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NOTA PREVIA PARA LOS ESTUDIOSOS.- Trataremos en este apartado de insertar una selección de las Sentencias del Tribunal Supremo de los EE.UU., tomando como punto de partida el año de 1914. En éste y años posteriores creemos que se hallan los orígenes, inspiración y antecedentes de la doctrina y jurisprudencia españolas sobre la PRUEBA ILÍCITA, DOCTRINA DE LOS FRUTOS DEL ÁRBOL ENVENENADO y otros términos americanos similares:” exclusionary rule “, excepción de la buena fe y otros. En España por primera vez se abordan estos temas en la Sentencia del Tribunal Constitucional 114/1984.
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JURISPRUDENCIA Y DERECHO DE EEUU
ÚTIL, INTERESANTE Y POTENTE BASE DE DATOS DE CARÁCTER GRATUITO SOBRE EL DERECHO Y LA JURISPRUDENCIA DE ESTADOS UNIDOS. ENTRE OTROS CONTENIDOS SE PUEDE ACCEDER A LAS RESOLUCIONES DE LOS TRIBUNALES SUPREMOS DE LOS DISTINTOS ESTADOS, OTROS TRIBUNALES PROPIOS DE SU SISTEMA JUDICIAL Y AL TRIBUNAL SUPREMO FEDERAL DE EE.UU. EN IDIOMA INGLÉS. UTILIZANDO LOS TRADUCTORES GRATUITOS DE GOOGLE, ALTAVISTA Y OTROS SE ACCEDE A LA VERSIÓN EN ESPAÑOL U OTROS IDIOMAS, CON LAS LIMITACIONES PROPIAS DEL LENGUAJE JURÍDICO Y DE LA TRADUCCIÓN AUTOMÁTICA.
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DOCTRINA JURISPRUDENCIAL NORTEAMERICANA
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EXCLUSIONARY RULE - PRUEBA ILÍCITA
U.S. Constitution: Fifth Amendment
The Operation of the Exclusionary Rule
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Supreme Court Review.--The Court's review of the question of admissibility of onfessions or other incriminating statements is designed to prevent the foreclosure of the very question to be
decided by it, the issue of voluntariness under the due process standard, the issue of the giving of the requisite warnings and the subsequent waiver, if there is one, under the Miranda rule.
Recurring to Justice Frankfurter's description of the inquiry as a ''three-phased process'' in due process cases at least,357 it can be seen that the Court's self-imposed rules of restraint on review of lower-court factfinding greatly influenced the process. The finding of facts surrounding the issue of coercion--the length of detention, circumstances of interrogation, use of violence or of tricks and ruses, et cetera--is the proper function of the trial court which had the advantage of having the witnesses before it. ''This means that all testimonial conflict is settled by the judgment
of the state courts. Where they have made explicit findings of fact, those findings conclude us and form the basis of our review--with the one caveat, necessarily, that we are not to be bound by findings wholly lacking support in evidence.''358
However, the conclusions of the lower courts as to how the accused reacted to the
circumstances of his interrogation, and as to the legal significance of how he reacted, are subject to open review. ''No more restricted scope of review would suffice adequately to protect federal
constitutional rights. For the mental state of involuntariness upon which the due process question turns can never be affirmatively established other than circumstantially-- that is, by inference; and it cannot be competent to the trier of fact to preclude our review simply be declining to draw inferences which the historical facts compel. Great weight, of course, is to be accorded to the inferences which are drawn by the state courts. In a dubious case, it is appropriate . . . that the state court's determination should control. But where, on the uncontested external happenings, coercive forces set in motion by state law enforcement officials are unmistakably in action; where these forces, under all the prevailing states of stress, are powerful enough to draw forth a
confession; where, in fact, the confession does come forth and is claimed by the defendant to have been extorted from him; and where he has acted as a man would act who is subjected to such an extracting process--where this is all that appears in the record--a State judgment that the confession was voluntary cannot stand.''359 Miranda, of course, does away with the judgments about the effect of lack of warnings, and the third phase, the legal determination of the interaction of the first two phases, is determined solely by two factual determinations: whether the warnings were given and if so whether there was a valid waiver. Presumably, supported determinations of these two facts by trial courts would preclude independent review by the Supreme Court. Yet, the Court has been clear that it may and will independently review the facts when the factfinding has
such a substantial effect on constitutional rights.360 In Withrow v. Williams,Supp.13 the Court held that the rule of Stone v. Powell,Supp.14 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 claim that his conviction rests on statements obtained in violation of the safeguards mandated by Miranda.
