Court Opinion

ID: 9429932
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:28:20.454039+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:22.101168
License: Public Domain

Justice Stevens,
dissenting.
The Court concludes its opinion with a carefully phrased statement of its holding:
“We hold today that a suspect who has once responded to unwarned yet uncoercive questioning is not thereby disabled from waiving his rights and confessing after he has been given the requisite Miranda warnings.” Ante, at 318.
I find nothing objectionable in such a holding. Moreover, because the Court expressly endorses the “bright-line rule of Miranda,” which conclusively presumes that incriminating statements obtained from a suspect in custody without administering the required warnings are the product of compulsion,1 and because the Court places so much emphasis on the special facts of this case, I am persuaded that the Court intends its holding to apply only to a narrow category of cases in which the initial questioning of the suspect was made in a totally uncoercive setting and in which the first confession obviously had no influence on the second.2 I nevertheless *365dissent because even such a narrowly confined exception is inconsistent with the Court’s prior cases, because the attempt to identify its boundaries in future cases will breed confusion and uncertainty in the administration of criminal justice, and because it denigrates the importance of one of the core constitutional rights that protects every American citizen from the kind of tyranny that has flourished in other societies.
I
The desire to achieve a just result in this particular case has produced an opinion that is somewhat opaque and internally inconsistent. If I read it correctly, its conclusion rests on two untenable premises: (1) that the respondent’s first confession was not the product of coercion;3 and (2) that no constitutional right was violated when respondent was questioned in a tranquil, domestic setting.4
*366Even before the decision in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966), it had been recognized that police interrogation of a suspect who has been taken into custody is presumptively coercive. That presumption had its greatest force when the questioning occurred in a police station, when it was prolonged, and when there was evidence that the prisoner had suffered physical injury. To rebut the presumption, the prosecutor had the burden of proving the absence of any actual coercion.5 Because police officers are generally more credible witnesses than prisoners and because it is always difficult for triers of fact to disregard evidence of guilt when addressing a procedural question, more often than not the presumption of coercion afforded only slight protection to the accused.
The decision in Miranda v. Arizona clarified the law in three important respects. First, it provided the prosecutor with a simple method of overcoming the presumption of coercion.6 If the police interrogation is preceded by the warning specified in that opinion, the usual presumption does not attach. Second, it provided an important protection to the accused by making the presumption of coercion irrebuttable if the prescribed warnings are not given.7 Third, the decision *367made it clear that a self-incriminatory statement made in response to custodial interrogation was always to be considered “compelled” within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment to the Federal Constitution if the interrogation had not been preceded by appropriate warnings.8 Thus the irrebuttable presumption of coercion that applies to such a self-incriminatory statement, like a finding of actual coercion, renders the resulting confession inadmissible as a matter of federal constitutional law.9
*368In my opinion, the Court’s attempt to fashion a distinction between actual coercion “by physical violence or other deliberate means calculated to break the suspect’s will,” ante, at 312, and irrebuttably presumed coercion cannot succeed. The presumption is only legitimate if it is assumed that there is always a coercive aspect to custodial interrogation that is not preceded by adequate advice of the constitutional right to remain silent. Although I would not support it, I could understand a rule that refused to apply the presumption unless the interrogation took place in an especially coercive setting — perhaps only in the police station itself — but if the presumption arises whenever the accused has been taken into custody or his freedom has been restrained in any significant way, it will surely be futile to try to develop subcategories of custodial interrogation.10 Indeed, a major purpose of treat-' ing the presumption of coercion as irrebuttable is to avoid the kind of fact-bound inquiry that today’s decision will surely engender.11
As I read the Court’s opinion, it expressly accepts the proposition that routine Miranda warnings will not be sufficient to overcome the presumption of coercion and thereby make a second confession admissible when an earlier confession is tainted by coercion “by physical violence or other *369deliberate means calculated to break the suspect’s will.”12 Even in such a case, however, it is not necessary to assume that the earlier confession will always “effectively immunize” a later voluntary confession. But surely the fact that an earlier confession was obtained by unlawful methods should add force to the presumption of coercion that attaches to subsequent custodial interrogation and should require the prosecutor to shoulder a heavier burder of rebuttal than in a routine case. Simple logic, as well as the interest in not providing an affirmative incentive to police misconduct, requires that result. I see no reason why the violation of a rule that is as well recognized and easily administered as the duty to give Miranda warnings should not also impose an additional burden on the prosecutor.13 If we are faithful to the holding in *370Miranda itself, when we are considering the admissibility of evidence in the prosecutor’s case in chief, we should not try to fashion a distinction between police misconduct that warrants a finding of actual coercion and police misconduct that establishes an irrebuttable presumption of coercion.
H-I HH
For me, the most disturbing aspect of the Court’s opinion is its somewhat opaque characterization of the police misconduct in this case. The Court appears ambivalent on the question whether there was any constitutional violation.14 This ambivalence is either disingenuous or completely lawless. This Court’s power to require state courts to exclude probative self-incriminatory statements rests entirely on the premise that the use of such evidence violates the Federal Constitution.15 The same constitutional analysis applies *371whether the custodial interrogation is actually coercive or irrebuttably presumed to be coercive. If the Court does not accept that premise, it must regard the holding in the Miranda case itself, as well as all of the federal jurisprudence that has evolved from that decision, as nothing more than an illegitimate exercise of raw judicial power.16 , If the Court accepts the proposition that respondent’s self-incriminatory statement was inadmissible, it must also acknowledge that the Federal Constitution protected him from custodial police interrogation without first being advised of his right to remain silent.
The source of respondent’s constitutional protection is the Fifth Amendment’s privilege against compelled self-incrimination that is secured against state invasion by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Like many other provisions of the Bill of Rights, that provision is merely a procedural safeguard. It is, however, the specific provision that protects all citizens from the kind of custodial interrogation that was once employed by the Star Chamber,17 by “the Germans of the 1930’s and early 1940’s,” 18 and by some of our own police departments only a few decades ago.19 *372Custodial interrogation that violates that provision of the Bill of Rights is a classic example of a violation of a constitutional right.
I respectfully dissent.

