Lead Opinion
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In Miranda v. Arizona,
Petitioner Dickerson was indicted for bank robbery, conspiracy to commit bank robbery, and using a firearm in the course of committing a crime of violence, all in violation of the applicable provisions of Title 18 of the United States Code. Before trial, Dickerson moved to suppress a statement he had made at a Federal Bureau of Investigation field office, on the grounds that he had not received “Miranda warnings” before being interrogated. The District Court granted his motion to suppress, and the Government took an interlocutory appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. That court, by a divided vote, reversed the District Court’s suppression order. It agreed with the District Court’s conclusion that petitioner had not received Miranda warnings before making his statement. But it went on to hold that § 8501, which in effect makes the admissibility of statements such as Dickerson’s turn solely on whether they were made voluntarily, was satisfied in this ease. It then concluded that our decision in Miranda was not a constitutional holding, and that, therefore, Congress could by statute have the final say on the question of admissibility.
Because of the importance of the questions raised by the Court of Appeals’ decision, we granted certiorari,
We begin with a brief historical account of the law governing the admission of confessions. Prior to Miranda, we
While Bram was decided before Brown and its progeny, for the middle third of the 20th century our eases based the rule against admitting coerced confessions primarily, if not exclusively, on notions of due process. We applied the
We have never abandoned this due process jurisprudence, and thus continue to exclude confessions that were obtained involuntarily. But our decisions in Malloy v. Hogan,
In Miranda, we noted that the advent of modern custodial police interrogation brought with it an increased con
Two years after Miranda was decided, Congress enacted § 3501. That section provides, in relevant part:
“(a) 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. Before such confession is received in evidence, the trial*436 judge shall, out of the presence of the jury, determine any issue as to voluntariness. If the trial judge determines 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 volun-tariness and shall instruct the jury to give such weight to the confession as the jury feels it deserves under all the circumstances.
“(b) The trial judge in determining the issue of vol-untariness shall take into consideration all the circumstances surrounding the giving of the confession, including (1) the time elapsingbetween 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.”
Given § 3501’s express designation of voluntariness as the touchstone of admissibility, its omission of any warning requirement, and the instruction for trial courts to consider a nonexclusive list of factors relevant to the circumstances of a confession, we agree with the Court of Appeals that Congress intended by its enactment to overrule Miranda. See also Davis v. United States,
The law in this area is clear. This Court has supervisory authority over the federal courts, and we may use that authority to prescribe rules of evidence and procedure that are binding in those tribunals. Carlisle v. United States,
But Congress may not legislatively supersede our decisions interpreting and applying the Constitution. See, e. g., City of Boerne v. Flores,
We disagree with the Court of Appeals’ conclusion, although we concede that there is language in some of our opinions that supports the view taken by that court. But first and foremost of the factors on the other side — that Miranda is a constitutional decision — is that both Miranda and two of its companion cases applied the rule to proceedings in state courts — to wit, Arizona, California, and New York. See
The Miranda opinion itself begins by stating that the Court granted certiorari “to explore some facets of the problems ... of applying the privilege against self-incrimination to in-custody interrogation, and to give concrete constitutional guidelines for law enforcement agencies and courts to follow”
Additional support for our conclusion that Miranda is constitutionally based is found in the Miranda Court’s invitation for legislative action to protect the constitutional right against coerced self-incrimination. After discussing the “compelling pressures” inherent in custodial police interrogation, the Miranda Court concluded that, “[i]n order to combat these pressures and to permit a full opportunity to exercise the privilege against self-incrimination, the accused must be adequately and effectively apprised of his rights and the exercise of those rights must be fully honored.” Id., at 467. However, the Court emphasized that it could not foresee “the potential alternatives for protecting the privilege which might be devised by Congress or the States,” and it accordingly opined that the Constitution would not preclude legislative solutions that differed from the prescribed Miranda warnings but which were “at least as effective in apprising accused persons of their right of silence and in assuring a continuous opportunity to exercise it.”
