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admissibility of a confession in a state criminal
prosecution is tested by the same standard applied in federal
prosecutions since 1897,’’ when Bram v. United States had announced
that the self-incrimination clause furnished the basis for
admitting or excluding evidence in federal courts. 315
One week after the decision in Malloy v. Hogan, the Court defined
the rules of admissibility of confessions in different terms;
while it continued to emphasize voluntariness, it did so in self-incrimination
terms rather than in due process terms. In Escobedo
v. Illinois, 316 it held inadmissible the confession obtained from a
suspect in custody who had repeatedly requested and had repeatedly
been refused an opportunity to consult with his retained counsel,
who was present at the police station seeking to gain access to
Escobedo. 317 While Escobedo appeared in the main to be a Sixth
Amendment right-to-counsel case, the Court at several points emphasized,
in terms that clearly implicated self-incrimination considerations,
that the suspect had not been warned of his constitutional
rights. 318
Miranda v. Arizona.—The Sixth Amendment holding of
Escobedo was deemphasized and the Fifth Amendment self-incrimi-
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AMENDMENT 5—RIGHTS OF PERSONS 1421
319 384 U.S. 436, 444–45 (1966). In Johnson v. New Jersey, 384 U.S. 719 (1966),
the Court held that neither Escobedo nor Miranda was to be applied retroactively.
In cases where trials commenced after the decisions were announced, the due process
‘‘totality of circumstances’’ test was to be the key. Cf. Davis v. North Carolina,
384 U.S. 737 (1966).
nation rule made preeminent in Miranda v. Arizona, 319 in which
the Court summarized its holding as follows: ‘‘[T]he prosecution
may not use statements, whether exculpatory or inculpatory, stemming
from custodial interrogation of the defendant unless it demonstrates
the use of procedural safeguards effective to secure the
privilege against self-incrimination. By custodial interrogation, we
mean questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person
has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom
of action in any significant way. As for the procedural safeguards
to be employed, unless other fully effective means are devised
to inform accused persons of their right of silence and to assure
a continuous opportunity to exercise it, the following measures
are required. Prior to any questioning, the person must be warned
that he has a right to remain silent, that any statement he does
make may be used as evidence against him, and that he has a
right to the presence of an attorney, either retained or appointed.
The defendant may waive effectuation of these rights, provided the
waiver is made voluntarily, knowingly and intelligently. If, however,
he indicates in any manner and at any stage of the process
that he wishes to consult with an attorney before speaking there
can be no questioning. Likewise, if the individual is alone and indicates
in any manner that he does not wish to be interrogated, the
police may not question him. The mere fact that he may have answered
some questions or volunteered some statements on his own
does not deprive him of the right of refrain from answering any
further inquiries until he has consulted with an attorney and
thereafter consents to be questioned.’’
The basis for the Court’s conclusions was the determination
that police interrogation as conceived and practiced was inherently
coercive and that this compulsion, though informal and legally
sanctionless, was contrary to the protection assured by the self-incrimination
clause, the protection afforded in a system of criminal
justice which convicted a defendant on the basis of evidence independently
secured and not out of his own mouth. In the Court’s
view, this had been the law in the federal courts since 1897, and
the application of the clause to the States in 1964 necessitated the
application of the principle in state courts as well. Therefore, the
clause requires that police interrogation practices be so structured
as to secure to suspects that they not be stripped of the ability to
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1422 AMENDMENT 5—RIGHTS OF PERSONS
320 Justices Clark, Harlan, Stewart, and White dissented, finding no historical
support for the application of the clause to police interrogation and rejecting the policy
considerations for the extension put forward by the majority. Miranda v. Arizona,
384 U.S. 436, 499, 504, 526 (1966). Justice White argued that while the
Court’s decision was not compelled or even strongly suggested by the Fifth Amendment,
its history, and the judicial precedents, this did not preclude the Court from
making new law and new public policy grounded in reason and experience, but he
contended that the change made in Miranda was ill-conceived because it arose from
a view of interrogation as inherently coercive and because the decision did not adequately
protect society’s interest in detecting and punishing criminal behavior. Id.
at 531–45.
321 384 U.S. at 457. For the continuing recognition of the difference between the
traditional involuntariness test and the Miranda test, see Michigan v. Tucker, 417
U.S. 433, 443–46 (1974); Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 396–402 (1978).