 “When police ask questions of a suspect in custody without administering the required warnings, Miranda dictates that the answers received be presumed compelled and that they be excluded from evidence at trial in the State’s case in chief. The Court has carefully adhered to this principle, permitting a narrow exception only where pressing public safety concerns demanded. See New York v. Quarles, 467 U. S., at 655-656. The Court today in no way retreats from the bright-line rule of Miranda.” Ante, at 317.

 The Court emphasizes the noncoercive setting in which the initial interview occurred, ante, at 300-301, 315; the apparent candor of the respondent during both of his interviews with the police, ante, at 301-302; and the absence of any evidence suggesting that the second confession was motivated by the first, ante, at 315-316. Further, the Court characterizes *365the first confession as “patently voluntary,” ante, at 307 (emphasis in original), because it was not the product of any “physical violence or other deliberate means calculated to break the suspect’s will,” ante, at 312. Moreover, the Court — apparently not satisfied that the State has conceded that respondent was in custody at the time of the unwarned admission, ante, at 315 — launches into an allegedly fact-based discussion of this “issue,” going out of its way to speculate about the probable good faith of the officers. See ante, at 315-316 (“This breach may have been the result of confusion as to whether the brief exchange qualified as ‘custodial interrogation’ or it may simply have reflected Burke’s reluctance to initiate an alarming police procedure before McAllister had spoken with respondent’s mother”). Finally, the Court makes its own finding that the failure to give Miranda warnings was an “oversight.” Ante, at 316.

 Ante, at 309 (“It is an unwarranted extension of Miranda to hold 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 so taints the investigatory process that a subsequent voluntary and informed waiver is ineffective for some indeterminate period”); ante, at 311 (“voluntary unwarned admissions”) (emphasis in original); ante, at 312 (“When neither the initial nor the subsequent admission is coerced”); ante, at 314 (“absent deliberately coercive or improper tactics in obtaining the initial statement”).

