VEGA v. TEKOH
No. 21-499
Supreme Court of the United States
June 23, 2022
597 U.S. ___ (2022)
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
VEGA v. TEKOH
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
No. 21-499. Argued April 20, 2022—Decided June 23, 2022
The case arose out of the interrogation of respondent, Terence Tekoh, by petitioner, Los Angeles County Sheriff‘s Deputy Carlos Vega. Deputy Vega questioned Tekoh at the medical center where Tekoh worked regarding the reported sexual assault of a patient. Vega did not inform Tekoh of his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436. Tekoh eventually provided a written statement apologizing for inappropriately touching the patient‘s genitals. Tekoh was prosecuted for unlawful sexual penetration. His written statement was admitted against him at trial. After the jury returned a verdict of not guilty, Tekoh sued Vega under
Held: A violation of the Miranda rules does not provide a basis for a
(a)
(1) In Miranda, the Court concluded that additional procedural protections were necessary to prevent the violation of the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when suspects who are in custody are interrogated by the police. Miranda imposed a set of prophylactic rules requiring that custodial interrogation be preceded
(2) After Miranda, the Court engaged in the process of charting the dimensions of these new prophylactic rules, and, in doing so, weighed the benefits and costs of any clarification of the prophylactic rules’ scope. See Maryland v. Shatzer, 559 U. S. 98, 106. Some post-Miranda decisions found that the balance of interests justified restrictions that would not have been possible if Miranda described the Fifth Amendment right as opposed to a set of rules designed to protect that right. For example, in Harris v. New York, 401 U. S. 222, 224-226, the Court held that a statement obtained in violation of Miranda could be used to impeach the testimony of a defendant, even though an involuntary statement obtained in violation of the Fifth Amendment could not have been employed in this way. In Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U. S. 433, 450-452, n. 26, the Court held that the “fruits” of an un-Mirandized statement can be admitted. In doing so, the Court distinguished police conduct that “abridge[s] [a person‘s] constitutional privilege against compulsory self-incrimination” from conduct that “depart[s] only from the prophylactic standards later laid down by this Court in Miranda to safeguard that privilege.” 417 U. S., at 445-446. Similarly, in Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U. S. 298, the Court, following the reasoning in Tucker, refused to exclude a signed confession and emphasized that an officer‘s error “in administering the prophylactic Miranda procedures should not breed the same irremediable consequences as police infringement of the Fifth Amendment itself.” Id., at 309.
While many of the Court‘s decisions imposed limits on Miranda‘s prophylactic rules, other decisions found that the balance of interests called for expansion. For example, in Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U. S. 610, the Court held that silence following a Miranda warning cannot be used to impeach. The Court acknowledged that Miranda warnings are “prophylactic,” 426 U. S., at 617, but it found that allowing the use of post-warning silence would undermine the warnings’ implicit promise that silence would not be used to convict. Id., at 618. Likewise, in Withrow v. Williams, 507 U. S. 680, the Court rejected an attempt to
(3) The Court‘s decision in Dickerson v. United States, 530 U. S. 428, did not upset the firmly established prior understanding of Miranda as a prophylactic decision. Dickerson involved a federal statute,
(b) A
985 F. 3d 713, reversed and remanded.
ALITO, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and THOMAS, GORSUCH, KAVANAUGH, and BARRETT, JJ., joined. KAGAN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which BREYER and SOTOMAYOR, JJ., joined.