322 Johnson v. New Jersey, 384 U.S. 719, 731 (1966).
323 See, e.g., Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U.S. 291, 304 (1980) (Chief Justice Burger
concurring) (‘‘The meaning of Miranda has become reasonably clear and law enforcement
practices have adjusted to its strictures; I would neither overrule Miranda,
disparage it, nor extend it at this late date.’’)
make a free and rational choice between speaking and not speaking.
The warnings and the provision of counsel were essential, the
Court said, to this type of system. 320 ‘‘In these cases,’’ said Chief
Justice Warren, ‘‘we might not find the defendants’ statements to
have been involuntary in traditional terms.’’ 321 The acknowledgment
that the decision considerably expanded upon previous doctrine,
even if the assimilation of self-incrimination values by the
confession-exclusion rule be considered complete, was more clearly
made a week after Miranda when, in denying retroactivity to that
case and to Escobedo, the Court asserted that law enforcement officers
had relied justifiably upon prior cases, ‘‘now no longer binding,’’
which treated the failure to warn a suspect of his rights or
the failure to grant access to counsel as one of the factors to be considered.
322 It was thus not the application of the self-incrimination
clause to police interrogation in Miranda that constituted a major
change from precedent but rather the series of warnings and guarantees
which the Court imposed as security for the observance of
the privilege.
While the Court’s decision rapidly became highly controversial
and the source of much political agitation, including a prominent
role in the 1968 presidential election, the Court has continued to
adhere to it, 323 albeit not without considerable qualification. For
years, the constitutional status of the Miranda warnings was
clouded in uncertainty. Had the Court announced a constitutional
rule, or merely set forth supervisory rules that could be superseded
by statutory rules? The fact that Miranda itself applied the rules
to a state court proceeding, and that the Court in subsequent cases
consistently applied the warnings to state proceedings, was strong
evidence of constitutional moorings. In 1968, however, Congress en-
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AMENDMENT 5—RIGHTS OF PERSONS 1423
324 Pub. L. No. 90-351, § 701(a), 82 Stat. 210, 18 U.S.C. § 3501. See S. Rep. No.
1097, 90th Cong., 2d Sess. 37-53 (1968). An effort to enact a companion measure
applicable to the state courts was defeated.
325 New York v. Quarles, 467 U.S. 549, 653 (1984).
326 Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U.S. 433, 444 (1974).
327 , 530 U.S. 428 (2000).
328 530 U.S. at 438.
329 530 U.S. at 439 (quoting from Miranda, 384 U.S. at 441-42).
330 530 U.S. at 443.
acted a statute designed to set aside Miranda in the federal courts
and to reinstate the traditional voluntariness test. 324 The statute
lay unimplemented, for the most part, due to constitutional doubts
about it. The Court also created exceptions to the Miranda warnings
over the years, and referred to the warnings as ‘‘prophylactic’’
325 and ‘‘not themselves rights protected by the Constitution.’’
326 There were even hints that some Justices might be willing
to overrule the decision.
In Dickerson v. United States, 327 the Court resolved the basic
issue, holding that Miranda was a constitutional decision that
could not be overturned by statute, and consequently that 18
U.S.C. § 3501 was unconstitutional. Application of Miranda warnings
to state proceedings necessarily implied a constitutional base,
the Court explained, since federal courts ‘‘hold no supervisory authority
over state judicial proceedings.’’ 328 Moreover, Miranda itself
had purported to ‘‘give concrete constitutional guidance to law enforcement
agencies and courts to follow.’’ 329 That the Miranda
rules are constitution-based does not mean that they are ‘‘immutable,’’
however. The Court repeated its invitation for legislative action
that would be ‘‘at least as effective’’ in protecting a suspect’s
right to remain silent during custodial interrogation. Section 3501,
however, merely reinstated the ‘‘totality-of-the-circumstances’’ rule
held inadequate in Miranda, so that provision could not be considered
as effective as the Miranda warnings.
The Dickerson Court also rejected a request to overrule Miranda.
‘‘Whether or not we would agree with Miranda’s reasoning
and its resulting rule, were we addressing the issue in the first instance,’’
Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote for a seven-Justice majority,
‘‘the principles of stare decisis weigh heavily against overruling it
now.’’ There was no special justification for overruling the decision;
subsequent cases had not undermined the decision’s doctrinal
underpinnings, but rather had ‘‘reaffirm[ed]’’ its ‘‘core ruling.’’
Moreover, Miranda warnings had ‘‘become so embedded in routine
police practice [that they] have become part of our national culture.’’
