UNITED STATES v. PATANE
No. 02-1183
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued December 9, 2003—Decided June 28, 2004
542 U.S. 630
Jill M. Wichlens argued the cause for respondent. With her on the brief were Michael G. Katz and Virginia L. Grady.*
JUSTICE THOMAS announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which THE CHIEF JUSTICE and JUSTICE SCALIA join.
In this case we must decide whether a failure to give a suspect the warnings prescribed by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966),
I
In June 2001, respondent, Samuel Francis Patane, was arrested for harassing his ex-girlfriend, Linda O‘Donnell. He was released on bond, subject to a temporary restraining order that prohibited him from contacting O‘Donnell. Respondent apparently violated the restraining order by attempting to telephone O‘Donnell. On June 6, 2001, Officer Tracy Fox of the Colorado Springs Police Department began to investigate the matter. On the same day, a county probation officer informed an agent of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), that respondent, a convicted felon, illegally possessed a .40 Glock pistol. The ATF relayed this information to Detective Josh Benner, who worked
After reaching the residence and inquiring into respondent‘s attempts to contact O‘Donnell, Officer Fox arrested respondent for violating the restraining order. Detective Benner attempted to advise respondent of his Miranda rights but got no further than the right to remain silent. At that point, respondent interrupted, asserting that he knew his rights, and neither officer attempted to complete the warning.1 App. 40.
Detective Benner then asked respondent about the Glock. Respondent was initially reluctant to discuss the matter, stating: “I am not sure I should tell you anything about the Glock because I don‘t want you to take it away from me.” Id., at 41. Detective Benner persisted, and respondent told him that the pistol was in his bedroom. Respondent then gave Detective Benner permission to retrieve the pistol. Detective Benner found the pistol and seized it.
A grand jury indicted respondent for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, in violation of
The Court of Appeals reversed the District Court‘s ruling with respect to probable cause but affirmed the suppression order on respondent‘s alternative theory. The court rejected the Government‘s argument that this Court‘s decisions in Elstad, supra, and Tucker, supra, foreclosed application of the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine of Wong Sun
v. United States, 371 U. S. 471 (1963), to the present context. 304 F. 3d 1013, 1019 (CA10 2002). These holdings were, the
As we explain below, the Miranda rule is a prophylactic employed to protect against violations of the Self-Incrimination Clause. The Self-Incrimination Clause, however, is not implicated by the admission into evidence of the physical fruit of a voluntary statement. Accordingly, there is no justification for extending the Miranda rule to this con-
II
The Self-Incrimination Clause provides: “No person . . . shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.”
To be sure, the Court has recognized and applied several prophylactic rules designed to protect the core privilege against self-incrimination. See, e. g., Chavez, supra, at 770-772 (plurality opinion). For example, although the text of the Self-Incrimination Clause at least suggests that “its coverage [is limited to] compelled testimony that is used against the defendant in the trial itself,” Hubbell, supra, at 37, potential suspects may, at times, assert the privilege in proceedings in which answers might be used to incriminate them in a subsequent criminal case. See, e. g., United States v. Balsys, 524 U. S. 666, 671-672 (1998); Minnesota v. Murphy, 465 U. S. 420, 426 (1984); cf. Kastigar v. United States, 406 U. S. 441 (1972) (holding that the Government may compel grand jury testimony from witnesses over Fifth Amendment objections if the witnesses receive “use and derivative use immunity“); Uniformed Sanitation Men Assn., Inc. v. Commissioner of Sanitation of City of New York, 392 U. S. 280, 284 (1968) (allowing the Government to use economic compulsion to secure statements but only if the Government grants appropriate immunity). We have explained that “[t]he natural concern which underlies [these] decisions is that an inability to protect the right at one stage of a proceeding may make its invocation useless at a later stage.” Tucker, 417 U. S., at 440-441.
But because these prophylactic rules (including the Miranda rule) necessarily sweep beyond the actual protections of the Self-Incrimination Clause, see, e. g., Withrow, supra, at 690-691; Elstad, supra, at 306, any further extension of these rules must be justified by its necessity for the protection of the actual right against compelled self-incrimination, Chavez, supra, at 778 (SOUTER, J., concurring in judgment) (requiring a “‘powerful showing‘” before “expand[ing] . . . the privilege against compelled self-incrimination“). Indeed, at times the Court has declined to extend Miranda even where it has perceived a need to protect the privilege against self-incrimination. See, e. g., Quarles, supra, at 657 (concluding “that the need for answers to questions in a situation posing a threat to the public safety outweighs the need for the prophylactic rule protecting the Fifth Amendment‘s privilege against self-incrimination“).