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 21-499
CARLOS VEGA, PETITIONER v. TERENCE B. TEKOH
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
[June 23, 2022]
JUSTICE ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the question whether a plaintiff may sue a police officer under
I
In March 2014, Tekoh was working as a certified nursing assistant at a Los Angeles medical center. When a female patient accused him of sexually assaulting her, the hospital
Tekoh was arrested and charged in California state court with unlawful sexual penetration. At Tekoh‘s first trial, the judge held that Miranda had not been violated because Tekoh was not in custody when he provided the statement, but the trial resulted in a mistrial. When Tekoh was retried, a second judge again denied his request to exclude the confession. This trial resulted in acquittal, and Tekoh then brought this action under
When this
A Ninth Circuit panel reversed, holding that the “use of an un-Mirandized statement against a defendant in a criminal proceeding violates the Fifth Amendment and may support a
Vega‘s petition for rehearing en banc was denied, but Judge Bumatay, joined by six other judges, filed a dissent
II
A
If a Miranda violation were tantamount to a violation of the Fifth Amendment, our answer would of course be different. The Fifth Amendment, made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment, Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U. S. 1, 6 (1964), provides that “[n]o person . . . shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” This Clause “permits a person to refuse to testify against himself at a criminal trial in which he is a defendant” and “also ‘privileges him not to answer official questions put to him in any other proceeding, civil or criminal, formal or informal, where the answers might incriminate him in future criminal proceedings.‘” Minnesota v. Murphy, 465 U. S. 420, 426 (1984) (quoting Lefkowitz v. Turley, 414 U. S. 70, 77 (1973)). In addition, the right bars the introduction against a criminal defendant of out-of-court statements obtained by compulsion. See, e.g., Bram v. United States, 168 U. S. 532, 565 (1897); Miranda, 384 U. S., at 466; Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U. S. 433, 440-442 (1974).
In Miranda, the Court concluded that additional procedural protections were necessary to prevent the violation of this important right when suspects who are in custody are interrogated by the police. To afford this protection, the
In this case, the Ninth Circuit held—and Tekoh now argues, Brief for Respondent 20—that a violation of Miranda constitutes a violation of the Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination, but that is wrong. Miranda itself and our subsequent cases make clear that Miranda imposed a set of prophylactic rules. Those rules, to be sure, are “constitutionally based,” Dickerson, 530 U. S., at 440, but they are prophylactic rules nonetheless.
B
Miranda itself was clear on this point. Miranda did not hold that a violation of the rules it established necessarily constitute a Fifth Amendment violation, and it is difficult to see how it could have held otherwise. For one thing, it is easy to imagine many situations in which an un-Mirandized suspect in custody may make self-incriminating statements without any hint of compulsion. In addition, the warnings that the Court required included components, such as notification of the right to have retained or appointed counsel present during questioning, that do not concern self-incrimination per se but are instead plainly designed to safeguard that right. And the same is true of Miranda‘s detailed rules about the waiver of the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney. 384 U. S., at 474-479.
At no point in the opinion did the Court state that a violation of its new rules constituted a violation of the Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination. Instead, it claimed only that those rules were needed to safeguard that right during custodial interrogation. See id., at 439 (describing its rules as “procedures which assure that
In accordance with this understanding of the nature of the rules it imposed, the Miranda Court stated quite clearly that the Constitution did not itself require “adherence to any particular solution for the inherent compulsions of the interrogation process” and that its decision “in no way create[d] a constitutional straitjacket.” Ibid. The opinion added that its new rules might not be needed if Congress or the States adopted “other procedures which are at least as effective,” ibid., and the opinion suggested that there might not have been any actual Fifth Amendment violations in the four cases that were before the Court. See id., at 457 (“In these cases, we might not find the defendants’ statements to have been involuntary in traditional terms“). The Court could not have said any of these things if a violation of the Miranda rules necessarily constituted a violation of the Fifth Amendment.
Since Miranda, the Court has repeatedly described the rules it adopted as “prophylactic.” See Howes v. Fields, 565 U. S. 499, 507 (2012); J. D. B. v. North Carolina, 564 U. S. 261, 269 (2011); Maryland v. Shatzer, 559 U. S. 98, 103 (2010); Montejo v. Louisiana, 556 U. S. 778, 794 (2009); Davis v. United States, 512 U. S. 452, 458 (1994); Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U. S. 619, 629 (1993); Withrow v. Williams, 507 U. S. 680, 691 (1993); McNeil v. Wisconsin, 501 U. S. 171, 176 (1991); Michigan v. Harvey, 494 U. S. 344, 350 (1990); Duckworth v. Eagan, 492 U. S. 195, 203 (1989); Arizona v. Roberson, 486 U. S. 675, 681 (1988); Connecticut v. Barrett, 479 U. S. 523, 528 (1987); Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U. S. 298, 309 (1985); New York v. Quarles, 467 U. S. 649, 654 (1984); South Dakota v. Neville, 459 U. S. 553, 564, n. 15 (1983); United States v. Henry, 447 U. S. 264, 274 (1980);
C
After Miranda was handed down, the Court engaged in the process of charting the dimensions of these new prophylactic rules. As we would later spell out, this process entailed a weighing of the benefits and costs of any clarification of the rules’ scope. See Shatzer, 559 U. S., at 106 (“A judicially crafted rule is ‘justified only by reference to its prophylactic purpose,’ . . . and applies only where its benefits outweigh its costs“).