Procedure in the Trial Courts.--The Court has placed constitutional limitations upon the procedures followed by trial courts for determining the admissibility of confessions and other incriminating
admissions. Three procedures were developed over time to deal with the question of admissibility when involuntariness was claimed. By the orthodox method, the trial judge heard all the evidence on voluntariness in a separate and preliminary hearing, and if he found the confession involuntary the jury never received it, while if he found it voluntary the jury received it with the right to consider its weight and credibility, which consideration included the circumstances of its making.
By the New York method, the judge first reviewed the confession under a standard leading to its exclusion only if he found it not possible that ''reasonable men could differ over the [factual] inferences to be drawn'' from it; oth erwise, the jury would receive the confession with instructions to first determine its voluntariness and to consider it if it were voluntary and to
disregard it if it were not. By the Massachusetts method, the trial judge himself determined the voluntariness question and if he found the confession involuntary the jury never received it; if he found it to have been voluntarily made he permitted the jury to receive it with instructions that the jurors should make their own independent determination of voluntariness.361
The New York method was upheld against constitutional attack in Stein v. New York,362 but
eleven years later a five-to-four decision in Jackson v. Denno,363 found it inadequate to protect
the due process rights of defendants. The procedure did not, the Court held, ensure a ''reliable determination on the issue of voluntariness'' and did not sufficiently guarantee that convictions would not be grounded on involuntary confessions. Since there was only a general jury verdict of
guilty, it was impossible to determine whether the jury had first focused on the issue of voluntariness and then either had found the confession voluntary and considered it on the question of guilt or had found it involuntary, disregarded it, and reached a conclusion of guilt on
wholly independent evidence. It was doubtful that a jury could appreciate the values served by the exclusion of involuntary confessions and put out of mind the content of the confession no matter
what was determined with regard to its voluntariness. The rule was reiterated in Sims v. Georgia,364 in which the Court voided a state practice permitting the judge to let the confession go to the jury for the ultimate decision on voluntariness, upon an initial determination merely that
the prosecution had made out a prima facie case that the confession was voluntary. The Court has interposed no constitutional objection to utilization of either the orthodox or the Massachusetts method for determining admissibility.365 It has held that the prosecution bears the burden of establishing voluntariness by a prepon derance of the evidence, rejecting a contention that it should be determined only upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt,366 or by clear and convincing evidence.367
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Source.Findlaw.
LexPractica: 13-Noviembre-2005
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UNITED STATES v. PATANE
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the tenth circuit
No. 02-1183. Argued December 9, 2003--Decided June 28, 2004
Counsel of RecordFor Petitioner United States:Theodore OlsonSolicitor General of the United StatesWashington, DC For Respondent Patane:Jill M. WichlensAssistant Federal Public DefenderDenver, CO
After Officer Fox began to investigate respondent's apparent violation of a temporary restraining order, a federal agent told Fox's colleague, Detective Benner, that respondent, a convicted felon, illegally possessed a pistol. Officer Fox and Detective Benner proceeded to respondent's home, where Fox arrested him for violating the restraining order. Benner attempted to advise respondent of his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, but respondent interrupted, asserting that he knew his rights. Benner then asked about the pistol and retrieved and seized it. Respondent was indicted for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, 18 U. S. C. §922(g)(1). The District Court granted his motion to suppress the pistol, reasoning that the officers lacked probable cause to arrest him, and declining to rule on his alternative argument that the gun should be suppressed as the fruit of an unwarned statement. The Tenth Circuit reversed the probable-cause ruling, but affirmed the suppression order on respondent's alternative theory. Rejecting the Government's argument that Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U. S. 298, and Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U. S. 433, foreclosed application of the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine of Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U. S. 471, 488, to the present context, the appeals court reasoned that Oregon and Tucker, which were based on the view that Miranda announced a prophylactic rule, were incompatible with Dickerson v. United States, 530 U. S. 428, 444, in which this Court held that Miranda announced a constitutional rule. The appeals court thus equated Dickerson's ruling with the proposition that a failure to warn pursuant to Miranda is itself a violation of the suspect's Fifth Amendment rights.
Held: The judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded.
304 F. 3d 1013, reversed and remanded.
Justice Thomas, joined by The Chief Justice and Justice Scalia, concluded that a failure to give a suspect Miranda warnings does not require suppression of the physical fruits of the suspect's unwarned but voluntary statements. Pp. 4-12.