The Court of Appeals also noted that in Oregon v. Elstad,
As an alternative argument for sustaining the Court of Appeals’ decision, the court-invited amicus curiae
The dissent argues that it is judicial overreaching for this Court to hold §3501 unconstitutional unless we hold that the Miranda warnings are required by the Constitution, in the sense that nothing else will suffice to satisfy constitutional requirements. Post, at 453-454, 465 (opinion of Scalia, J.). But we need not go further than Miranda to decide this ease. In Miranda, the Court noted that reliance on the traditional totality-of-the-circumstances test raised a risk of overlooking an involuntary custodial confession, 384 U. S, at 457, a risk that the Court found, unacceptably great when the confession is offered in the case in chief to prove guilt. The Court therefore concluded that something more than the totality test was necessary. See ibid.; see also id., at 467, 490-491. As discussed above, §3501 reinstates the totality test as
Whether or not we would agree with Miranda’s reasoning and its resulting rule, were we addressing the issue in the first instance, the principles of stare decisis weigh heavily against overruling it now. See, e. g., Rhode Island v. Innis,
We do not think there is such justification for overruling Miranda. Miranda has become embedded in routine police practice to the point where the warnings have become part of our national culture. See Mitchell v. United States,
The disadvantage of the Miranda rule is that statements which may be by no means involuntary, made by a defendant who is aware of his “rights,” may nonetheless be excluded and a guilty defendant go free as a result. But experience suggests that the totality-of-the-eircumstances test which § 3501 seeks to revive is more difficult than Miranda for law enforcement officers to conform to, and for courts to apply in a consistent manner. See, e. g., Haynes v. Washington,
In sum, we conclude that Miranda announced a constitutional rule that Congress may not supersede legislatively. Following the rule of stare decisis, we decline to overrule Miranda ourselves.
Reversed.
Notes
While our eases have long interpreted the Due Process and Self-Incrimination Clauses to require that a suspect be accorded a fair trial free from coerced testimony, our application of those Clauses to the context of custodial police interrogation is relatively recent because the routine practice of such interrogation is itself a relatively new development. See, e. g., Miranda,
See also Davis v. United States,
Our conclusion regarding Miranda’s constitutional basis is further buttressed by the fact that we have allowed prisoners to bring alleged Miranda violations before the federal courts in habeas corpus proceedings. See Thompson v. Keohane,
See
Many of our subsequent cases have also referred to Miranda’s constitutional underpinnings. See, e.g., Withrow, supra, at 691 (“‘Prophylactic’ though it may be, in protecting a defendant’s Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, Miranda safeguards a ‘fundamental trial right’”); Illinois v. Perkins,
The Court of Appeals relied in part on our statement that the Miranda decision in no way “creates a ‘constitutional straightjacket.’” See
Because no party to the underlying litigation argued in favor of § 3501’s constitutionality in this Court, we invited Professor Paul Cassell to assist our deliberations by arguing in support of the judgment below.
Various other contentions and suggestions have been pressed by the numerous amici, but because of the procedural posture of this case we do not think it appropriate to consider them. See United Parcel Service, Inc. v. Mitchell,
Dissenting Opinion
with whom Justice Thomas joins, dissenting.
Those to whom judicial decisions are an unconnected series of judgments that produce either favored or disfa
Marbury v. Madison,
It takes only a small step to bring today’s opinion out of the realm of power-judging and into the mainstream of legal reasoning: The Court need only go beyond its carefully couched iterations that “Miranda is a constitutional decision,” ante, at 438, that “Miranda is constitutionally based,” ante, at 440, that Miranda has “constitutional underpinnings,” ante, at 440, n. 5, and come out and say quite clearly: “We reaffirm today that custodial interrogation that is not preceded by Miranda warnings or their equivalent violates the Constitution of the United States.” It cannot say that, because a majority of the Court does not believe it. The Court therefore acts in plain violation of the Constitution when it denies effect to this Act of Congress.
I
Early in this Nation’s history, this Court established the sound proposition that constitutional government in a system of separated powers requires judges to regard as inoperative any legislative Act, even of Congress itself, that is “repugnant to the Constitution.”
“So if a law be in opposition to the constitution; if both the law and the constitution apply to a particular case, so that the court must either decide that case conforma-bly to the law, disregarding the constitution; or conform-ably to the constitution, disregarding the law; the court must determine which of these conflicting rules governs the ease.” Marbury, supra, at 178.