330
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1424 AMENDMENT 5—RIGHTS OF PERSONS
331 In Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U.S. 433, 439 (1974), the Court had suggested
a distinction between a constitutional violation and a violation of ‘‘the prophylactic
rules developed to protect that right.’’ The actual holding in Tucker, however, had
turned on the fact that the interrogation had preceded the Miranda decision and
that warnings—albeit not full Miranda warnings—had been given.
332 428 U.S. 465 (1976).
333 507 U.S. 680 (1993).
334 367 U.S. 643 (1961).
335 507 U.S. at 691–92.
336 507 U.S. at 693.
337 Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 444 (1966).
338 Mathis v. United States, 391 U.S. 1 (1968) (suspect in state jail questioned
by federal officer about a federal crime). But even though a suspect is in jail, hence
in custody ‘‘in a technical sense,’’ a conversation with an undercover agent does not
create a coercive, police-dominated environment and does not implicate Miranda if
the suspect does not know that he is conversing with a government agent. Illinois
v. Perkins, 496 U.S. 292 (1990).
339 Orozco v. Texas, 394 U.S. 324 (1969) (four policemen entered suspect’s bedroom
at 4 a.m. and questioned him; though not formally arrested, he was in custody).
Although the Court had suggested in 1974 that most Miranda
claims could be disallowed in federal habeas corpus cases, 331
such a course was squarely rejected in 1993. The Stone v. Powell
332 rule, precluding federal habeas corpus review of a state prisoner’s
claim that his conviction rests on evidence obtained through
an unconstitutional search or seizure, does not extend to preclude
federal habeas review of a state prisoner’s Miranda claim, the
Court ruled in Withrow v. Williams. 333 The Miranda rule differs
from the Mapp v. Ohio 334 exclusionary rule denied enforcement in
Stone, the Court explained. While both are prophylactic rules, Miranda
unlike Mapp, safeguards a fundamental trial right, the
privilege against self-incrimination. Miranda also protects against
the use at trial of unreliable statements, hence, unlike Mapp, relates
to the correct ascertainment of guilt. 335 A further consideration
was that eliminating review of Miranda claims would not significantly
reduce federal habeas review of state convictions, since
most Miranda claims could be recast in terms of due process denials
resulting from admission of involuntary confessions. 336
In any event, the Court has established several lines of decisions
interpreting Miranda.
First, persons who are questioned while they are in custody
must be given the Miranda warnings. Miranda applies to ‘‘questioning
initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has
been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action
in any significant way.’’ 337 Clearly, a suspect detained in jail
is in custody, even if the detention is for some offense other than
the one about which he is questioned. 338 If he is placed under arrest,
even if he is in his own home, the questioning is custodial. 339
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AMENDMENT 5—RIGHTS OF PERSONS 1425
340 Oregon v. Mathiason, 429 U.S. 492 (1977) (suspect came voluntarily to police
station to be questioned, he was not placed under arrest while there, and he was
allowed to leave at end of interview, even though he was named by victim as culprit,
questioning took place behind closed doors, and he was falsely informed his fingerprints
had been found at scene of crime). See also Minnesota v. Murphy, 465 U.S.
420 (1984) (required reporting to probationary officer is not custodial situation).
341 Beckwith v. United States, 425 U.S. 341 (1976) (IRS agents’ interview with
taxpayer in private residence was not a custodial interrogation, although inquiry
had ‘‘focused’’ on him).
342 Cf. United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544 (1980); Reid v. Georgia, 448
U.S. 438 (1980); Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47 (1979); Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S.
420, 440 (1984) (roadside questioning of a motorist stopped for traffic violation is
not custodial interrogation until his ‘‘freedom of action is curtailed to a ‘degree associated
with formal arrest’’’).
343 Stansbury v. California, 511 U.S. 318 (1994).
344 446 U.S. 291 (1980). A remarkably similar factual situation was presented
in Brewer v. Williams, 430 U.S. 387 (1977), which was decided under the Sixth
Amendment. In Brewer, and also in Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201 (1964),
and United States v. Henry, 447 U.S. 264 (1980), the Court has had difficulty in
expounding on what constitutes interrogation for Sixth Amendment counsel purposes.
The Innis Court indicated that the definitions are not the same for each
Amendment. 446 U.S. at 300 n.4.
