MICHIGAN v. MOSLEY
No. 74-653
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 6, 1975—Decided December 9, 1975
423 U.S. 96
Thomas M. Khalil argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the brief were William L. Cahalan, Dominick R. Carnovale, and Robert A. Reuther.
Carl Ziemba argued the cause and filed a brief for respondent.*
*Frank Carrington, Fred E. Inbau, William K. Lambie, and
MR. JUSTICE STEWART delivered the opinion of the Court.
The respondent, Richard Bert Mosley, was arrested in Detroit, Mich., in the early afternoon of April 8, 1971, in connection with robberies that had recently occurred at the Blue Goose Bar and the White Tower Restaurant on that city‘s lower east side. The arresting officer, Detective James Cowie of the Armed Robbery Section of the Detroit Police Department, was acting on a tip implicating Mosley and three other men in the robberies.1 After effecting the arrest, Detective Cowie brought Mosley to the Robbery, Breaking and Entering Bureau of the Police Department, located on the fourth floor of the departmental headquarters building. The officer advised Mosley of his rights under this Court‘s decision in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, and had him read and sign the department‘s constitutional rights notification certificate. After filling out the necessary arrest papers, Cowie began questioning Mosley about the robbery of the White Tower Restaurant. When Mosley said he did not want to answer any questions about the robberies, Cowie promptly ceased the interrogation. The completion of the arrest papers and the questioning of Mosley together took approximately 20 minutes. At no time during the questioning did Mosley indicate a desire to consult with a lawyer, and there is no claim that the procedures followed to this point did not fully comply with the strictures of the Miranda opinion. Mosley was then taken to a ninth-floor cell block.
Shortly after 6 p. m., Detective Hill of the Detroit
Mosley was subsequently charged in a one-count information with first-degree murder. Before the trial he moved to suppress his incriminating statement on a number of grounds, among them the claim that under the doctrine of the Miranda case it was constitutionally
On appeal to the Michigan Court of Appeals, Mosley renewed his previous objections to the use of his incriminating statement in evidence. The appellate court reversed the judgment of conviction, holding that Detective Hill‘s interrogation of Mosley had been a per se violation of the Miranda doctrine. Accordingly, without reaching Mosley‘s other contentions, the Court remanded the case for a new trial with instructions that Mosley‘s statement be suppressed as evidence. 51 Mich. App. 105, 214 N. W. 2d 564. After further appeal was denied by the Michigan Supreme Court, 392 Mich. 764, the State filed a petition for certiorari here. We granted the writ because of the important constitutional question presented. 419 U. S. 1119.
In the Miranda case this Court promulgated a set of safeguards to protect the there-delineated constitutional rights of persons subjected to custodial police interrogation. In sum, the Court held in that case that unless law enforcement officers give certain specified warnings be
Neither party in the present case challenges the continuing validity of the Miranda decision, or of any of the so-called guidelines it established to protect what the Court there said was a person‘s constitutional privilege against compulsory self-incrimination. The issue in this case, rather, is whether the conduct of the Detroit police that led to Mosley‘s incriminating statement did in fact violate the Miranda “guidelines,” so as to render the statement inadmissible in evidence against Mosley at his trial. Resolution of the question turns almost entirely on the interpretation of a single passage in the Miranda opinion, upon which the Michigan appellate court relied in finding a per se violation of Miranda:
“Once warnings have been given, the subsequent procedure is clear. If the individual indicates in any manner, at any time prior to or during questioning, that he wishes to remain silent, the interrogation must cease. At this point he has shown that he intends to exercise his Fifth Amendment privilege; any statement taken after the person invokes his privilege cannot be other than the product of compulsion, subtle or otherwise. Without the right to cut off questioning, the setting of in-custody
interrogation operates on the individual to overcome free choice in producing a statement after the privilege has been once invoked.” 384 U. S., at 473-474.7