 Ante, at 304 (rejecting contention that “a failure to administer Miranda warnings necessarily breeds the same consequences as police infringement *366of a constitutional right”); ante, at 305 (“Respondent’s contention that his confession was tainted by the earlier failure of the police to provide Miranda warnings and must be excluded as ‘fruit of the poisonous tree’ assumes the existence of a constitutional violation”); ante, at 306 (“[A] procedural Miranda violation differs in significant respects from violations of the Fourth Amendment”); ibid. (“The Miranda exclusionary rule, however, serves the Fifth Amendment and sweeps more broadly than the Fifth Amendment itself”); ante, at 318 (“[T]here is no warrant for presuming coercive effect where the suspect’s initial inculpatory statement, though technically in violation of Miranda, was voluntary”).

 See, e. g., People v. La Frana, 4 Ill. 2d 261, 268, 122 N. E. 2d 583, 586-587 (1954); cf. People v. Nemke, 23 Ill. 2d 591, 601, 179 N. E. 2d 825, 830 (1962).

 384 U. S., at 444-445.

 Id., at 444 (“[T]he prosecution may not use statements, whether exculpatory or inculpatory, stemming from custodial interrogation of the defend*367ant unless it demonstrates the use of procedural safeguards effective to secure the privilege against self-incrimination”); id., at 467-469.

 Id., at 445, 448, 457-458 (“Unless adequate protective devices are employed to dispel the compulsion inherent in custodial surroundings, no statement obtained from the defendant can truly be the product of his free choice”).

 In 1964, the Court held that the “Fourteenth Amendment secures against state invasion the same privilege that the Fifth Amendment guarantees against federal infringement — the right of a person to remain silent unless he chooses to speak in the unfettered exercise of his own will, and to suffer no penalty ... for such silence.” Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U. S. 1, 8. Two years later, in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966), the Court held that the State of Arizona had deprived Miranda of his liberty without due process of law because his conviction was based on a confession that had been obtained in violation of his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Obviously, the Court’s power to reverse Miranda’s conviction rested entirely on the determination that a violation of the Federal Constitution had occurred.
The constitutional violation was established without any evidence that the police actually coerced Miranda in any way. Id., at 445, 491-492. The fact that Miranda had confessed while he was in custody and without having been adequately advised of his right to remain silent was sufficient to establish the constitutional violation. To phrase it another way, the absence of an adequate warning plus the fact of custody created an ir-rebuttable presumption of coercion. Id., at 492. Thus, the Court wrote: “To be sure, the records do not evince overt physical coercion or patent psychological ploys. The fact remains that in none of these cases did the officers undertake to afford appropriate safeguards at the outset of the interrogation to insure that the statements were truly the product of free choice.” Id., at 457.
*368See also id., at 448 (“[T]his Court has recognized that coercion can be mental as well as physical, and that the blood of the accused is not the only hallmark of an unconstitutional inquisition”); id., at 477.

 Of course, in Orozco v. Texas, 394 U. S. 324 (1969), this Court rejected the contention that Miranda warnings were inapplicable because a defendant “was interrogated on his own bed, in familiar surroundings.” Id., at 326-327.

 Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S., at 468; New York v. Quarles, 467 U. S. 649, 664 (1984) (O’CONNOR, J., concurring in part in judgment and dissenting in part) (“When police ask custodial questions without administering the required warnings, Miranda quite clearly requires that the answers received be presumed compelled and that they be excluded from evidence at trial”); Orozco v. Texas, 394 U. S., at 324.

 Ante, at 312; see also ante, at 314 (“We must conclude that, absent deliberately coercive or improper tactics in obtaining the initial statement, the mere fact that a suspect has made an unwarned admission does not warrant a presumption of compulsion”).