Some post-Miranda decisions found that the balance of interests justified restrictions that would not have been possible if Miranda represented an explanation of the meaning of the Fifth Amendment right as opposed to a set of rules designed to protect that right. For example, in Harris v. New York, 401 U. S. 222, 224-226 (1971), the Court held that a statement obtained in violation of Miranda could be used to impeach the testimony of a defendant, even though an involuntary statement obtained in violation of the Fifth Amendment could not have been employed in this way. See Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U. S. 385, 398 (1978)
A similar analysis was used in Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U. S. 433, 450-452, n. 26 (1974), where the Court held that the “fruits” of an un-Mirandized statement can be admitted. The Court noted that “the ‘fruits’ of police conduct which actually infringe[s]” a defendant‘s constitutional rights must be suppressed. Id., at 445; see also Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U. S. 471 (1963) (applying the rule in the context of a Fourth Amendment violation). But the Court distinguished police conduct that “abridge[s] [a person‘s] constitutional privilege against compulsory self-incrimination” from conduct that “depart[s] only from the prophylactic standards later laid down by this Court in Miranda to safeguard that privilege.” 417 U. S., at 445-446. Because there had been only a Miranda violation in that case, the Wong Sun rule of automatic exclusion was found to be inapplicable. See 417 U. S., at 445-446. Instead, the Court asked whether the Miranda rules’ prophylactic purposes justified the exclusion of the fruits of the violation, and after “balancing the interests involved,” it held that exclusion was not required. 417 U. S., at 447-452.
In New York v. Quarles, 467 U. S. 649, 654–657 (1984), the Court held that statements obtained in violation of Miranda need not be suppressed when the questioning is conducted to address an ongoing “public safety” concern. The Court reasoned that Miranda warnings are “‘not themselves rights protected by the Constitution‘” and that “the need for answers to questions in a situation posing a threat
Finally, in Elstad, 470 U. S. 298, the Court again distinguished between a constitutional violation and a violation of Miranda. In that case, a suspect in custody was initially questioned without receiving a Miranda warning, and the statements made at that time were suppressed. 470 U. S., at 301-302. But the suspect was later given Miranda warnings, chose to waive his Miranda rights, and signed a written confession. 470 U. S., at 301. Asked to decide whether this confession was admissible, the Court followed the reasoning in Tucker and again held that the fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree rule that applies to constitutional violations does not apply to violations of Miranda. 470 U. S., at 306–309, 318. The Court refused to exclude the signed confession and emphasized that an officer‘s error “in administering the prophylactic Miranda procedures . . . should not breed the same irremediable consequences as police infringement of the Fifth Amendment itself.”3 Id., at 309.
D
While these decisions imposed limits on Miranda‘s prophylactic rules, other decisions found that the balance of interests called for expansion. In Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U. S. 610, 617-619 (1976), the Court held that silence following a Miranda warning cannot be used to impeach. The Court acknowledged that Miranda warnings are “prophylactic,” 426 U. S., at 617, and it recognized the prosecution‘s need to test a defendant‘s exculpatory story through cross-examination, id., at 616–618. But it found that allowing the use of post-warning silence would undermine the warnings’ implicit promise that silence would not be used to convict. Id., at 618.
Similarly, in Roberson, 486 U. S., at 682, the Court held that a suspect‘s post-warning request for counsel with respect to one offense barred later interrogation without counsel regarding a different offense. Describing the Miranda rules as “prophylactic protections,” 486 U. S., at 681, the Court concluded that both law enforcement and criminal defendants would benefit from a bright-line, id., at 681-682.