The power we recognized in Marbury will thus permit us, indeed require us, to “disregard]” §3501, a duly enacted
It was once possible to characterize the so-called Miranda rule as resting (however implausibly) upon the proposition that what the statute here before us permits — the admission at-trial of un-Mirandized confessions — violates the Constitution. That is the fairest reading of the Miranda case itself. The Court began by announcing that the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination applied in the context of extrajudicial custodial interrogation, see
The dissenters, for their part, also understood Miranda's holding to be based on the “premise . . . that pressure on the suspect must be eliminated though it be only the subtle influence of the atmosphere and surroundings.” Id., at 512 (Harlan, J., dissenting). See also id., at 535 (White, J., dissenting) (“[I]t has never been suggested, until today, that such questioning was so coercive and accused persons so lacking in hardihood that the very first response to the very first question following the commencement of custody must be conclusively presumed to be the product of an overborne will”). And at least one ease decided shortly after Miranda explicitly confirmed the view. See Orozco v. Texas,
So understood, Miranda was objectionable for innumerable reasons, not least the fact that eases spanning more than 70 years had rejected its core premise that, absent the warnings and an effective waiver of the right to remain silent and of the (thitherto unknown) right to have an attorney present, a statement obtained pursuant to custodial interrogation was necessarily the product of compulsion. See Crooker v. California,
Preventing foolish (rather than compelled) confessions is likewise the only conceivable basis for the rules (suggested in Miranda, see
For these reasons, and others more than adequately developed in the Miranda dissents and in the subsequent works of the decision’s many critics, any conclusion that a violation of the Miranda rules necessarily amounts to a violation of the privilege against compelled self-incrimination can claim no support in history, precedent, or common sense, and as a result would at least presumptively be worth reconsidering even at this late date. But that is unnecessary, since the Court has (thankfully) long since abandoned the notion that failure to comply with Miranda’s rules is itself a violation of the Constitution.
II
As the Court today acknowledges, since Miranda we have explicitly, and repeatedly, interpreted that decision as having announced, not the circumstances in which custodial interrogation runs afoul of the Fifth or Fourteenth Amendment, but rather only "prophylactic” rules that go beyond the right against compelled self-incrimination. Of course the seeds of this “prophylactic” interpretation of Miranda were present in the decision itself. See Miranda,
Michigan v. Tucker,
The next year, in Oregon v. Hass,
Nearly a decade later, in New York v. Quarles,
The next year, the Court again declined to apply the “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine to a Miranda violation, this time allowing the admission of a suspect’s properly warned statement even though it had been preceded (and, arguably, induced) by an earlier inculpatory statement taken in violation of Miranda. Oregon v. Elstad,
In light of these cases, and our statements to the same effect in others, see, e. g., Davis v. United States,
The Court seeks to avoid this conclusion in two ways: First, by misdescribing these post-Miranda cases as mere dicta. The Court concedes only “that there is language in some of our opinions that supports the view” that Miranda’s protections are not “constitutionally required.” Ante, at 438. It is not a matter of language; it is a matter of holdings. The proposition that failure to comply with Miranda’s rules does not establish a constitutional violation was central to the holdings of Tucker, Hass, Quarles, and Elstad.
The second way the Court seeks to avoid the impact of these eases is simply to disclaim responsibility for reasoned decisionmaking. It says:
“These decisions illustrate the principle — not that Miranda is not a constitutional rule — but that no constitutional rule is immutable. No court laying down a gen*455 eral rule can possibly foresee the various circumstances in which counsel will seek to apply it, and the sort of modifications represented by these cases are as much a normal part of constitutional law as the original decision.” Ante, at 441.
