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The Fifth Amendment prohibits [*307] use by [***231] the prosecution in its case in chief only of compelled testimony. Failure to administer Miranda warnings creates a presumption of compulsion. Consequently, unwarned statements that are otherwise voluntary within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment must nevertheless be excluded from evidence under Miranda. Thus, in the individual case, Miranda's preventive medicine provides a remedy even to the defendant who has suffered no identifiable constitutional harm. See New York v. Quarles, supra, at 654; Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U.S. 433, 444 (1974).
[****18] But the Miranda presumption, though irrebuttable for purposes of the prosecution's case in chief, does not require that the statements and their fruits be discarded as inherently tainted. HN5 Despite the fact that patently voluntary statements taken in violation of Miranda must be excluded from the prosecution's case, the presumption of coercion does not bar their use for impeachment purposes on cross-examination. Harris v. New York, 401 U.S. 222 (1971). The Court in Harris rejected as an "extravagant extension of the Constitution," the theory that a defendant who had confessed under circumstances that made the confession inadmissible, could thereby enjoy the freedom to "deny every fact disclosed or discovered as a 'fruit' of his confession, free from confrontation with his prior statements" and that the voluntariness of his confession would be totally irrelevant. Id., at 225, and n. 2. Where an unwarned statement is preserved for use in situations that fall outside the sweep of the Miranda presumption, "the primary criterion of admissibility [*308] [remains] the 'old' due process voluntariness test." Schulhofer, [****19] Confessions and the Court, 79 Mich. L. Rev. 865, 877 (1981).
In Michigan v. Tucker, supra, the Court was asked to extend the Wong Sun fruits doctrine to suppress the testimony of a witness for the prosecution whose identity was discovered as the result of a statement taken from the accused without benefit of full Miranda warnings. As in respondent's case, the breach of the Miranda procedures in Tucker involved no actual compulsion. The Court concluded that the unwarned questioning "did not abridge respondent's constitutional privilege . . . but departed only from the prophylactic standards later laid down by this Court in Miranda to safeguard that privilege." 417 U.S., at 446. Since there was no actual infringement of the suspect's constitutional rights, the case was not controlled by the doctrine expressed in Wong Sun that fruits of a constitutional violation must be suppressed. In deciding "how sweeping the judicially imposed consequences" of a failure to administer Miranda warnings should be, 417 U.S., at 445, the Tucker Court noted that neither the general goal [***232] [****20] of deterring improper police conduct nor the Fifth Amendment goal of assuring trustworthy evidence would be served by suppression of the witness' testimony. The unwarned confession must, of course, be suppressed, but the Court ruled that introduction of the third-party witness' testimony [**1293] did not violate Tucker's Fifth Amendment rights.
We believe that this reasoning applies with equal force when the alleged "fruit" of a noncoercive Miranda violation is neither a witness nor an article of evidence but the accused's own voluntary testimony. As in Tucker, the absence of any coercion or improper tactics undercuts the twin rationales -- trustworthiness and deterrence -- for a broader rule. Once warned, the suspect is free to exercise his own volition in deciding whether or not to make a statement to the authorities. HN6 The Court has often noted: "'[A] living witness is not to be [*309] mechanically equated with the proffer of inanimate evidentiary objects illegally seized. . . . [The] living witness is an individual human personality whose attributes of will, perception, memory and volition interact to determine what testimony he will give.'" United States v. Ceccolini, 435 U.S. 268, 277 (1978) [****21] (emphasis added) (quoting from Smith v. United States, 117 U. S. App. D. C. 1, 3-4, 324 F.2d 879, 881-882 (1963) (Burger, J.) (footnotes omitted), cert. denied, 377 U.S. 954 (1964)).