Finally, in Withrow v. Williams, 507 U. S. 680, the Court rejected an attempt to restrict Miranda‘s application in collateral proceedings based on the reasoning in Stone v. Powell, 428 U. S. 465 (1976). In Stone, the Court had held that a defendant who has had a full and fair opportunity to seek suppression of evidence allegedly seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment may not obtain federal habeas relief on that ground, id., at 494–495, and in Withrow, a state prison warden argued that a similar rule should apply to a habeas petitioner who had been given an opportunity to litigate a Miranda claim at trial, see 507 U. S., at 688-690. Once
Thus, all the post-Miranda cases we have discussed acknowledged the prophylactic nature of the Miranda rules and engaged in cost-benefit analysis to define the scope of these prophylactic rules.
E
Contrary to the decision below and Tekoh‘s argument here, see Brief for Respondent 24, our decision in Dickerson, 530 U. S. 428, did not upset the firmly established prior understanding of Miranda as a prophylactic decision. Dickerson involved a federal statute,
At the same time, however, the Court made it clear that it was not equating a violation of the Miranda rules with an outright Fifth Amendment violation. For one thing, it reiterated Miranda‘s observation that “the Constitution would not preclude legislative solutions that differed from
Even more to the point, the Court rejected the dissent‘s argument that
What all this boils down to is basically as follows. The Miranda rules are prophylactic rules that the Court found to be necessary to protect the Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination. In that sense, Miranda was a “constitutional decision” and it adopted a “constitutional rule” because the decision was based on the Court‘s judgment about what is required to safeguard that constitutional right. And when the Court adopts a constitutional prophylactic rule of this nature, Dickerson concluded, the rule has the status of a “La[w] of the United States” that is binding on the States under the Supremacy Clause4 (as Miranda implicitly held, since three of the four decisions it reversed came from state court, 384 U. S., at 491-494, 497-499), and the rule cannot be altered by ordinary legislation.
Subsequent cases confirm that Dickerson did not upend the Court‘s understanding of the Miranda rules as prophylactic. See, e.g., supra, at 6-7 (collecting post-Dickerson cases).
In sum, a violation of Miranda does not necessarily constitute a violation of the Constitution, and therefore such a violation does not constitute “the deprivation of [a] right . . . secured by the Constitution.”
III
This conclusion does not necessarily dictate reversal because a
As we have noted, “[a] judicially crafted” prophylactic rule should apply “only where its benefits outweigh its costs,” Shatzer, 559 U. S., at 106, and here, while the benefits of permitting the assertion of Miranda claims under
Miranda rests on a pragmatic judgment about what is needed to stop the violation at trial of the Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination. That prophylactic purpose is served by the suppression at trial of state-
Allowing a claim like Tekoh‘s would disserve “judicial economy,” Parklane Hosiery Co. v. Shore, 439 U. S. 322, 326 (1979), by requiring a federal judge or jury to adjudicate a factual question (whether Tekoh was in custody when questioned) that had already been decided by a state court. This re-adjudication would not only be wasteful; it would undercut the “‘strong judicial policy against the creation of two conflicting resolutions‘” based on the same set of facts. Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U. S. 477, 484 (1994). And it could produce “unnecessary friction” between the federal and state court systems by requiring the federal court entertaining the
Allowing
We therefore refuse to extend Miranda in the way Tekoh requests. Miranda, Dickerson, and the other cases in that line provide sufficient protection for the Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination. “The identification of a Miranda violation and its consequences . . . ought to be determined at trial.” Chavez v. Martinez, 538 U. S. 760, 790 (2003) (Kennedy, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). And except in unusual circumstances, the
*
*
*
Because a violation of Miranda is not itself a violation of the Fifth Amendment, and because we see no justification for expanding Miranda to confer a right to sue under
It is so ordered.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 21-499
CARLOS VEGA, PETITIONER v. TERENCE B. TEKOH
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
[June 23, 2022]
JUSTICE KAGAN, with whom JUSTICE BREYER and JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR join, dissenting.