The issue, however, is not whether court rules are “mutable”; they assuredly are. It is not whether, in the light of “various circumstances,” they can be “modified]”; they assuredly can. The issue is whether, as mutated and modified, they must make sense. The requirement that they do so is the only thing that prevents this Court from being some sort of nine-headed Caesar, giving thumbs-up or thumbs-down to whatever outcome, ease by case, suits or offends its collective fancy. And if confessions procured in violation of Miranda are confessions “compelled” in violation of the Constitution, the -post-Miranda decisions I have discussed do not make sense. The only reasoned basis for their outcome was that a violation of Miranda is not a violation of the Constitution. If, for example, as the Court acknowledges was the holding of Elstad, “the traditional ‘fruits’ doctrine developed in Fourth Amendment cases” (that the fruits of evidence obtained unconstitutionally must be excluded from trial) does not apply to the fruits of Miranda violations, ante, at 441; and if the reason for the difference is not that Miranda violations are not constitutional violations (which is plainly and flatly what Elstad said); then the Court must come up with some other explanation for the difference. (That will take quite a bit of doing, by the way, since it is not clear on the face of the Fourth Amendment that evidence obtained in violation of that guarantee must be excluded from trial, whereas it is clear on the face of the Fifth Amendment that unconstitutionally compelled confessions cannot be used.) To say simply that “unreasonable searches under the Fourth Amendment are different from unwarned interrogation under the Fifth Amendment,” ante, at 441, is true but supremely unhelpful.
M I — I HH
There was available to the Court a means of reconciling the established proposition that a violation of Miranda does not itself offend the Fifth Amendment with the Court’s assertion of a right to ignore the present statute. That means of reconciliation was argued strenuously by both petitioner and the United States, who were evidently more concerned than the Court is with maintaining the coherence of our jurisprudence. It is not mentioned in the Court’s opinion because, I assume, a majority of the Justices intent on reversing believes that incoherence is the lesser evil. They may be right.
Petitioner and the United States contend that there is nothing at all exceptional, much less unconstitutional, about the Court’s adopting prophylactic rules to buttress constitutional rights, and enforcing them against Congress and the States. Indeed, the United States argues that “[prophylactic rules are now and have been for many years a feature of this Court’s constitutional adjudication.” Brief for United States 47. That statement is not wholly inaccurate, if by “many years” one means since the mid-1960’s. However, in their zeal to validate what is in my view a lawless practice, the United States and petitioner greatly overstate the frequency with which we have engaged in it. For instance, petitioner cites several cases in which the Court quite simply exercised its traditional judicial power to define the scope of constitutional protections and, relatedly, the circumstances in which they are violated. See Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp.,
Similarly unsupportive of the supposed practice is Bruton v. United States,
The United States also relies on our cases involving the question whether a State’s procedure for appointed counsel’s withdrawal of representation on appeal satisfies the State’s constitutional obligation to “ ‘affor[d] adequate and effective appellate review to indigent defendants.’” Smith v. Robbins,
Petitioner and the United States are right on target, however, in characterizing the Court’s actions in a ease decided within a few years of Miranda, North Carolina v. Pearce,
The foregoing demonstrates that, petitioner’s and the United States’ suggestions to the contrary notwithstanding, what the Court did in Miranda (assuming, as later cases hold, that Miranda went beyond what the Constitution actually requires) is in fact extraordinary. That the Court has, on rare and recent occasion, repeated the mistake does not transform error into truth, but illustrates the potential for future mischief that the error entails. Where the Constitution has wished to lodge in one of the branches of the Federal Government some limited power to supplement its guarantees, it has said so. See Arndt. 14, § 5 (“The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article”). The power with which the Court would endow itself under a “prophylactic” justification for Miranda goes far beyond what it has permitted Congress to do under authority of that text. Whereas we have in
I applaud, therefore, the refusal of the Justices in the majority to enunciate this boundless doctrine of judicial empowerment as a means of rendering today’s decision rational. In nonetheless joining the Court’s judgment, however, they overlook two truisms: that actions speak louder than silence, and that (in judge-made law at least) logic will out. Since there is in fact no other principle that can reconcile today’s judgment with the post-Miranda cases that the Court refuses to abandon, what today’s decision will stand for, whether the Justices can bring themselves to say it or not, is the power of the Supreme Court to write a prophylactic, extraconstitutional Constitution, binding on Congress and the States.