It is for these reasons that statements taken without Miranda warnings (though not actually compelled) can be used to impeach a defendant‘s testimony at trial, see Elstad, supra, at 307-308; Harris v. New York, 401 U. S. 222 (1971), though the fruits of actually compelled testimony cannot, see New Jersey v. Portash, 440 U. S. 450, 458-459 (1979). More generally, the Miranda rule “does not require that the statements [taken without complying with the rule] and their fruits be discarded as inherently tainted,” Elstad, 470 U. S., at 307. Such a blanket suppression rule could not be justi-
Furthermore, the Self-Incrimination Clause contains its own exclusionary rule. It provides that “[n]o person . . . shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.”
Finally, nothing in Dickerson, including its characterization of Miranda as announcing a constitutional rule, 530 U. S., at 444, changes any of these observations. Indeed, in Dickerson, the Court specifically noted that the Court‘s “subsequent cases have reduced the impact of the Miranda rule on legitimate law enforcement while reaffirming [Miranda]‘s core ruling that unwarned statements may not be used as evidence in the prosecution‘s case in chief.” Id., at 443-444. This description of Miranda, especially the emphasis on the use of “unwarned statements . . . in the prosecution‘s case in chief,” makes clear our continued focus on the protections of the Self-Incrimination Clause. The Court‘s reliance on our Miranda precedents, including both Tucker and Elstad, see, e. g., Dickerson, supra, at 438, 441, further demonstrates the continuing validity of those decisions. In short, nothing in Dickerson calls into question our continued
III
Our cases also make clear the related point that a mere failure to give Miranda warnings does not, by itself, violate a suspect‘s constitutional rights or even the Miranda rule. So much was evident in many of our pre-Dickerson cases, and we have adhered to this view since Dickerson. See Chavez, 538 U. S., at 772-773 (plurality opinion) (holding that a failure to read Miranda warnings did not violate the respondent‘s constitutional rights); 538 U. S., at 789 (KENNEDY, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (agreeing “that failure to give a Miranda warning does not, without more, establish a completed violation when the unwarned interrogation ensues“); Elstad, supra, at 308; Quarles, 467 U. S., at 654; cf. Chavez, supra, at 777-779 (SOUTER, J., concurring in judgment). This, of course, follows from the nature of the right protected by the Self-Incrimination Clause, which the Miranda rule, in turn, protects. It is “‘a fundamental trial right.‘” Withrow, 507 U. S., at 691 (quoting United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U. S. 259, 264 (1990)). See also Chavez, 538 U. S., at 766-768 (plurality opinion); id., at 790 (KENNEDY, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (“The identification of a Miranda violation and its consequences, then, ought to be determined at trial“).
It follows that police do not violate a suspect‘s constitutional rights (or the Miranda rule) by negligent or even deliberate failures to provide the suspect with the full panoply of warnings prescribed by Miranda. Potential violations occur, if at all, only upon the admission of unwarned statements into evidence at trial. And, at that point, “[t]he exclusion of unwarned statements . . . is a complete and sufficient
Thus, unlike unreasonable searches under the Fourth Amendment or actual violations of the Due Process Clause or the Self-Incrimination Clause, there is, with respect to mere failures to warn, nothing to deter. There is therefore no reason to apply the “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine of Wong Sun, 371 U. S., at 488.4 See also Nix v. Williams, 467 U. S. 431, 441 (1984) (discussing the exclusionary rule in the Sixth Amendment context and noting that it applies to “illegally obtained evidence [and] other incriminating evidence derived from [it]” (emphasis added)). It is not for this Court to impose its preferred police practices on either federal law enforcement officials or their state counterparts.