LEdHN[3] [3]HN7 Because Miranda warnings may inhibit persons from giving information, this Court has determined that they need be administered only after the person is taken into "custody" or his freedom has otherwise been significantly restrained. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S., at 478. Unfortunately, the task of defining "custody" is a slippery one, and "policemen investigating serious crimes [cannot realistically be expected to] make no errors whatsoever." Michigan v. Tucker, supra, at 446. If errors are made by law enforcement officers in administering the prophylactic Miranda procedures, they should not breed the same irremediable consequences as police infringement of the Fifth Amendment itself. 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 [****22] to exercise his free will, so taints the investigatory process that a subsequent voluntary and informed waiver is ineffective for some indeterminate period. Though Miranda requires that the unwarned admission must be suppressed, the admissibility of any subsequent statement should turn in these circumstances solely on whether it is knowingly and voluntarily made.
B
LEdHN[1B] [1B]The Oregon court, however, believed that the unwarned remark compromised the voluntariness of respondent's later confession. It was the court's view that the prior answer [*310] and not the unwarned questioning impaired respondent's ability to give a valid waiver and that only lapse of time and change of place could dissipate what it termed the "coercive impact" of the inadmissible statement. HN8 When a prior statement [***233] is actually coerced, the time that passes between confessions, the change in place of interrogations, and the change in identity of the interrogators all bear on whether that coercion has carried over into the second confession. See Westover v. United States, decided together with HN9 Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S., at 494; Clewis v. Texas, 386 U.S. 707 (1967). [****23] The failure of police to administer Miranda warnings does not mean that the statements received have actually been coerced, but only that courts will presume the privilege against compulsory self-incrimination has not been intelligently exercised. See New York v. Quarles, 467 U.S., at 654, and n. 5; Miranda v. Arizona, supra, at 457. Of the courts that have considered whether a properly warned confession must be suppressed because it was preceded by an unwarned but clearly voluntary admission, the majority have explicitly or implicitly recognized that Westover's requirement of a break in the stream of [**1294] events is inapposite. 2
In these circumstances, a careful and thorough [*311] administration of Miranda warnings serves to cure the condition that rendered the unwarned statement inadmissible. The warning conveys the relevant information and thereafter the suspect's choice whether to exercise his privilege to remain silent should ordinarily be viewed as an "act of free will." Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S., at 486.
[****24] The Oregon court nevertheless identified a subtle form of lingering compulsion, the psychological impact of the suspect's conviction that he has let the cat out of the bag and, in so doing, has sealed his own fate. But endowing the psychological effects of voluntary unwarned admissions with constitutional implications would, practically speaking, disable the police from obtaining the suspect's informed cooperation even when the official coercion proscribed by the Fifth Amendment played no part in either his warned or unwarned confessions. As the Court remarked in Bayer:
"[After] an accused has once let the cat out of the bag by confessing, no matter what the inducement, he is never thereafter free [***234] of the psychological and practical disadvantages of having confessed. He can never get the cat back in the bag. The secret is out for good. In such a sense, a later confession may always be looked upon as fruit of the first. But this Court has never gone so far as to hold that making a confession under circumstances which preclude its use, perpetually disables the confessor from making a usable one after those conditions have been removed." 331 U.S., at 540-541.
Even in such extreme cases as Lyons v. Oklahoma, 322 U.S. 596 1944), in which police forced a full confession from the accused through unconscionable methods of interrogation, the Court has assumed that the coercive effect of the confession [*312] could, with time, be dissipated. See also Westover v. United States, supra, at 496.
This Court has never held that the psychological impact of voluntary disclosure of a guilty secret qualifies as state compulsion or compromises the voluntariness of a subsequent informed waiver. The Oregon court, by adopting this expansive view of Fifth Amendment compulsion, effectively immunizes a suspect who responds to pre-Miranda warning questions from the consequences of his subsequent informed waiver of the privilege of remaining silent. See 61 Ore. App., at 679, 658 P. 2d, at 555 (Gillette, P. J., concurring). This immunity comes at a high cost to legitimate law enforcement activity, while adding little desirable protection to the individual's interest in not being compelled to testify against himself. Cf. Michigan v. Mosley, 423 U.S. 96, 107-111 (1975) [****26] (WHITE, J., concurring in result). HN10 When neither the initial nor the subsequent admission is coerced, little justification exists for permitting the highly [**1295] probative evidence of a voluntary confession to be irretrievably lost to the factfinder.