(a) The Miranda rule is a prophylactic employed to protect against violations of the Self-Incrimination Clause, U. S Const., Amdt. 5. That Clause's core protection is a prohibition on compelling a criminal defendant to testify against himself at trial. See, e.g., Chavez v. Martinez, 538 U. S. 760, 764-768. It cannot be violated by the introduction of nontestimonial evidence obtained as a result of voluntary statements. See, e.g., United States v. Hubbell, 530 U. S. 27, 34. The Court has recognized and applied several prophylactic rules designed to protect the core privilege against self-incrimination. For example, the Miranda rule creates a presumption of coercion in custodial interrogations, in the absence of specific warnings, that is generally irrebuttable for purposes of the prosecution's case in chief. E.g., 384 U. S., at 467. But because such prophylactic rules necessarily sweep beyond the Self-Incrimination Clause's actual protections, see, e.g., Withrow v. Williams, 507 U. S. 680, 690-691, any further extension of one of them must be justified by its necessity for the protection of the actual right against compelled self-incrimination, e.g., Chavez, supra, at 778. Thus, uncompelled statements taken without Miranda warnings can be used to impeach a defendant's testimony at trial, see Elstad, supra, at 307-308, though the fruits of actually compelled testimony cannot, see New Jersey v. Portash, 440 U. S. 450, 458-459. A blanket rule requiring suppression of statements noncompliant with the Miranda rule could not be justified by reference to the "Fifth Amendment goal of assuring trustworthy evidence" or by any deterrence rationale, e.g., Elstad, 470 U. S., at 308, and would therefore fail the Court's requirement that the closest possible fit be maintained between the Self-Incrimination Clause and any rule designed to protect it. Furthermore, the Clause contains its own exclusionary rule that automatically protects those subjected to coercive police interrogations from the use of their involuntary statements (or evidence derived from their statements) in any subsequent criminal trial. E.g., id., at 307-308. This explicit textual protection supports a strong presumption against expanding the Miranda rule any further. Cf. Graham v. Connor, 490 U. S. 386. Finally, nothing in Dickerson calls into question the Court's continued insistence on its close-fit requirement. Pp. 5-8.
(b) That a mere failure to give Miranda warnings does not, by itself, violate a suspect's constitutional rights or even the Miranda rule was evident in many of the Court's pre-Dickerson cases, see, e.g., Elstad, supra, at 308, and the Court has adhered to that view since Dickerson, see Chavez, supra, at 772-773. This follows from the nature of the "fundamental trial right" protected by the Self-Incrimination Clause, e.g., Withrow, supra, at 691, which the Miranda rule, in turn, protects. Thus, the police do not violate a suspect's constitutional rights (or the Miranda rule) by negligent or even deliberate failures to provide full Miranda warnings. Potential violations occur, if at all, only upon the admission of unwarned statements into evidence. And, at that point, the exclusion of such statements is a complete and sufficient remedy for any perceived Miranda violation. Chavez, supra, at 790. Unlike actual violations of the Self-Incrimination Clause, there is, with respect to mere failures to warn, nothing to deter and therefore no reason to apply Wong Sun's "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine. It is not for this Court to impose its preferred police practices on either federal or state officials. Pp. 8-10.
(c) The Tenth Circuit erred in ruling that the taking of unwarned statements violates a suspect's constitutional rights. Dickerson's characterization of Miranda as a constitutional rule does not lessen the need to maintain the close-fit requirement. There is no such fit here. Introduction of the nontestimonial fruit of a voluntary statement, such as respondent's pistol, does not implicate the Clause. It presents no risk that a defendant's coerced statements (however defined) will be used against him at a criminal trial. In any case, the exclusion of unwarned statements is a complete and sufficient remedy for any perceived Miranda violation. E.g., Chavez, supra, at 790. Similarly, because police cannot violate the 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 below believed. The word "witness" in the constitutional text limits the Self-Incrimination Clause's scope to testimonial evidence. Hubbell, supra, at 34-35. And although the Court requires the exclusion of the physical fruit of actually coerced statements, 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. This Court declines to extend that presumption further. Pp. 10-12.
Justice Kennedy, joined by Justice O'Connor, concluded that it is unnecessary to decide whether the detective's failure to give Patane full Miranda warnings should be characterized as a violation of the Miranda rule itself, or whether there is anything to deter so long as the unwarned statements are not later introduced at trial. In Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U. S. 298, New York v. Quarles, 467 U. S. 649, and Harris v. New York, 401 U. S. 222, evidence obtained following unwarned interrogations was held admissible based in large part on the Court's recognition that the concerns underlying the Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, rule must be accommodated to other objectives of the criminal justice system. 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 than was presented in Elstad and Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U. S. 433. Admission of nontestimonial physical fruits (the pistol here) does not run the risk of admitting into trial an accused's coerced incriminating statements against himself. In light of reliable physical evidence's important probative value, 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. Pp. 1-2.
Thomas, J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Scalia, J., joined. Kennedy, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which O'Connor, J., joined. Souter, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Stevens and Ginsburg, JJ., joined. Breyer, J., filed a dissenting opinion.