IV
In the present case, the Court of Appeals, relying on Dickerson, wholly adopted the position that the taking of unwarned statements violates a suspect‘s constitutional rights. 304 F. 3d, at 1028-1029.5 And, of course, if this were so, a
But Dickerson‘s characterization of Miranda as a constitutional rule does not lessen the need to maintain the closest possible fit between the Self-Incrimination Clause and any judge-made rule designed to protect it. And there is no such fit here. Introduction of the nontestimonial fruit of a voluntary statement, such as respondent‘s Glock, does not implicate the Self-Incrimination Clause. The admission of such fruit presents no risk that a defendant‘s coerced statements (however defined) will be used against him at a criminal trial. In any case, “[t]he exclusion of unwarned statements . . . is a complete and sufficient remedy” for any perceived Miranda violation. Chavez, supra, at 790 (KENNEDY, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). See also H. Friendly, Benchmarks 280-281 (1967). There is simply no need to extend (and therefore no justification for extending) the prophylactic rule of Miranda to this context.
Similarly, because police cannot violate the Self-Incrimination Clause by taking unwarned though voluntary statements, an exclusionary rule cannot be justified by reference to a deterrence effect on law enforcement, as the Court of Appeals believed, 304 F. 3d, at 1028-1029. Our decision not to apply Wong Sun to mere failures to give Miranda warnings was sound at the time Tucker and Elstad were decided, and we decline to apply Wong Sun to such failures now.
The Court of Appeals ascribed significance to the fact that, in this case, there might be “little [practical] difference between [respondent‘s] confessional statement” and the actual physical evidence. 304 F. 3d, at 1027. The distinction, the court said, “appears to make little sense as a matter of policy.” Ibid. But, putting policy aside, we have held that “[t]he word ‘witness’ in the constitutional text limits the”
Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for further proceedings.
It is so ordered.
JUSTICE KENNEDY, with whom JUSTICE O‘CONNOR joins, concurring in the judgment.
In Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U. S. 298 (1985), New York v. Quarles, 467 U. S. 649 (1984), and Harris v. New York, 401 U. S. 222 (1971), evidence obtained following an unwarned interrogation was held admissible. This result was based in large part on our recognition that the concerns underlying the Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966), rule must be accommodated to other objectives of the criminal justice sys-
With these observations, I concur in the judgment of the Court.
JUSTICE SOUTER, with whom JUSTICE STEVENS and JUSTICE GINSBURG join, dissenting.
The plurality repeatedly says that the Fifth Amendment does not address the admissibility of nontestimonial evidence, an overstatement that is beside the point. The issue actually presented today is whether courts should apply the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine lest we create an incentive for the police to omit Miranda warnings, see Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966), before custodial interrogation.1
In closing their eyes to the consequences of giving an evidentiary advantage to those who ignore Miranda, the plurality adds an important inducement for interrogators to ignore the rule in that case.
Miranda rested on insight into the inherently coercive character of custodial interrogation and the inherently difficult exercise of assessing the voluntariness of any confession resulting from it. Unless the police give the prescribed warnings meant to counter the coercive atmosphere, a custodial confession is inadmissible, there being no need for the previous time-consuming and difficult enquiry into voluntariness. That inducement to forestall involuntary statements and troublesome issues of fact can only atrophy if we turn around and recognize an evidentiary benefit when an unwarned statement leads investigators to tangible evidence. There is, of course, a price for excluding evidence, but the Fifth Amendment is worth a price, and in the absence of a very good reason, the logic of Miranda should be followed: a Miranda violation raises a presumption of coercion, Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U. S. 298, 306-307, and n. 1 (1985), and the Fifth Amendment privilege against compelled self-incrimination extends to the exclusion of derivative evidence, see United States v. Hubbell, 530 U. S. 27, 37-38 (2000) (recognizing “the Fifth Amendment‘s protection against the prosecutor‘s use of incriminating information derived directly or indirectly from . . . [actually] compelled testimony“); Kastigar v. United States, 406 U. S. 441, 453 (1972). That should be the end of this case.
The fact that the books contain some exceptions to the Miranda exclusionary rule carries no weight here. In Harris v. New York, 401 U. S. 222 (1971), it was respect for the integrity of the judicial process that justified the admission
There is no way to read this case except as an unjustifiable invitation to law enforcement officers to flout Miranda when there may be physical evidence to be gained. The incentive is an odd one, coming from the Court on the same day it decides Missouri v. Seibert, ante, p. 600. I respectfully dissent.
JUSTICE BREYER, dissenting.
For reasons similar to those set forth in JUSTICE SOUTER‘S dissent and in my concurring opinion in Missouri v. Seibert, ante, at 617, I would extend to this context the “fruit of the poisonous tree” approach, which I believe the Court has come close to adopting in Seibert. Under that approach,