LEdHN[4] [4]There is a vast difference between the direct consequences flowing from coercion of a confession by physical violence or other deliberate means calculated to break the suspect's will and the uncertain consequences of disclosure of a "guilty secret" freely given in response to an unwarned but noncoercive question, as in this case. JUSTICE BRENNAN'S contention that it is impossible to perceive any causal distinction between this case and one involving a confession that is coerced by torture is wholly unpersuasive. 3
Certainly, in [*313] respondent's case, the [***235] causal connection between any psychological disadvantage created by his admission and his ultimate decision to cooperate is speculative and attenuated [**1296] at [*314] best. It is difficult to tell with certainty what motivates a suspect to speak. A suspect's confession may be traced to factors as disparate as "a prearrest event such as a visit with a [****27] minister," Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S., at 220 (STEVENS, J., concurring), or an intervening event such as the exchange of words respondent had with his father. We must conclude that, HN11 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. HN12 A subsequent administration of Miranda warnings to a suspect who has given a voluntary but unwarned statement ordinarily should suffice to remove the conditions that precluded admission of the earlier statement. In such circumstances, the finder of fact may reasonably conclude that the suspect made a rational and intelligent choice whether to waive or invoke his rights.
[****28] III
[***236] Though belated, the reading of respondent's rights was undeniably complete. McAllister testified that he read the Miranda warnings aloud from a printed card and recorded [*315] Elstad's responses. 4
There is no question that respondent knowingly and voluntarily waived his right to remain silent before he described his participation in the burglary. It is also beyond dispute that respondent's earlier remark was voluntary, within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment. Neither the environment nor the manner of either "interrogation" was coercive. The initial conversation took place at midday, in the living room area of respondent's own home, with his mother in the kitchen area, a few steps away. Although in retrospect the officers testified that respondent was then in custody, at the time he made his statement he had not been informed that he was under arrest. The arresting officers' testimony indicates that the brief stop in the living room before proceeding to the station house was not to interrogate the suspect but to notify his mother of the reason for his arrest. App. 9-10.
[****29] The State has conceded the issue of custody and thus we must assume that Burke breached Miranda procedures in failing to administer Miranda warnings before initiating the discussion in the living room. 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 [*316] procedure before McAllister had spoken with respondent's mother. Whatever the reason for Burke's oversight, the incident had none of the earmarks of coercion. See Rawlings v. Kentucky, 448 U.S. 98, 109-110 (1980). Nor did the officers exploit the unwarned admission to pressure respondent into waiving his right to remain silent.
LEdHN[5] [5]Respondent, however, has argued that he was unable to give a fully informed waiver of his rights because he was unaware that his prior statement could not be used against him. Respondent suggests that Officer McAllister, to cure this deficiency, should have added an additional warning to those given him at the Sheriff's office. Such a requirement is neither practicable nor constitutionally necessary. In many [****30] [**1297] cases, a breach of Miranda procedures may not be identified as such until long after full Miranda warnings are administered and a valid confession obtained. See, e. g., United States v. Bowler, 561 F.2d 1323, 1324-1325 (CA9 1977) (certain statements ruled inadmissible by trial court); United States v. Toral, 536 F.2d 893, 896 [***237] (CA9 1976); United States v. Knight, 395 F.2d 971, 974-975 (CA2 1968) (custody unclear). The standard Miranda warnings explicitly inform the suspect of his right to consult a lawyer before speaking. Police officers are ill-equipped to pinch-hit for counsel, construing the murky and difficult questions of when "custody" begins or whether a given unwarned statement will ultimately be held admissible. See Tanner v. Vincent, 541 F.2d 932, 936 (CA2 1976), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1065 (1977).