This passage states that “the interrogation must cease” when the person in custody indicates that “he wishes to remain silent.” It does not state under what circumstances, if any, a resumption of questioning is permissible.8 The passage could be literally read to mean that
It is evident that any of these possible literal interpretations would lead to absurd and unintended results. To permit the continuation of custodial interrogation after a momentary cessation would clearly frustrate the purposes of Miranda by allowing repeated rounds of questioning to undermine the will of the person being questioned. At the other extreme, a blanket prohibition against the taking of voluntary statements or a permanent immunity from further interrogation, regardless of the circumstances, would transform the Miranda safeguards into wholly irrational obstacles to legitimate police investigative activity, and deprive suspects of an opportunity to make informed and intelligent assessments of their interests. Clearly, therefore, neither this passage nor any other passage in the Miranda opinion can sensibly be read to create a per se proscription of indefinite duration upon any further questioning by any
A reasonable and faithful interpretation of the Miranda opinion must rest on the intention of the Court in that case to adopt “fully effective means . . . to notify the person of his right of silence and to assure that the exercise of the right will be scrupulously honored . . . .” 384 U. S., at 479. The critical safeguard identified in the passage at issue is a person‘s “right to cut off questioning.” Id., at 474. Through the exercise of his option to terminate questioning he can control the time at
A review of the circumstances leading to Mosley‘s confession reveals that his “right to cut off questioning” was fully respected in this case. Before his initial interrogation, Mosley was carefully advised that he was under no obligation to answer any questions and could remain silent if he wished. He orally acknowledged that he understood the Miranda warnings and then signed a printed notification-of-rights form. When Mosley stated that he did not want to discuss the robberies, Detective Cowie immediately ceased the interrogation and did not try either to resume the questioning or in any way to persuade Mosley to reconsider his position. After an interval of more than two hours, Mosley was questioned by another police officer at another location about an unrelated holdup murder. He was given full and complete Miranda warnings at the outset of the second interrogation. He was thus reminded again that he could remain silent and could consult with a lawyer,
This is not a case, therefore, where the police failed to honor a decision of a person in custody to cut off questioning, either by refusing to discontinue the interrogation upon request or by persisting in repeated efforts to
The Michigan Court of Appeals viewed this case as factually similar to Westover v. United States, 384 U. S. 436, a companion case to Miranda. But the controlling facts of the two cases are strikingly different.
In Westover, the petitioner was arrested by the Kansas City police at 9:45 p. m. and taken to the police station. Without giving any advisory warnings of any kind to Westover, the police questioned him that night and throughout the next morning about various local robberies. At noon, three FBI agents took over, gave advisory warnings to Westover, and proceeded to question him about two California bank robberies. After two hours of questioning, the petitioner confessed to the California crimes. The Court held that the confession obtained by the FBI was inadmissible because the interrogation leading to the petitioner‘s statement followed on the heels of prolonged questioning that was commenced and continued by the Kansas City police without preliminary warnings to Westover of any kind. The Court found that “the federal authorities were the beneficiaries of the pressure applied by the local in-custody interrogation” and that the belated warnings given by the federal officers were “not sufficient to protect” Westover because from his point of view “the warnings came at the end of the interrogation process.” Id., at 497, 496.
Here, by contrast, the police gave full ”Miranda warnings” to Mosley at the very outset of each interrogation, subjected him to only a brief period of initial question
For these reasons, we conclude that the admission in evidence of Mosley‘s incriminating statement did not violate the principles of Miranda v. Arizona. Accordingly, the judgment of the Michigan Court of Appeals is vacated, and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
MR. JUSTICE WHITE, concurring in the result.