UNITED STATES, PETITIONER v. SAMUEL
FRANCIS PATANE
on writ of certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the tenth circuit
[June 28, 2004]
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. See Massachusetts v. White, 439 U. S. 280 (1978) (per curiam) (dividing evenly on the question); see also Patterson v. United States, 485 U. S. 922 (1988) (White, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari). 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). See, e.g., United States v. Villalba-Alvarado, 345 F. 3d 1007 (CA8 2003) (holding admissible the physical fruits of a Miranda violation); United States v. Sterling, 283 F. 3d 216 (CA4 2002) (same); United States v. DeSumma, 272 F. 3d 176 (CA3 2001) (same); United States v. Faulkingham, 295 F. 3d 85 (CA1 2002) (holding admissible the physical fruits of a negligent Miranda violation). 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.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 18 U. S. C. §922(g)(1). The District Court granted respondent's motion to suppress the firearm, reasoning that the officers lacked probable cause to arrest respondent for violating the restraining order. It therefore declined to rule on respondent's alternative argument that the gun should be suppressed as the fruit of an unwarned statement.
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 Court of Appeals reasoned, based on the view that Miranda announced a prophylactic rule, a position that it found to be incompatible with this Court's decision in Dickerson, supra, at 444 ("Miranda announced a constitutional rule that Congress may not supersede legislatively").2 The Court of Appeals thus 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). Based on its understanding of Dickerson, the Court of Appeals rejected the post-Dickerson views of the Third and Fourth Circuits that the fruits doctrine does not apply to Miranda violations. 304 F. 3d, at 1023-1027 (discussing United States v. Sterling, 283 F. 3d 216 (CA4 2002), and United States v. DeSumma, 272 F. 3d 176 (CA3 2001)). It also disagreed with the First Circuit's conclusion that suppression is not generally required in the case of negligent failures to warn, 304 F. 3d, at 1027-1029 (discussing United States v. Faulkingham, 295 F. 3d 85 (CA1 2002)), explaining that "[d]eterrence is necessary not merely to deter intentional wrongdoing, but also to ensure that officers diligently (non-negligently) protect--and properly are trained to protect--the constitutional rights of citizens," 304 F. 3d, at 1028-1029. We granted certiorari. 538 U. S. 976 (2003).
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 articu-
lated in cases such as Wong Sun 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., Chavez v. Martinez, 538 U. S. 760, 764-768 (2003) (plurality opinion); id., at 777-779 (Souter, J., concurring in judgment); 8 J. Wigmore, Evidence §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"); see also United States v. Hubbell, 530 U. S. 27, 49-56 (2000) (Thomas, J., concurring) (explaining that the privilege might extend to bar the compelled production of any incriminating evidence, testimonial or otherwise). The Clause cannot be violated by the introduction of nontestimonial evidence obtained as a result of voluntary statements. See, e.g., id., at 34 (noting that the word "witness" in the Self-Incrimination Clause "limits the relevant category of compelled incriminating communications to those that are 'testimonial' in character"); id., at 35 (discussing why compelled blood samples do not violate the Clause; cataloging other examples and citing cases); Elstad, 470 U. S., at 304 ("The Fifth Amendment, of course, is not concerned with nontestimonial evidence"); id., at 306-307 ("The Fifth Amendment prohibits use by the prosecution in its case in chief only of compelled testimony"); Withrow v. Williams, 507 U. S. 680, 705 (1993) (O'Connor, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (describing "true Fifth Amendment claims [as] the extraction and use of compelled testimony"); New York v. Quarles, 467 U. S. 649, 665-672, and n. 4 (1984) (O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part) (explaining that the physical fruit of a Miranda violation need not be suppressed for these reasons).
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.
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 434-435; 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, 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 (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., 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 justified by reference to the "Fifth Amendment goal of assuring trustworthy evidence" or by any deterrence rationale, id., at 308; see Tucker, supra, at 446-449; Harris, supra, at 225-226, and n. 2, 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, supra, at 307-308). This explicit textual protection supports a strong presumption against expanding the Miranda rule any further. Cf. Graham v. Connor, 490 U. S. 386 (1989).
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 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, supra, 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 (opinion of Souter, J.). 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, supra, 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 remedy" for any perceived Miranda violation. Chavez, supra, at 790.3
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 strong deterrence-based argument could be made for suppression of the fruits. See, e.g., Nix, supra, at 441-444; Wong Sun, supra, at 484-486; cf. Nardone v. United States, 308 U. S. 338, 341 (1939).
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). 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" scope of the Self-Incrimination Clause to testimonial evidence. Hubbell, 530 U. S., at 34-35. The Constitution itself makes the distinction.6 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.7
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.
UNITED STATES, PETITIONER v. SAMUEL
FRANCIS PATANE
on writ of certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the tenth circuit
[June 28, 2004]
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. Ante, at 8-10.
With these observations, I concur in the judgment of the Court.