This Court has never embraced the theory that a defendant's ignorance of the full consequences of his decisions vitiates their voluntariness. See HN13 California v. Beheler, 463 U.S., at 1125-1126, n. 3; McMann v. Richardson, 397 U.S. 759, 769 (1970). [****31] If the prosecution has actually violated the defendant's Fifth Amendment rights by introducing an inadmissible confession at trial, compelling the defendant to testify in rebuttal, the rule announced in Harrison v. United States, 392 U.S. 219 (1968), precludes use of that testimony [*317] on retrial. "Having 'released the spring' by using the petitioner's unlawfully obtained confessions against him, the Government must show that its illegal action did not induce his testimony." Id., at 224-225. But the Court has refused to find that a defendant who confesses, after being falsely told that his codefendant has turned State's evidence, does so involuntarily. Frazier v. Cupp, 394 U.S. 731, 739 (1969). The Court has also rejected the argument that a defendant's ignorance that a prior coerced confession could not be admitted in evidence compromised the voluntariness of his guilty plea. McMann v. Richardson, supra, at 769. Likewise, in California v. Beheler, supra, the Court declined to accept defendant's contention that, because he was unaware of the potential adverse [****32] consequences of statements he made to the police, his participation in the interview was involuntary. Thus we have not held that the sine qua non for a knowing and voluntary waiver of the right to remain silent is a full and complete appreciation of all of the consequences flowing from the nature and the quality of the evidence in the case.
IV
LEdHN[1C] [1C]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. We do not imply that good faith excuses a failure to administer Miranda warnings; nor do we condone inherently coercive police tactics or methods offensive to due process that render the initial admission involuntary and undermine the suspect's will to invoke his rights once they are read to him. A handful of courts [****33] have, however, applied our precedents relating to confessions obtained [*318] under coercive circumstances [***238] to situations involving wholly voluntary admissions, requiring a passage of time or break in events before a second, fully warned statement can be deemed voluntary. Far from establishing a rigid rule, we direct courts to avoid one; HN14 there is no warrant for presuming coercive effect where the suspect's initial inculpatory statement, though technically in violation [**1298] of Miranda, was voluntary. 5
The relevant inquiry is whether, in fact, the second statement was also voluntarily made. As in any such inquiry, the finder of fact must examine the surrounding circumstances and the entire course of police conduct with respect to the suspect in evaluating the voluntariness of his statements. The fact that a suspect chooses to speak after being informed of his rights is, of course, highly probative. We find that the dictates of Miranda and the goals of the Fifth Amendment proscription against use of compelled testimony are fully satisfied in the circumstances of this case by barring use of the unwarned statement in the case in chief. No further purpose [****34] is served by imputing "taint" to subsequent statements obtained pursuant to a voluntary and knowing waiver. We hold today that HN15 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.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals of Oregon is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Elstad, was convicted of burglary. The Oregon Court of Appeals reversed, holding that respondent's signed confession, although voluntary, was rendered inadmissible by a prior remark made in response to questioning without benefit of Miranda warnings.
with a warrant
Officers Burke and McAllister went to the home of defendant Elstad
Officer asked Elstad in the living room of the defendant’s house
he felt he was involved in the burglary,
and he stated, 'Yes, I was there.’
Elstad was transported to the Sheriff's headquarters and approximately one hour later, Officers Burke and McAllister joined him in McAllister's office. McAllister then advised respondent for the first time of his Miranda
Elstad gave a full statement,
The statement was typed,
initialed and signed by Elstad
Respondent concedes that the officers made no threats or promises either at his residence or at the Sheriff's office.