The Court‘s decision in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966), affords well-known protections to suspects who are interrogated by police while in custody. Those protections derive from the Constitution: Dickerson v. United States tells us in no uncertain terms that Miranda is a “constitutional rule.” 530 U. S. 428, 444 (2000). And that rule grants a corresponding right: If police fail to provide the Miranda warnings to a suspect before interrogating him, then he is generally entitled to have any resulting confession excluded from his trial. See 384 U. S., at 478–479. From those facts, only one conclusion can follow—that Miranda‘s protections are a “right[]” “secured by the Constitution” under the federal civil rights statute.
Miranda responded to problems stemming from the interrogation of suspects “incommunicado” and “in a police-dominated atmosphere.” Miranda, 384 U. S., at 445. In such an environment, Miranda said, there are “pressures” which may “compel [a suspect] to speak where he would not otherwise do so freely.” Id., at 467. And so Miranda found
The question in this case is whether Miranda‘s protections are a “right[]” that is “secured by the Constitution” within the meaning of
Begin with whether Miranda is “secured by the Constitution.” We know that it is, because the Court‘s decision in Dickerson says so. Dickerson tells us again and again that Miranda is a “constitutional rule.” 530 U. S., at 444. It is a “constitutional decision” that sets forth “‘concrete constitutional guidelines.‘” Id., at 432, 435 (quoting Miranda, 384 U. S., at 442). Miranda “is constitutionally based“; or again, it has a “constitutional basis.” 530 U. S., at 439, n. 3, 440. It is “of constitutional origin“; it has “constitutional underpinnings.” Id., at 439, n. 3, 440, n. 5. And—one
Dickerson also makes plain that Miranda has all the substance of a constitutional rule—including that it cannot be “abrogate[d]” by any “legislation.” Miranda, 384 U. S., at 491; see Dickerson, 530 U. S., at 437. In Dickerson, the Court considered a federal statute whose obvious purpose was to override Miranda. Dickerson held that Miranda is a “constitutional decision” that cannot be “overruled by” any “Act of Congress.” 530 U. S., at 432. To be sure, Congress may devise “legislative solutions that differ[] from the prescribed Miranda warnings,” but only if those solutions are “‘at least as effective.‘” Id., at 440 (quoting Miranda, 384 U. S., at 467). Dickerson therefore instructs (as noted above) that Miranda sets a “constitutional minimum.” 530 U. S., at 442. No statute may provide lesser protection than that baseline.*
And Dickerson makes clear that the constitutional substance of Miranda does not end there. Rules arising from “the United States Constitution” are applicable in state-court proceedings, but non-constitutional rules are not. See 530 U. S., at 438 (explaining that the Court “do[es] not hold a supervisory power over the courts of the several States“). Too, constitutional rules are enforceable in federal-court habeas proceedings, where a prisoner is entitled to claim he “is in custody in violation of the Constitution.”
Miranda‘s constitutional rule gives suspects a correlative “right[].”
The majority basically agrees with everything I‘ve just explained. It concurs that, per Dickerson, Miranda “adopted a ‘constitutional rule.‘” Ante, at 11 (quoting Dickerson, 530 U. S., at 439); see ante, at 12. How could it not? That Miranda is a constitutional rule is what Dickerson said (and said and said). The majority also agrees that Miranda “directed that statements obtained in violation of [its] rules may not be used by the prosecution in its case-in-chief“—which is simply another way of saying that Miranda grants suspects a right to the exclusion of those statements from the prosecutor‘s case. Ante, at 5.
So how does the majority hold that a violation of Miranda is not a “deprivation of [a] right[]” “secured by the Constitution“?
But none of that helps the majority‘s case. Let‘s assume, as the majority says, that Miranda extends beyond—in order to safeguard—the Fifth Amendment‘s core guarantee. Still, Miranda is enforceable through
Compare the majority‘s holding today to a prior decision, in which the Court “rejected [an] attempt[] to limit the types of constitutional rights that are encompassed within”
*
*
*
Today, the Court strips individuals of the ability to seek a remedy for violations of the right recognized in Miranda. The majority observes that defendants may still seek “the suppression at trial of statements obtained” in violation of Miranda‘s procedures. Ante, at 14-15. But sometimes, such a statement will not be suppressed. And sometimes, as a result, a defendant will be wrongly convicted and spend years in prison. He may succeed, on appeal or in habeas, in getting the conviction reversed. But then, what remedy does he have for all the harm he has suffered? The point of