UNITED STATES, PETITIONER v. SAMUEL
FRANCIS PATANE
on writ of certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the tenth circuit
[June 28, 2004]
Justice Souter, with whom Justice Stevens and Justice Ginsburg join, dissenting.
The majority 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 majority 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 of unwarned statements as impeachment evidence. But Patane's suppression motion can hardly be described as seeking to "pervert" Miranda "into a license to use perjury" or otherwise handicap the "traditional truth-testing devices of the adversary process." 401 U. S., at 225-226. Nor is there any suggestion that the officers' failure to warn Patane was justified or mitigated by a public emergency or other exigent circumstance, as in New York v. Quarles, 467 U. S. 649 (1984). And of course the premise of Oregon v. Elstad, supra, is not on point; although a failure to give Miranda warnings before one individual statement does not necessarily bar the admission of a subsequent statement given after adequate warnings, 470 U. S. 298; cf. Missouri v. Seibert, ante, at ___ (slip op., at 12-13) (plurality opinion), that rule obviously does not apply to physical evidence seized once and for all.2
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. I respectfully dissent.
UNITED STATES, PETITIONER v. SAMUEL
FRANCIS PATANE
on writ of certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the tenth circuit
[June 28, 2004]
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 __, 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, courts would exclude physical evidence derived from unwarned questioning unless the failure to provide Miranda warnings was in good faith. See Seibert, ante, at __ (slip op., at 1) (Breyer, J., concurring); cf. ante, at 1, n. 1 (Souter, J., dissenting). Because the courts below made no explicit finding as to good or bad faith, I would remand for such a determination.
FOOTNOTES
Footnote 1
The Government concedes that respondent's answers to subsequent on-the-scene questioning are inadmissible at trial under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966), despite the partial warning and respondent's assertions that he knew his rights.
Footnote 2
The Court of Appeals also distinguished Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U. S. 298 (1985), on the ground that the second (and warned) confession at issue there was the product of the defendant's volition. 304 F. 3d, at 1019, 1021. For the reasons discussed below, we do not find this distinction relevant.
Footnote 3
We acknowledge that there is language in some of the Court's post-Miranda decisions that might suggest that the Miranda rule operates as a direct constraint on police. See, e.g., Stansbury v. California, 511 U. S. 318, 322 (1994) (per curiam); Moran v. Burbine, 475 U. S. 412, 420 (1986) (stating that "Miranda imposed on the police an obligation to follow certain procedures"); cf. Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U. S. 477, 485 (1981). But Miranda itself made clear that its focus was the admissibility of statements, see, e.g., 384 U. S., at 439, 467, a view the Court reaffirmed in Dickerson v. United States, 530 U. S. 428, 443-444 (2000) (equating the Miranda rule with the proposition that "unwarned statements may not be used as evidence in the prosecution's case in chief " (emphasis added)).
Footnote 4
We reject respondent's invitation to apply the balancing test of Nardone v. United States, 308 U. S. 338 (1939). Brief for Respondent 15-33. At issue in Nardone was the violation of a federal wiretap statute, and the Court employed an exclusionary rule to deter those violations. But, once again, there are no violations (statutory or constitutional) to deter here.
Footnote 5
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).
Footnote 6
While Fourth Amendment protections extend to "persons, houses, papers, and effects," the Self-Incrimination Clause prohibits only compelling a defendant to be "a witness against himself," Amdt. 5.
Footnote 7
It is not clear whether the Government could have used legal processes actually to compel respondent to produce the Glock, though there is a reasonable argument that it could have. See, e.g., United States v. Hubbell, 530 U. S. 27, 42-45 (2000); Baltimore City Dept. of Social Servs. v. Bouknight, 493 U. S. 549, 554-556 (1990); Fisher v. United States, 425 U. S. 391 (1976); Warden, Md. Penitentiary v. Hayden, 387 U. S. 294, 302-303 (1967); Schmerber v. California, 384 U. S. 757, 761 (1966). But see Commonwealth v. Hughes, 380 Mass. 583, 404 N. E. 2d 1239 (1980); Goldsmith v. Superior Court, 152 Cal. App. 3d 76, 199 Cal. Rptr. 366 (1984). In light of this, it would be especially odd to exclude the Glock here.
FOOTNOTES
Footnote 1
In so saying, we are taking the legal issue as it comes to us, even though the facts give off the scent of a made-up case. If there was a Miranda failure, the most immediate reason was that Patane told the police to stop giving the warnings because he already knew his rights. There could easily be an analogy in this case to the bumbling mistake the police committed in Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U. S. 298 (1985). See Missouri v. Seibert, ante, at ___ (plurality opinion) (slip op., at 12-13).