But the fact that a suspect may be present in a police station does
not, in the absence of indicia that he was in custody, mean that the
questioning is custodial, 340 and the fact that he is in his home or
other familiar surroundings will ordinarily lead to a conclusion that
the inquiry was noncustodial. 341 As with investigative stops under
the Fourth Amendment, there is a wide variety of police-citizen
contacts, and the Supreme Court has not explored at any length
the application of Miranda to questioning on the street and elsewhere
in situations in which the police have not asserted authority
sufficient to place the citizen in custody. 342 Whether a person is ‘‘in
custody’’ is an objective test assessed in terms of how a reasonable
person in the suspect’s shoes would perceive his or her freedom to
leave; a police officer’s subjective and undisclosed view that a person
being interrogated is a suspect is not relevant for Miranda purposes.
343
Second, persons who are interrogated while they are in custody
must be given the Miranda warnings. It is not necessary under Miranda
that the police squarely ask a question. The breadth of the
interrogation concept is demonstrated in Rhode Island v. Innis. 344
There, police had apprehended the defendant as a murder suspect
but had not found the weapon used. While he was being transported
to police headquarters in a squad car, the defendant, who
had been given the Miranda warnings and had asserted he wished
to consult a lawyer before submitting to questioning, was not asked
questions by the officers. However, the officers engaged in conversation
among themselves, in which they indicated that a school
for handicapped children was near the crime scene and that they
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1426 AMENDMENT 5—RIGHTS OF PERSONS
345 Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U.S. 291, 300–01 (1980).
346 446 U.S. at 302–04. Justices Marshall, Brennan, and Stevens dissented, id.
at 305, 307. Similarly, the Court found no functional equivalent of interrogation
when police allowed a suspect’s wife to talk to him in the presence of a police officer
who openly tape recorded the conversation. Arizona v. Mauro, 481 U.S. 520 (1987).
See also Illinois v. Perkins, 496 U.S. 292 (1990) (absence of coercive environment
makes Miranda inapplicable to jail cell conversation between suspect and police undercover
agent).
347 451 U.S. 454 (1981).
348 451 U.S. at 467.
hoped the weapon was found before a child discovered it and was
injured. The defendant then took them to the weapon’s hiding
place.
Unanimously rejecting a contention that Miranda would have
been violated only by express questioning, the Court said: ‘‘We conclude
that the Miranda safeguards come into play whenever a person
in custody is subjected to either express questioning or its functional
equivalent. That is to say, the term ‘interrogation’ under Miranda
refers not only to express questioning, but also to any words
or actions on the part of the police (other than those normally attendant
to arrest and custody) that the police should know are reasonably
likely to elicit an incriminating response from the suspect.
The latter portion of this definition focuses primarily upon the perceptions
of the suspect, rather than the intent of the police. This
focus reflects the fact that the Miranda safeguards were designed
to vest a suspect in custody with an added measure of protection
against coercive police practices, without regard to objective proof
of the underlying intent of the police.’’ 345 A divided Court then concluded
that the officers’ conversation did not amount to a functional
equivalent of questioning and that the evidence was admissible.
346
In Estelle v. Smith, 347 the Court held that a court-ordered jailhouse
interview with the defendant by a psychiatrist seeking to determine
his competency to stand trial, when the defense had raised
no issue of insanity or incompetency, constituted interrogation for
Miranda purposes; the psychiatrist’s conclusions about the defendant’s
dangerousness were inadmissible at the capital sentencing
phase of the trial because the defendant had not been given his Miranda
warnings prior to the interview. That the defendant had
been questioned by a psychiatrist designated to conduct a neutral
competency examination, rather than by a police officer, was ‘‘immaterial,’’
the Court concluded, since the psychiatrist’s testimony
at the penalty phase changed his role from one of neutrality to that
of an agent of the prosecution. 348 Other instances of questioning in
less formal contexts in which the issues of custody and interroga-
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AMENDMENT 5—RIGHTS OF PERSONS 1427
349 Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 444 (1966). See id. at 469–73.
350 384 U.S. at 444.
351 384 U.S. at 469.
352 California v. Prysock, 453 U.S. 355 (1981). Rephrased, the test is whether
the warnings ‘‘reasonably conveyed’’ a suspect’s rights, the Court adding that reviewing
courts ‘‘need not examine Miranda warnings as if construing a will or defining
the terms of an easement.’’ Duckworth v. Eagan, 492 U.S. 195, 203 (1989) (upholding
warning that included possibly misleading statement that a lawyer would
be appointed ‘‘if and when you go to court’’).
353 Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 472, 473–74 (1966).
354 451 U.S. 477 (1981).
tion intertwine, e.g., in on-the-street encounters, await explication
by the Court.