IV
Thus, while I agree with the Court that §3501 cannot be upheld without also concluding that Miranda represents an illegitimate exercise of our authority to review state-court judgments, I do not share the Court’s hesitation in reaching that conclusion. For while the Court is also correct that the doctrine of stare decisis demands some “special justification” for a departure from longstanding precedent — even precedent of the constitutional variety — that criterion is more than met here. To repeat Justice Stevens’ cogent observation, it is “[o]bviou[s]” that “the Court’s power to reverse Miranda’s conviction rested entirely on the determination that a violation of the Federal Constitution had occurred.” Elstad,
The Court cites Patterson v. McLean Credit Union,
“In cases where statutory precedents have been overruled, the primary reason for the Court’s shift in position has been the intervening development of the law, through either the growth of judicial doctrine or further action taken by Congress. Where such changes have*463 removed or weakened the conceptual underpinnings from the prior decision,... or where the later law has rendered the decision irreconcilable with competing legal doctrines or policies, . . . the Court has not hesitated to overrule an earlier decision.”491 U. S., at 173 .
Neither am I persuaded by the argument for retaining Miranda that touts its supposed workability as compared with the totality-of-the-eircumstances test it purported to replace. Miranda’s proponents cite ad nauseam the fact that the Court was called upon to make difficult and subtle distinctions in applying the “voluntariness” test in some 30-odd due process “coerced confessions” cases in the 30 years between Brown v. Mississippi,
Moreover, it is not clear why the Court thinks that the “totality-of-the-eireumstanees test... is more difficult than Miranda for law enforcement officers to conform to, and for courts to apply in a consistent manner.” Ante, at 444. Indeed, I find myself persuaded by Justice O’Connor’s rejection of this same argument in her opinion in Williams,
“Miranda,, for all its alleged brightness, is not without its difficulties; and voluntariness is not without its strengths....
“. . . Miranda creates as many close questions as it resolves. The task of determining whether a defendant is in ‘custody’ has proved to be ‘a slippery one.’ And the supposedly ‘bright’ lines that separate interrogation*464 from spontaneous declaration, the exercise of a right from waiver, and the adequate warning from the inadequate, likewise have turned out to be rather dim and ill defined....
“The totality-of-the-eireumstances approach, on the other hand, permits each fact to be taken into account without resort to formal and dispositive labels. By dispensing .with the difficulty of producing a yes-or-no answer to questions that are often better answered in shades and degrees, the voluntariness inquiry often can make judicial decisionmaking easier rather than more onerous” (Emphasis added; citations omitted.)
But even were I to agree that the old totality-of-the-cireumstances test was more cumbersome, it is simply not true that Miranda has banished it from the law and replaced it with a new test. Under the current regime, which the Court today retains in its entirety, courts are frequently called upon to undertake both inquiries. That is because, as explained earlier, voluntariness remains the constitutional standard, and as such continues to govern the admissibility for impeachment purposes of statements taken in violation of Miranda, the admissibility of the “fruits” of such statements, and the admissibility of statements challenged as unconstitutionally obtained despite the interrogator’s compliance with Miranda, see, e. g., Colorado v. Connelly,
Finally, I am not convinced by petitioner’s argument that Miranda should be preserved because the decision occupies a special place in the “public’s consciousness.” Brief for Petitioner 44. As far as I am aware, the public is not under the illusion that we are infallible. I see little harm in admitting that we made a mistake in taking away from the people the ability to decide for themselves what protections (beyond those required by the Constitution) are reasonably affordable in the criminal investigatory process. And I see much to be gained by reaffirming for the people the wonderful reality
* * *
Today’s judgment converts Miranda from a milestone of judicial overreaching into the very Cheops’ Pyramid (or perhaps the Sphinx would be a better analogue) of judicial arrogance. In imposing its Court-made code upon the States, the original opinion at least asserted that it was demanded by the Constitution. Today’s decision does not pretend that it is — and yet still asserts the right to impose it against the will of the people’s representatives in Congress. Far from believing that stare decisis compels this result, I believe we cannot allow to remain on the books even a celebrated decision — especially a celebrated decision — that has come to stand for the proposition that the Supreme Court has power to impose extraeonstitutional constraints upon Congress and the States. This is not the system that was established by the Framers, or that would be established by any sane supporter of government by the people.
I dissent from today’s decision, and, until §3501 is repealed, will continue to apply it in all cases where there has been a sustainable finding that the defendant’s confession was voluntary.
As for Michigan v. Jackson,
The Court cites my dissenting opinion in Mitchell v. United States,