I concur in the result and in much of the majority‘s reasoning. However, it appears to me that, in an effort to make only a limited holding in this case, the majority has implied that some custodial confessions will be suppressed even though they follow an informed and voluntary waiver of the defendant‘s rights. The majority seems to say that a statement obtained within some unspecified time after an assertion by an individual of his “right to silence” is always inadmissible, even if it was the result of an informed and voluntary decision—following, for example, a disclosure to such an individual of a piece of information bearing on his waiver decision which the police had failed to give him prior to his assertion of the privilege but which they gave him immediately thereafter. Indeed, ante, at 102, the majority char
Miranda holds that custody creates an inherent compulsion on an individual to incriminate himself in response to questions, and that statements obtained under such circumstances are therefore obtained in violation of the Fifth Amendment privilege against compelled testimonial self-incrimination unless the privilege is “knowingly and intelligently waived.” Id., at 471, 475. It also holds that an individual will not be deemed to have made a knowing and intelligent waiver of his “right to silence” unless the authorities have first informed him, inter alia, of that right—“the threshold requirement for an intelligent decision as to its exercise.” Id., at 468. I am no more convinced that Miranda was required by the United States Constitution than I was when it was decided. However, there is at least some support in the law both before and after Miranda for the proposition that some rights will never be deemed waived unless the defendant is first expressly advised of their existence. E. g., Carnley v. Cochran, 369 U. S. 506 (1962); Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U. S. 238 (1969);
The language of Miranda no more compels such a result than does its basic rationale. As the majority points out, the statement in Miranda, 384 U. S., at 474, requiring interrogation to cease after an assertion of the “right to silence” tells us nothing because it does not indicate how soon this interrogation may resume. The Court showed in the very next paragraph, moreover, that when it wanted to create a per se rule against further interrogation after assertion of a right, it knew how to do so. The Court there said “[i]f the individual states that he
In justifying the implication that questioning must inevitably cease for some unspecified period of time following an exercise of the “right to silence,” the ma
MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN, with whom MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL joins, dissenting.
The Court focuses on the correct passage from Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, 473-474 (1966) (footnote omitted):
“Once warnings have been given, the subsequent procedure is clear. If the individual indicates in any manner, at any time prior to or during questioning, that he wishes to remain silent, the interrogation must cease. At this point he has shown that he intends to exercise his Fifth Amendment privilege; any statement taken after the person invokes his privilege cannot be other than the product of compulsion, subtle or otherwise. Without the right to
cut off questioning, the setting of in-custody interrogation operates on the individual to overcome free choice in producing a statement after the privilege has been once invoked.”
But the process of eroding Miranda rights, begun with Harris v. New York, 401 U. S. 222 (1971), continues with today‘s holding that police may renew the questioning of a suspect who has once exercised his right to remain silent, provided the suspect‘s right to cut off questioning has been “scrupulously honored.” Today‘s distortion of Miranda‘s constitutional principles can be viewed only as yet another step in the erosion and, I suppose, ultimate overruling of Miranda‘s enforcement of the privilege against self-incrimination.
The Miranda guidelines were necessitated by the inherently coercive nature of in-custody questioning. As in Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U. S. 478 (1964), “we sought a protective device to dispel the compelling atmosphere of the interrogation.” 384 U. S., at 465. We “concluded that without proper safeguards the process of in-custody interrogation of persons suspected or accused of crime contains inherently compelling pressures which work to undermine the individual‘s will to resist and to compel him to speak where he would not otherwise do so freely.” Id., at 467.1 To assure safeguards that promised to dispel the “inherently compelling pressures” of in-custody interrogation, a prophylactic rule was fashioned to supplement the traditional determination of voluntariness on the facts of each case. Miranda held that any confession obtained when not preceded by the required warn
The task that confronts the Court in this case is to satisfy the Miranda approach by establishing “concrete constitutional guidelines” governing the resumption of questioning a suspect who, while in custody, has once clearly and unequivocally “indicate[d] . . . that he wishes to remain silent . . . .” As the Court today continues to recognize, under Miranda, the cost of assuring voluntariness by procedural tests, independent of any actual inquiry into voluntariness, is that some voluntary statements will be excluded. Ante, at 99-100. Thus the consideration in the task confronting the Court is not whether voluntary statements will be excluded, but whether the procedures approved will be sufficient to assure with reasonable certainty that a confession is not obtained under the influence of the compulsion inherent in interrogation and detention. The procedures approved by the Court today fail to provide that assurance.