Third, before a suspect in custody is interrogated, he must be
given full warnings, or the equivalent, of his rights. Miranda, of
course, required express warnings to be given to an in-custody suspect
of his right to remain silent, that anything he said may be
used as evidence against him, that he has a right to counsel, and
that if he cannot afford counsel he is entitled to an appointed attorney.
349 The Court recognized that ‘‘other fully effective means’’
could be devised to convey the right to remain silent, 350 but it was
firm that the prosecution was not permitted to show that an
unwarned suspect knew of his rights in some manner. 351 But it is
not necessary that the police give the warnings as a verbatim recital
of the words in the Miranda opinion itself, so long as the
words used ‘‘fully conveyed’’ to a defendant his rights. 352
Fourth, once a warned suspect asserts his right to silence and
requests counsel, the police must scrupulously respect his assertion
of right. The Miranda Court strongly stated that once a warned
suspect ‘‘indicates in any manner, at any time prior to or during
questioning, that he wishes to remain silent, the interrogation
must cease.’’ Further, if the suspect indicates he wishes the assistance
of counsel before interrogation, the questioning must cease
until he has counsel. 353 At least with respect to counsel, the Court
has created practically a per se rule barring the police from continuing
or from reinitiating interrogation with a suspect requesting
counsel until counsel is present, save only that the suspect himself
may initiate further proceedings. Thus, in Edwards v. Arizona, 354
the Court ruled that Miranda had been violated when police reinitiated
questioning after the suspect had requested counsel.
Questioning had ceased as soon as the suspect had requested counsel,
and the suspect had been returned to his cell. Questioning had
resumed the following day only after different police officers had
confronted the suspect and again warned him of his rights; the suspect
agreed to talk and thereafter incriminated himself. Nonetheless,
the Court held, ‘‘when an accused has invoked his right to
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1428 AMENDMENT 5—RIGHTS OF PERSONS
355 451 U.S. at 484–85. The decision was unanimous, but three concurrences objected
to a special rule limiting waivers with respect to counsel to suspect-initiated
further exchanges. Id. at 487, 488 (Chief Justice Burger and Justices Powell and
Rehnquist). In Oregon v. Bradshaw, 462 U.S. 1039 (1983), the Court held, albeit
without a majority of Justices in complete agreement as to rationale, that an accused
who had initiated further conversations with police had knowingly and intelligently
waived his right to have counsel present. So too, an accused who expressed
a willingness to talk to police, but who refused to make a written statement without
presence of counsel, was held to have waived his rights with respect to his oral
statements. Connecticut v. Barrett, 479 U.S. 523 (1987). The Court has held that
Edwards should not be applied retroactively to a conviction that had become final,
Solem v. Stumes, 465 U.S. 638 (1984), but that Edwards does apply to cases pending
on appeal at the time it was decided. Shea v. Louisiana, 470 U.S. 51 (1985).
356 Arizona v. Roberson, 486 U.S. 675 (1988). By contrast, the Sixth Amendment
right to counsel is offense-specific, and does not bar questioning about a crime unrelated
to the crime for which the suspect has been charged. See McNeil v. Wisconsin,
501 U.S. 171 (1991).
357 Fare v. Michael C., 442 U.S. 707 (1979) (juvenile requested to see his parole
officer, rather than counsel). Also, waivers signed by the accused following Miranda
warnings are not vitiated by police having kept from the accused information
that an attorney had been retained for him by a relative. Moran v. Burbine, 475
U.S. 412 (1986).
358 Michigan v. Mosley, 423 U.S. 96 (1975) (suspect given Miranda warnings at
questioning for robbery, requested cessation of interrogation, and police complied;
some two hours later, a different policeman interrogated suspect about a murder,
gave him a new Miranda warning, and suspect made incriminating admission; since
police ‘‘scrupulously honored’’ suspect’s request, admission valid).
have counsel present during custodial interrogation, a valid waiver
of that right cannot be established by showing only that he responded
to further police-initiated custodial interrogation even if he
has been advised of this rights. We further hold that an accused
. . . , having expressed his desire to deal with the police only
through counsel, is not subject to further interrogation by the authorities
until counsel has been made available to him, unless the
accused himself initiates further communication, exchanges, or conversations
with the police.’’ 355 The Edwards rule bars police-initiated
questioning stemming from a separate investigation as well as
questioning relating to the crime for which the suspect was arrested.
356
However, the suspect must specifically ask for counsel; if he requests
the assistance of someone else he th
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