 In view of the Court’s holding, it is not necessary to consider how that additional burden should be discharged in all cases. In general, however, I should think that before the second session of custodial interrogation begins, the prisoner should be advised that his earlier statement is, or may be, inadmissible. I am not persuaded that the Miranda rule is so “murky,” ante, at 316,' that the law enforcement profession would be unable to identify the cases in which a supplementary warning would be appropriate. Miranda was written, in part, “to give concrete constitutional guidelines for law enforcement agencies and courts to follow.” 384 U. S., at 441-442; id., at 468 (noting that the “Fifth Amendment privilege is so fundamental to our system of constitutional rule and the expedient of giving an adequate warning as to the availability of the privilege so simple”) (emphasis added). Nearly two decades after that disposition, it is undisputed that the Miranda rule — now so deeply embedded in our culture that most schoolchildren know not only the warnings, but also when they are required — has given that clarity. See New York v. Quarles, 467 U. S., at 660 (O’Connor, J., concurring in part in judgment and dissenting in part) (noting Miranda’s “now clear strictures”); Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U. S. 291, 304 (1980) (Burger, C. J., concurring in judgment) (the “meaning of Miranda has become reasonably clear and law enforcement *370practices have adjusted to its strictures”); Fare v. Michael C., 442 U. S. 707, 717 (1979) (“The rule the Court established in Miranda is clear”); Stephens, Flanders, & Cannon, Law Enforcement and the Supreme Court: Police Perceptions of the Miranda Requirements, 39 Tenn. L. Rev. 407, 431 (1972). At the same time, it has ensured the right to be free from self-incrimination that the Constitution guarantees to all. Moreover, many professionals are convinced that, rather than hampering law enforcement, the Miranda rule has helped law enforcement efforts. See Jacobs, The State of Miranda, Trial 45 (Jan. 1985) (“[IJncreased professionalism of police . . . has resulted from the challenging combination of Miranda and Gideon v. Wainwrigkt [and] has benefited both police and prosecutors in preparing good cases”). Nevertheless, the Court today blurs Miranda’s clear guidelines. The author of today’s opinion — less than one Term ago— summarized precisely my feelings about the Court’s disposition today: ‘Miranda is now the law, and in my view, the Court has not provided sufficient justification for departing from it or for blurring its now clear strictures.” New York v. Quarles, 467 U. S., at 660 (O’Connor, J., concurring in part in judgment and dissenting in part).

 See n. 4, supra. Indeed, the Court’s holding rests on its view that there were no “improper tactics in obtaining the initial statement.” See ante, at 314.

 At least that is my view. In response to this dissent, however, the Court has added a footnote, ante, at 306-307, n. 1, implying that whenever *371the Court commands exclusion of a presumptively coerced confession, it is standing — not on a constitutional predicate — but merely on its own shoulders.

 The Miranda Court explicitly recognized the contrary when it stated that “our holding is not an innovation in our jurisprudence, but is an application of principles long recognized and applied in other settings.” 384 U. S., at 442. See also id., at 445 (“The constitutional issue we decide in each of these cases is the admissibility of statements obtained from a defendant questioned while in custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way”); id., at 460-467.

 See id., at 458-459; E. Cleary, McCormick on Evidence § 114 (2d ed. 1972); 8 J. Wigmore, Evidence § 2250 (McNaughton rev. ed. 1961).

 See Burger, Who Will Watch the Watchman, 14 Am. U. L. Rev. 1, 14 (1964).

 See, e. g., Leyra v. Denno, 347 U. S. 556 (1954); Malinski v. New York, 324 U. S. 401 (1945); Ashcraft v. Tennessee, 322 U. S. 143 (1944); Ward v. Texas, 316 U. S. 547 (1942); Vernon v. Alabama, 313 U. S. 547 *372(1941); White v. Texas, 310 U. S. 530 (1940); Canty v. Alabama, 309 U. S. 629 (1940); Chambers v. Florida, 309 U. S. 227 (1940); Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U. S. 278 (1936); Wakat v. Harlib, 253 F. 2d 59 (CA7 1958); People v. La Frana, 4 Ill. 2d 261, 122 N. E. 2d 583 (1954); cf. People v. Portelli, 15 N. Y. 2d 235, 205 N. E. 2d 857 (1965) (potential witness tortured by police). Such custodial interrogation is, of course, closer to that employed by the Soviet Union than that which our constitutional scheme tolerates. See Coleman v. Alabama, 399 U. S. 1, 15-16 (1970) (opinion of Douglas, J.) (“In [Russia] detention incommunicado is the common practice, and the period of permissible detention now extends for nine months. Where there is custodial interrogation, it is clear that the critical stage of the trial takes place long before the courtroom formalities commence. That is apparent to one who attends criminal trials in Russia. Those that I viewed never put in issue the question of guilt; guilt was an issue resolved in the inner precincts of a prison under questioning by the police”).