We observed in Miranda: “Whatever the testimony of the authorities as to waiver of rights by an accused, the fact of lengthy interrogation or incommunicado incarceration before a statement is made is strong evidence that the accused did not validly waive his rights. In these circumstances the fact that the individual eventually made a statement is consistent with the conclusion that the compelling influence of the interrogation finally forced him to do so. It is inconsistent with any notion
In formulating its procedural safeguard, the Court skirts the problem of compulsion and thereby fails to join issue with the dictates of Miranda. The language which the Court finds controlling in this case teaches that renewed questioning itself is part of the process which invariably operates to overcome the will of a suspect. That teaching is embodied in the form of a proscription on any further questioning once the suspect has exercised his right to remain silent. Today‘s decision uncritically abandons that teaching. The Court assumes, contrary to the controlling language, that “scrupulously honoring” an initial exercise of the right to remain silent preserves the efficaciousness of initial and future warnings despite the fact that the suspect has once been subjected to interrogation and then has been detained for a lengthy period of time.
Observing that the suspect can control the circumstances of interrogation “[t]hrough the exercise of his option to terminate questioning,” the Court concludes “that the admissibility of statements obtained after the person in custody has decided to remain silent depends . . .
I agree that Miranda is not to be read, on the one hand, to impose an absolute ban on resumption of questioning “at any time or place on any subject,” ante, at 102, or on the other hand, “to permit a resumption of interrogation after a momentary respite,” ibid. But this surely cannot justify adoption of a vague and ineffective procedural standard that falls somewhere between those absurd extremes, for Miranda in flat and unambiguous terms requires that questioning “cease” when a suspect exercises the right to remain silent. Miranda‘s terms, however, are not so uncompromising as to preclude the fashioning of guidelines to govern this case. Those guidelines must, of course, necessarily be sensitive to the reality that “[a]s a practical matter, the compulsion to speak in the isolated setting of the police station may well be greater than in courts or other official investiga
The fashioning of guidelines for this case is an easy task. Adequate procedures are readily available. Michigan law requires that the suspect be arraigned before a judicial officer “without unnecessary delay,”2 certainly not a burdensome requirement. Alternatively, a requirement that resumption of questioning should await appointment and arrival of counsel for the suspect would be an acceptable and readily satisfied precondition to resumption.3 Miranda expressly held that “[t]he presence of counsel . . . would be the adequate protective device necessary to make the process of police interrogation conform to the dictates of the privilege [against self-incrimination].” Id., at 466. The Court expediently bypasses this alternative in its search for circumstances where renewed questioning would be permissible.4
Indeed, language in Miranda suggests that the
“If an individual indicates his desire to remain silent but has an attorney present, there may be some circumstances in which further questioning would be permissible. In the absence of evidence of overbearing, statements then made in the presence of counsel might be free of the compelling influence of the interrogation process and might fairly be construed as a waiver of the privilege for purposes of these statements.” Id., at 474 n. 44 (emphasis added).
This was the only circumstance in which we at all suggested that questioning could be resumed, and even then, further questioning was not permissible in all such circumstances, for compulsion was still the presumption not easily dissipated.5
My concern with the Court‘s opinion does not end with its treatment of Miranda, but extends to its treatment of the facts in this case. The Court‘s effort to have the Williams homicide appear as “an unrelated holdup murder,” ante, at 104, is patently unsuccessful. The anonymous tip received by Detective Cowie, conceded by the Court to be the sole basis for Mosley‘s arrest, ante, at 97 n. 1, embraced both the robberies covered in Cowie‘s in
I also find troubling the Court‘s finding that Mosley never indicated that he did not want to discuss the robbery-murder, see ante, at 104-106. I cannot read Cowie‘s testimony as the Court does. Cowie testified that Mosley
In light of today‘s erosion of Miranda standards as a matter of federal constitutional law, it is appropriate to observe that no State is precluded by the decision from adhering to higher standards under state law. Each State has power to impose higher standards governing police practices under state law than is required by the Federal Constitution. See Oregon v. Hass, 420 U. S. 714, 719 (1975);8 Lego v. Twomey, 404 U. S. 477, 489 (1972); Cooper v. California, 386 U. S. 58, 62 (1967). A decision particularly bearing upon the question of the adoption of Miranda as state law is Commonwealth v. Ware, 446 Pa. 52, 284 A. 2d 700 (1971). There the Pennsylvania Supreme Court adopted an aspect of Miranda as state law. This Court on March 20,