Respondent moved to suppress his oral statement and signed confession.
statement he made in response to questioning at his house
"let the cat out of the bag," citing Bayer
"fruit of the poisonous tree," citing Wong Sun
The judge ruled that
"[His] written statement was
not tainted
Elstad appealed to the Oregon Court of Appeals, relying on Wong Sun and Bayer. The State conceded that Elstad had been in custody when he made his statement
The Court of Appeals reversed
Because of the brief period separating the two incidents, the "cat was sufficiently out of the bag
The State of Oregon petitioned the Oregon Supreme Court for review, and review was declined.
This Court granted certiorari
II
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,
this view misconstrues the nature of the protections afforded by Miranda warnings
A
The Fifth Amendment is not concerned with nontestimonial evidence. Nor is it concerned with moral and psychological pressures to confess emanating from sources other than official coercion.
The prophylactic Miranda warnings therefore are 'not themselves rights protected by the Constitution but [are] instead measures to insure that the right against compulsory self-incrimination
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. This figure of speech is drawn from Wong Sun
The Wong Sun doctrine applies as well when the fruit of the Fourth Amendment violation is a confession.
a procedural Miranda violation differs in significant respects from violations of the Fourth Amendment, which have traditionally mandated a broad application of the "fruits" doctrine.
presumption of coercion does not bar their use for impeachment purposes on cross-examination. Harris
Since there was no actual infringement of the suspect's constitutional rights, the case was not controlled by the doctrine expressed in Wong Sun
Once warned, the suspect is free to exercise his own volition in deciding whether or not to make a statement to the authorities.
[The] living witness is an individual human personality whose attributes of will, perception, memory and volition interact to determine what testimony he will give.’"
When a prior statement is actually coerced, the time that passes between confessions, the change in place of interrogations, and the change in identity of the interrogators all bear on whether that coercion has carried over into the second confession.
The failure of police to administer Miranda warnings does not mean that the statements received have actually been coerced,
When neither the initial nor the subsequent admission is coerced, little justification exists for permitting the highly probative evidence of a voluntary confession to be irretrievably lost to the factfinder.
Certainly, in respondent's case, the causal connection between any psychological disadvantage created by his admission and his ultimate decision to cooperate is speculative
It is difficult to tell with certainty what motivates a suspect to speak.
Ex) for the intervening event
the exchange of words respondent had with his father.
"I told you that you were going to get into trouble. You wouldn't listen to me. You never learn."
III
Though belated, the reading of respondent's rights was undeniably complete.
There is no question that respondent knowingly and voluntarily waived his right
It is also beyond dispute that respondent's earlier remark was voluntary,
Neither the environment nor the manner of either "interrogation" was coercive.
The initial conversation took place at midday, in the living room
with his mother in the kitchen area, a few steps away. Although the officers testified that respondent was then in custody, he had not been informed that he was under arrest. The officers was not to interrogate the suspect but to notify his mother of the reason for his arrest.
The State has conceded the issue of custody and thus we must assume that Burke breached Miranda procedures
Whatever the reason for Burke's oversight, the incident had none of the earmarks of coercion.
Respondent has argued that he was unable to give a fully informed waiver of his rights because he was unaware that his prior statement could not be used against him.
This Court has never embraced the theory that a defendant's ignorance of the full consequences of his decisions vitiates their voluntariness.
Frazier
the Court has refused to find that a defendant who confesses, after being falsely told that his codefendant has turned State's evidence, does so involuntarily.
McMann
The Court has also rejected the argument that a defendant's ignorance that a prior coerced confession could not be admitted in evidence compromised the voluntariness of his guilty plea.
Likewise, in California v. Beheler, supra, the Court declined to accept defendant's contention that, because he was unaware of the potential adverse consequences of statements he made to the police…
The relevant inquiry is whether, in fact, the second statement was also voluntarily made. As in any such inquiry, the finder of fact must examine the surrounding circumstances and the entire course of police conduct with respect to the suspect in evaluating the voluntariness of his statements.
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