Footnote 2
To the extent that Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U. S. 433 (1974) (admitting the testimony of a witness who was discovered because of an unwarned custodial interrogation), created another exception to Miranda, it is off the point here. In Tucker, we explicitly declined to lay down a broad rule about the fruits of unwarned statements. Instead, we "place[d] our holding on a narrower ground," relying principally on the fact that the interrogation occurred before Miranda was decided and was conducted in good faith according to constitutional standards governing at that time. 417 U. S., at 447-448 (citing Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U. S. 478 (1964)).
=============================================
U.S. Supreme Court
WEEKS v. U.S., 232 U.S. 383 (1914)
232 U.S. 383
==================================
FREMONT WEEKS, Plff. in Err.,
v.
UNITED STATES.
No. 461.
Argued and submitted December 2 and 3, 1913.
Decided February 24, 1914.
[232 U.S. 383, 384] Mr. Martin J. O'Donnell for plaintiff in error.
[232 U.S. 383, 385] Assistant Attorney General Denison and Solicitor General Davis for defendant in error.
[232 U.S. 383, 386]
Mr. Justice Day delivered the opinion of the court:
An indictment was returned against the plaintiff in error, defendant below, and herein so designated, in the district court of the United States for the western district of Missouri, containing nine counts. The seventh count, upon which a conviction was had, charged the use of the mails for the purpose of transporting certain coupons or tickets representing chances or shares in a lottery or gift enterprise, in violation of 213 of the Criminal Code [35 Stat. at L. 1129, chap. 321, U. S. Comp. Stat. Supp. 1911, p. 1652]. Sentence of fine and imprisonment was imposed. This writ of error is to review that judgment.
The defendant was arrested by a police officer, so far as the record shows, without warrant, at the Union Station in Kansas City, Missouri, where he was employed by an express company. Other police officers had gone to the house of the defendant, and being told by a neighbor where the key was kept, found it and entered the house. They searched the defendant's room and took possession of various papers and articles found there, which were afterwards turned over to the United States marshal. Later in the same day police officers returned with the marshal, who thought he might find additional evidence, and, being admitted by someone in the house, probably a boarder, in response to a rap, the marshal searched the defendant's room and carried away certain letters and envelops found in the drawer of a chiffonier. Neither the marshal nor the police officer had a search warrant. [232 U.S. 383, 387] The defendant filed in the cause before the time for trial the following petition:
Petition to Return Private Papers, Books, and Other Property.
Now comes defendant and states that he is a citizen and resident of Kansas City, Missouri, and that he resides, owns, and occupies a home at 1834 Penn street in said city:
That on the 21st day of December, 1911, while plaintiff was absent at his daily vocation, certain officers of the government whose names are to plaintiff unknown, unlawfully and without warrant or authority so to do, broke open the door to plaintiff's said home and seized all of his books, letters, money, papers, notes, evidences of indebtedness, stock, certificates, insurance policies, deeds, abstracts, and other muniments of title, bonds, candies, clothes, and other property in said home, and this in violation of 11 and 23 to the Constitution of Missouri, and of the 4th and 5th Amendments to the Constitution of the United States;
That the district attorney, marshal, and clerk of the United States court for the western district of Missouri took the above-described property so seized into their possession, and have failed and refused to return to defendant portion of same, to wit:
One (1) leather grip, value about $7; one (1) tin box valued at $3; one (1) Pettis county, Missouri, bond, value $500; three (3) mining stock certificates which defendant is unable to more particularly describe, valued at $12,000; and certain stock certificates in addition thereto, issued by the San Domingo Mining, Loan, & Investment Company; about $75 in currency; one (1) newspaper published about 1790, an heirloom; and certain other property which plaintiff is now unable to describe.
That said property is being unlawfully and improperly [232 U.S. 383, 388] held by said district attorney, marshal, and clerk, in violation of defendant's rights under the Constitution of the United States and the state of Missouri.
That said district attorney purposes to use said books, letters, papers, certificates of stock, etc., at the trial of the above-entitled cause, and that by reason thereof and of the facts above set forth defendant's rights under the amendments aforesaid to the Constitution of Missouri and the United States have been and will be violated unless the court order the return prayed for;
Wherefore, defendant prays that said district attorney, marshal, and clerk be notified, and that the court direct and order said district attorney, marshal, and clerk, to return said property to said defendant.
Upon consideration of the petition the court entered in the cause an order directing the return of such property as was not pertinent to the charge against the defendant, but denied the petition as to pertinent matter, reserving the right to pass upon the pertinency at a later time. In obedience to the order the district attorney returned part of the property taken, and retained the remainder, concluding a list of the latter with the statement that, 'all of which last above described property is to be used in evidence in the trial of the above-entitled cause, and pertains to the alleged sale of lottery tickets of the company above named.'
