The courts have generally equated “unnecessary” to “unreasonable,” and I would do the same, noting that § 3501 also uses “reasonable” as a standard. The District Court found that the delay in presenting Corley to a magistrate judge was not “unnecessary” or “unreasonable.” App. at 7. Nothing in the record supports such a finding.
Because I have already discussed, and rejected, the government’s contention that the time for Corley’s hospital visit should be deducted from the six hours provided by the statute as a safe harbor, I must next consider the separate question whether the time spent in connection with Cor-ley’s hospital visit renders the delay in *237presenting Corley to a magistrate judge “necessary” and “reasonable,” and hence not subject to the interdiction of “unnecessary delay” within the meaning of Rule 5(a). I recognize that there may be situations when the arrestee is in dire medical circumstances, and must be seen promptly in an emergency room. Certainly, in such a situation, delay occasioned by the need for immediate medical service would be a factor in considering whether the delay in presentation was “necessary.” Corley’s condition was not a medical emergency. He received stitches and medicine at the hospital and was sent on his way. There was no evidence that he was not fully alert and mobile.
Even if the delay in Corley’s presentment was required because of his need to get medical treatment, the government has not explained why it did not bring him to the hospital earlier in the day or why it could not have presented Corley to a nearby magistrate judge immediately following his discharge from the hospital. The government does not suggest, nor could it, that there were no magistrate judges available. At the time of his arrest, the chambers of the magistrate judges and their courtrooms were in the same building as the offices of the FBI.
One of the reasons, and apparently the only reason, for the delay following Cor-ley’s hospital discharge was candidly given by one of the arresting officers. Trooper D’Angelo testified:
Q [W]as Mr. Corley taken before a Federal Magistrate to be advised of the complaint against him for the assault of the Federal Officer ... ?
A Not ... on the 17th of September, no.
Q ... Instead what happened was you stated your desire to Mr. Corley that you wanted to question him about his participation in this bank robbery, is that a fair statement?
A Yes, we al — yes.
App. at 78. In response to the question whether he wanted Corley to confess to the robbery, D’Angelo answered: “Absolutely.” App. at 92.
The desire to exact a confession is neither an accepted nor an acceptable excuse for the failure to take a defendant to a magistrate judge. Congress provided law enforcement authorities a window consisting of the six-hour safe-harbor period during which they may interrogate the defendant at will and attempt to persuade him or her to provide information about the alleged crime. But if they exceed the six-hour period, and fail to transport the defendant to a magistrate judge, they may not avoid the sanction of suppression of the confession on the ground that they were merely developing the required evidence. See Ricks v. United States, 334 F.2d 964, 968-69 (D.C.Cir.1964) (“Nor can the delay of a preliminary hearing be justified on the ground that police activity for that period was required to investigate other unsolved crimes for which there was no probable cause to arrest the accused .... • [NJeither the Assistant [United States AttorneyJ’s advice nor the posited inaccessibility of a committing magistrate licensed the police to continue ‘to carry out a process of inquiry that lends itself, even if not so designed, to eliciting damaging statements to support the arrest and ultimately his guilt.’ ”) (quoting Mallory, 354 U.S. at 454, 77 S.Ct. 1356); Ginoza v. United States, 279 F.2d 616, 621 (9th Cir.1960) (confession inadmissible because delay designed to enable officers to obtain oral confession).
The Supreme Court was explicit on this issue in its decision in Mallory, where it stated that any necessary delay in presentation “must not be of a nature to give *238opportunity for the extraction of a confession.” 354 U.S. at 455, 77 S.Ct. 1356. The government has not suggested any legitimate basis for the delay; there was no transportation difficulty, no urgent medical need, and no unavailable magistrate judge. Because the safe-harbor period had expired, it follows that application of the McNabb-Mallory rule required suppression of Corley’s confessions.
Corley’s counsel argued that the confession was the only evidence presented against Corley. The government has not made its position on that fact explicit. If we were to remand, as I would do, I would leave that determination to the District Court on remand.
I recognize that law enforcement officials and government lawyers may believe that once a defendant is brought before a magistrate judge, the defendant will decline to make a statement (in the vernacular, “lawyer up”). The possibility of that result is no reason to forgo the important function served by the magistrate judge in advising the defendant of his or her rights. The Miranda rule requires the arresting officers to provide that information, but the legal rules have been formulated to place more reliance on the statement of rights given by a neutral magistrate judge.
Suppression of the evidence of a confession may lead to the frustrating outcome, in some cases, of overturning a conviction. In McNabb, the Supreme Court ordered the suppression of the confessions of defendants who murdered a federal officer. In Mallory, the Supreme Court ordered the suppression of the confession of a defendant who was sentenced to death for rape. We can do no less in the case of a convicted bank robber. As the Court in McNabb stated, “[jjudieial supervision of the administration of criminal justice in the federal courts implies the duty of establishing and maintaining civilized standards of procedure and evidence.” 318 U.S. at 340, 63 S.Ct. 608.
II.
For the reasons set forth above, I dissent from the majority’s judgment affirming the decision of the District Court.

