[Criminal Procedure] 13. OREGON v. ELSTAD

[jhj2799]

OREGON v. ELSTAD, U.S. Supreme Court (1985)

Facts: A home was burglarized and a witness implicated Elstad (defendant) in the crime. After obtaining an arrest warrant, two officers went to Elstad’s home where his mother let them inside. While one officer went into the kitchen to explain what was happening to Elstad’s mother, the other officer remained in the living room with Elstad. Without reading Elstad his Miranda warnings, the officer in the living room began talking with Elstad. When the officer said that he believed Elstad was involved in the robbery, Elstad replied, “Yes, I was there.” Once the officers and Elstad arrived at the police station, Elstad was read his Miranda warnings which he then waived. Elstad then made a full statement implicating himself in the burglary. The statement was put into writing, signed by Elstad and admitted at trial where Elstad was convicted of burglary. The court of appeals reversed, holding that the signed confession was inadmissible because it was “tainted” by the initial questioning that occurred without Elstad’s Miranda warnings having been read.

Issue: whether an initial failure of law enforcement officers to administer the Miranda warnings "taints" subsequent admissions made after a suspect has been fully advised of and has waived his Miranda rights

Rule:

The Fifth Amendment protects individuals from being compelled to incriminate themselves. Under Miranda v. Arizona, statements made during custodial interrogation are inadmissible unless the suspect has been advised of their rights and knowingly and voluntarily waives them. However, the admissibility of subsequent confessions after an initial unwarned but voluntary statement has been made must be assessed based on whether the subsequent statement was made voluntarily and with a valid waiver of Miranda rights.

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.

Application:

In this case, Michael Elstad made an unwarned statement at his home, admitting his involvement in a burglary. Later, at the police station, after being fully advised of his Miranda rights, Elstad waived these rights and made a detailed written confession. The Oregon Court of Appeals held that the initial failure to administer Miranda warnings rendered the subsequent confession inadmissible, as the "cat was out of the bag," implying a coercive impact on the later confession.

However, the Supreme Court examined the nature of the initial failure to administer Miranda warnings and concluded that it does not constitute a violation of the Fifth Amendment in the same way as physical or psychological coercion does. The Court distinguished between procedural Miranda violations and actual coercion. The failure to provide Miranda warnings creates a presumption of compulsion but does not irreversibly taint subsequent statements made after proper warnings and a valid waiver of rights.

The Supreme Court emphasized that the purpose of Miranda warnings is to prevent coercion and ensure that statements are made voluntarily. In Elstad’s case, there was no evidence of coercion or improper tactics by the police. The initial unwarned statement was voluntary, and the subsequent confession was given after a proper Miranda warning and waiver of rights. Thus, the subsequent statement was not automatically tainted by the earlier failure to administer Miranda warnings.

Conclusion: The Supreme Court held that an initial failure to administer Miranda warnings does not automatically taint subsequent admissions made after a suspect has been fully advised of and has waived their Miranda rights. The subsequent statements can be admissible if they are found to be voluntarily made after the proper administration of Miranda warnings. Consequently, the Court reversed the decision of the Oregon Court of Appeals, allowing Elstad’s written confession to be admitted as evidence.

Feedback:

The judge ruled that the statement, "I was there," had to be excluded because the defendant had not been advised of his Miranda rights. The written confession taken after Elstad's arrival at the Sheriff's office, however, was admitted in evidence.

-       The origin is different

• Poisonous tree from fourth amendment; Miranda from the fifth amendment
  • One metaphor, familiar from the Fourth Amendment context, would require that respondent's confession be suppressed as the "tainted fruit of the poisonous tree" of the Miranda violation. A second metaphor questions whether a confession can be truly voluntary once the "cat is out of the bag."
  • Taken out of context, each of these metaphors can be misleading. They should not be used to obscure fundamental differences between the role of the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule and the function of Miranda in guarding against the prosecutorial use of compelled statements as prohibited by the Fifth Amendment.
  • 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.
• If the two confessions are considered separately to apply Miranda warning to each confession, only the second confession can be submitted

Living room confession – no coercion

• Only one police officer with Mr. Elstad in living room, one with his mother in the kitchen a few steps away
  • 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.
• 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. … This immunity [for a suspect who responds to pre-Miranda warning questions from the consequences of his subsequent informed waiver] 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. 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.
• 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.
  
  • Clear and convincing evidence is required to prove compulsion for the defendant
  • The first confession with coercion can affect the second confession