After the jury had been sworn and before any evidence had been given, the defendant again urged his petition for the return of his property, which was denied by the court. Upon the introduction of such papers during the trial, the defendant objected on the ground that the papers had been obtained without a search warrant, and by breaking open his home, in violation of the 4th and 5th Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, which objection was overruled by the court. Among the papers retained and put in evidence were a number of [232 U.S. 383, 389] lottery tickets and statements with reference to the lottery, taken at the first visit of the police to the defendant's room, and a number of letters written to the defendant in respect to the lottery, taken by the marshal upon his search of defendant's room.
The defendant assigns error, among other things, in the court's refusal to grant his petition for the return of his property, and in permitting the papers to be used at the trial.
It is thus apparent that the question presented involves the determination of the duty of the court with reference to the motion made by the defendant for the return of certain letters, as well as other papers, taken from his room by the United States marshal, who, without authority of process, if any such could have been legally issued, visited the room of the defendant for the declared purpose of obtaining additional testimony to support the charge against the accused, and, having gained admission to the house, took from the drawer of a chiffonier there found certain letters written to the defendant, tending to show his guilt. These letters were placed in the control of the district attorney, and were subsequently produced by him and offered in evidence against the accused at the trial. The defendant contends that such appropriation of his private correspondence was in violation of rights secured to him by the 4th and 5th Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. We shall deal with the 4th Amendment, which provides:
'The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.'
The history of this Amendment is given with particularity in the opinion of Mr. Justice Bradley, speaking for [232 U.S. 383, 390] the court in Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616 , 29 L. ed. 746, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 524. As was there shown, it took its origin in the determination of the framers of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution to provide for that instrument a Bill of Rights, securing to the American people, among other things, those safeguards which had grown up in England to protect the people from unreasonable searches and seizures, such as were permitted under the general warrants issued under authority of the government, by which there had been invasions of the home and privacy of the citizens, and the seizure of their private papers in support of charges, real or imaginary, make against them. Such practices had also received sanction under warrants and seizures under the so-called writs of assistance, issued in the American colonies. See 2 Watson, Const. 1414 et seq. Resistance to these practices had established the principle which was enacted into the fundamental law in the 4th Amendment, that a man's house was his castle, and not to be invaded by any general authority to search and seize his goods and papers. Judge Cooley, in his Constitutional Limitations, pp. 425, 426, in treating of this feature of our Constitution said: 'The maxim that 'every man's house is his castle' is made a part of our constitutional law in the clauses prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures, and has always been looked upon as of high value to the citizen.' 'Accordingly,' says Lieber in his work on Civil Liberty and Self- Government, 62, in speaking of the English law in this respect, 'no man's house can be forcibly opened, or he or his goods be carried away after it has thus been forced, except in cases of felony; and then the sheriff must be furnished with a warrant, and take great care lest he commit a trespass. This principle is jealously insisted upon.' In Ex parte Jackson, 96 U.S. 727, 733 , 24 S. L. ed. 877, 879, this court recognized the principle of protection as applicable to letters and sealed packages in the mail, and held that, consistently [232 U.S. 383, 391] with this guaranty of the right of the people to be secure in their papers against unreasonable searches and seizures, such matter could only be opened and examined upon warrants issued on oath or affirmation, particularly describing the thing to be seized, 'as is required when papers are subjected to search in one's own household.'
In the Boyd Case, supra, after citing Lord Camden's judgment in Entick v. Carrington, 19 How. St. Tr. 1029, Mr. Justice Bradley said (630):
'The principles laid down in this opinion affect the very essence of constitutional liberty and security. They reach farther than the concrete form of the case then before the court, with its adventitious circumstances; they apply to all invasions on the part of the government and its employees of the sanctity of a man's home and the privacies of life. It is not the breaking of his doors and the rummaging of his drawers that constitutes the essence of the offense; but it is the invasion of his indefeasible right of personal security, personal liberty, and private property, where that right has never been forfeited by his conviction of some public offense,-it is the invasion of this sacred right which underlies and constitutes the essence of Lord Camden's judgment.'
In Bram v. United States, 168 U.S. 532 , 42 L. ed. 568, 18 Sup. Ct. Rep. 183, 10 Am. Crim. Rep. 547, this court, in speaking by the present Chief Justice of Boyd's Case, dealing with the 4th and 5th Amendments, said (544):
'It was in that case demonstrated that both of these Amendments contemplated perpetuating, in their full efficacy, by means of a constitutional provision, principles of humanity and civil liberty which had been secured in the mother country only after years of struggle, so as to implant them in our institutions in the fullness of their integrity, free from the possibilities of future legislative change.'
