United States v. Patane
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UNITED STATES
v.
PATANE
___ U.S. ___ (June 28, 2004)
On writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
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), requires suppression of the physical fruits of the suspect's unwarned but voluntary statements. The Court has previously addressed this question but has not reached a definitive conclusion. Although we believe that the Court's decisions in Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298 (1985), and Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U.S. 433 (1974), are instructive, the Courts of Appeals have split on the question after our decision in Dickerson v. United States, 530 U.S. 428 (2000). Because the Miranda rule protects against violations of the Self-Incrimination Clause, which, in turn, is not implicated by the introduction at trial of physical evidence resulting from voluntary statements, we answer the question presented in the negative.
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 closely with the ATF. Together, Detective Benner and Officer Fox proceeded to respondent's residence.
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.
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.” 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 . . . . The District Court granted respondent's motion to suppress the firearm . . . .
The Court of Appeals . . . affirmed the suppression order on [the theory that the gun should be suppressed as the fruit of an unwarned statement]. . . . The Court of Appeals . . . equated Dickerson's announcement that Miranda is a constitutional rule with the proposition that a failure to warn pursuant to Miranda is itself a violation of the Constitution (and, more particularly, of the suspect's Fifth Amendment rights). . . . We granted certiorari.
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 context. And just as the Self-Incrimination Clause primarily focuses on the criminal trial, so too does the Miranda rule. The Miranda rule is not a code of police conduct, and police do not violate the Constitution (or even the Miranda rule, for that matter) by mere failures to warn. For this reason, the exclusionary rule articulated in cases such as Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471 (1963), does not apply. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
II
The Self-Incrimination Clause provides: “No person ... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” U.S. Const., Amdt. 5. We need not decide here the precise boundaries of the Clause's protection. For present purposes, it suffices to note that the core protection afforded by the Self-Incrimination Clause is a prohibition on compelling a criminal defendant to testify against himself at trial. See, e.g., 8 J. Wigmore, Evidence ยง 2263, p. 378 (J. McNaughton rev. ed. 1961) (explaining that the Clause “was directed at the employment of legal process to extract from the person's own lips an admission of guilt, which would thus take the place of other evidence”). The Clause cannot be violated by the introduction of nontestimonial evidence obtained as a result of voluntary statements.
To be sure, the Court has recognized and applied several prophylactic rules designed to protect the core privilege against self-incrimination. 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,” potential suspects may, at times, assert the privilege in proceedings in which answers might be used to incriminate them in a subsequent criminal case. 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.”
Similarly, in Miranda, the Court concluded that the possibility of coercion inherent in custodial interrogations unacceptably raises the risk that a suspect's privilege against self-incrimination might be violated. See Dickerson, 530 U.S. at 434-35; Miranda, 384 U.S. at 467. To protect against this danger, the Miranda rule creates a presumption of coercion, in the absence of specific warnings, that is generally irrebuttable for purposes of the prosecution's case in chief.
But because these prophylactic rules (including the Miranda rule) necessarily sweep beyond the actual protections of the Self-Incrimination Clause, any further extension of these rules must be justified by its necessity for the protection of the actual right against compelled self-incrimination, Chavez v. Martinez, 538 U.S. 760, 778 (2003) (opinion of SOUTER, J.) (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., New York v. Quarles, 467 U.S. 649, 657 (1993) (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, though the fruits of actually compelled testimony cannot. 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.” Such a blanket suppression rule could not be justified by reference to the “Fifth Amendment goal of assuring trustworthy evidence,” or by any deterrence rationale, and would therefore fail our close-fit requirement.
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.” Amdt. 5. Unlike the Fourth Amendment's bar on unreasonable searches, the Self-Incrimination Clause is self-executing. We have repeatedly explained “that those subjected to coercive police interrogations have an automatic protection from the use of their involuntary statements (or evidence derived from their statements) in any subsequent criminal trial.” Chavez, 538 U.S. at 769 (plurality opinion) (citing, for example, Elstad, 470 U.S. at 307-08). This explicit textual protection supports a strong presumption against expanding the Miranda rule any further.
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 443-44. 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 [in Dickerson] on our Miranda precedents, including both Tucker and Elstad, further demonstrates the continuing validity of those decisions. In short, nothing in Dickerson calls into question our continued insistence that the closest possible fit be maintained between the Self-Incrimination Clause and any rule designed to protect it.
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 772-73 (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”). 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.”
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 remedy” for any perceived Miranda violation. Chavez, 538 U.S. at 790.
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. 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. [FN5] And, of course, if this were so, a strong deterrence-based argument could be made for suppression of the fruits.
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, 538 U.S. at 790 (KENNEDY, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). 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. 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. The distinction, the court said, “appears to make little sense as a matter of policy.” But, putting policy aside, we have held that “[t]he word 'witness' in the constitutional text limits the” scope of the Self-Incrimination Clause to testimonial evidence. The Constitution itself makes the distinction. And although it is true that the Court requires the exclusion of the physical fruit of actually coerced statements, it must be remembered that statements taken without sufficient Miranda warnings are presumed to have been coerced only for certain purposes and then only when necessary to protect the privilege against self-incrimination. See Part II, supra. For the reasons discussed above, we decline to extend that presumption further.
Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
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 system. I agree with the plurality that Dickerson v. United States, 530 U.S. 428 (2000), did not undermine these precedents and, in fact, cited them in support. Here, it is sufficient to note that the Government presents an even stronger case for admitting the evidence obtained as the result of Patane's unwarned statement. Admission of nontestimonial physical fruits (the Glock in this case), even more so than the postwarning statements to the police in Elstad and Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U.S. 433 (1974), does not run the risk of admitting into trial an accused's coerced incriminating statements against himself. In light of the important probative value of reliable physical evidence, it is doubtful that exclusion can be justified by a deterrence rationale sensitive to both law enforcement interests and a suspect's rights during an in-custody interrogation.
Unlike the plurality, however, I find it unnecessary to decide whether the detective's failure to give Patane the full Miranda warnings should be characterized as a violation of the Miranda rule itself, or whether there is “[any]thing to deter” so long as the unwarned statements are not later introduced at trial.
With these observations, I concur in the judgment of the Court.
This dissenting opinion of JUSTICE SOUTER, with whom JUSTICE STEVENS and JUSTICE GINSBURG join, is omitted.
FN5. It is worth mentioning that the Court of Appeals did not have the benefit of our decision in Chavez v. Martinez, 538 U.S. 760 (2003).