. Corley argues, and the government does not disagree, that there is no evidence independent of the confession of Corley's guilt.

. I accept the majority's statement of the facts, I limit my discussion to the legal issue.

. The District Court had jurisdiction over this case pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3231. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and 18 U.S.C. § 3742(a).

.Justice Reed noted in his dissenting opinion that the record did not establish when the petitioners were taken before a committing magistrate. Id. at 349, 63 S.Ct. 608.

. The Wright treatise suggests that the term "arraignment” is more properly confined to the proceeding covered in Rule 10 when defendant is read the charges and enters a plea, but it slates that "the other usage has now become so common that there is little likelihood it will be abandoned.” 1 Charles Alan Wright, Fed. Prac. & Pro. § 71, at 115.

. Subsection (a) provides in full: “In any criminal prosecution brought by the United States or by the District of Columbia, a confession, as defined in subsection (e) hereof, shall be admissible in evidence if it is voluntarily given. Before such confession is received in evidence, the trial judge shall, out of the presence of the jury, determine any issue as to voluntariness. If the trial judge deter*232mines that the confession was voluntarily made it shall be admitted in evidence and the trial judge shall permit the jury to hear relevant evidence on the issue of voluntariness and shall instruct the jury to give such weight to the confession as the jury feels it deserves under all the circumstances.” Subsection (e) in turn explains that, "[a]s used in this section, the term 'confession' means any confession of guilt of any criminal offense or any self-incriminating statement made or given orally or in writing.”

. Subsection (b) provides in full: "The trial judge in determining the issue of voluntariness shall take into consideration all the circumstances surrounding the giving of the confession, including (1) the time elapsing between arrest and arraignment of the defendant making the confession, if it was made after arrest and before arraignment, (2) whether such defendant knew the nature of the offense with which he was charged or of which he was suspected at the time of making the confession, (3) whether or not such defendant was advised or knew that he was not required to make any statement and that any such statement could be used against him, (4) whether or not such defendant had been advised prior to questioning of his right to the assistance of counsel; and (5) whether or not such defendant was without the assistance of counsel when questioned and when giving such confession.
The presence or absence of any of the above-mentioned factors to be taken into consideration by the judge need not be conclusive on the issue of voluntariness of the confession.”

. Even were the time spent receiving medical treatment excluded in calculating the expiration of the safe-harbor period, the confession would nonetheless fall outside that period. The District Court excluded the twenty-seven minute period — 11:45 a.m. to 12:12 p.m. — necessary to transport Corley from the police station to the hospital. Because the hospital is less than a mile away from the F.B.I. office where Corley was taken, the agents would have traveled approximately the same distance over approximately the same lime period.

. The Assistant U.S. Attorney stated: "things may not be able to happen in six hours and that's why 3501 makes admissible confessions dependent on their voluntariness." Mar. 6, 2007 Oral Argument Tr. at 33.

. The court remanded for reconsideration of the trial court’s denial of defendants' motion for a new trial, and directed the trial court to review the record of the hearing under a de novo standard. 502 F.2d at 936-37.