The effect of the 4th Amendment is to put the courts [232 U.S. 383, 392] of the United States and Federal officials, in the exercise of their power and authority, under limitations and restraints as to the exercise of such power and authority, and to forever secure the people, their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against all unreasonable searches and seizures under the guise of law. This protection reaches all alike, whether accused of crime or not, and the duty of giving to it force and effect is obligatory upon all intrusted under our Federal system with the enforcement of the laws. The tendency of those who execute the criminal laws of the country to obtain conviction by means of unlawful seizures and enforced confessions, the latter often obtained after subjecting accused persons to unwarranted practices destructive of rights secured by the Federal Constitution, should find no sanction in the judgments of the courts, which are charged at all times with the support of the Constitution, and to which people of all conditions have a right to appeal for the maintenance of such fundamental rights.
What, then, is the present case? Before answering that inquiry specifically, it may be well by a process of exclusion to state what it is not. It is not an assertion of the right on the part of the government always recognized under English and American law, to search the person of the accused when legally arrested, to discover and seize the fruits or evidences of crime. This right has been uniformly maintained in many cases. 1 Bishop. Crim. Proc. 211; Wharton, Crim. Pl. & Pr. 8th ed. 60; Dillon v. O'Brien, 16 Cox, C. C. 245, I. R. L. R. 20 C. L. 300, 7 Am. Crim. Rep. 66. Nor is it the case of testimony offered at a trial where the court is asked to stop and consider the illegal means by which proofs, otherwise competent, were obtained,-of which we shall have occasion to treat later in this opinion. Nor is it the case of burglar's tools or other proofs of guilt found upon his arrest within his control. [232 U.S. 383, 393] The case in the aspect in which we are dealing with it involves the right of the court in a criminal prosecution to retain for the purposes of evidence the letters and correspondence of the accused, seized in his house in his absence and without his authority, by a United States marshal holding no warrant for his arrest and none for the search of his premises. The accused, without awaiting his trial, made timely application to the court for an order for the return of these letters, as well or other property. This application was denied, the letters retained and put in evidence, after a further application at the beginning of the trial, both applications asserting the rights of the accused under the 4th and 5th Amendments to the Constitution. If letters and private documents can thus be seized and held and used in evidence against a citizen accused of an offense, the protection of the 4th Amendment, declaring his right to be secure against such searches and seizures, is of no value, and, so far as those thus placed are concerned, might as well be stricken from the Constitution. The efforts of the courts and their officials to bring the guilty to punishment, praiseworthy as they are, are not to be aided by the sacrifice of those great principles established be years of endeavor and suffering which have resulted in their embodiment in the fundamental law of the land. The United States marshal could only have invaded the house of the accused when armed with a warrant issued as required by the Constitution, upon sworn information, and describing with reasonable particularity the thing for which the search was to be made. Instead, he acted without sanction of law, doubtless prompted by the desire to bring further proof to the aid of the government, and under color of his office undertook to make a seizure of private papers in direct violation of the constitutional prohibition against such action. Under such circumstances, without sworn information and particular description, not even an order of court would [232 U.S. 383, 394] have justified such procedure; much less was it within the authority of the United States marshal to thus invade the house and privacy of the accused. In Adams v. New York, 192 U.S. 585 , 48 L. ed. 575, 24 Sup. Ct. Rep. 372, this court said that the 4th Amendment was intended to secure the citizen in person and property against unlawful invasion of the sanctity of his home by officers of the law, acting under legislative or judicial sanction. This protection is equally extended to the action of the government and officers of the law acting under it. Boyd Case, 116 U.S. 616 , 29 L. ed. 746, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 524. To sanction such proceedings would be to affirm by judicial decision a manifest neglect, if not an open defiance, of the prohibitions of the Constitution, intended for the protection of the people against such unauthorized action.
The court before which the application was made in this case recognized the illegal character of the seizure, and ordered the return of property not in its judgment competent to be offered at the trial, but refused the application of the accused to turn over the letters, which were afterwards put in evidence on behalf of the government. While there is no opinion in the case, the court in this proceeding doubtless relied upon what is now contended by the government to be the correct rule of law under such circumstances, that the letters having come into the control of the court, it would not inquire into the manner in which they were obtained, but, if competent, would keep them and permit their use in evidence. Such proposition, the government asserts, is conclusively established by certain decisions of this court, the first of which is Adams v. New York, supra. In that case the plaintiff in error had been convicted in the supreme court of the state of New York for having in his possession certain gambling paraphernalia used in the game known as policy, in violation of the Penal Code of New York. At the trial certain papers, which had been seized by police officers executing a search warrant for the discovery and [232 U.S. 383, 395] seizure of policy slips, and which had been found in addition to the policy slips, were offered in evidence over his objection. The conviction was affirmed by the court of appeals of New York (176 N. Y. 351, 63 L.R.A. 406, 98 Am. St. Rep. 675, 68 N. E. 636), and the case was brought here for alleged violation of the 4th and 5th Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. Pretermitting the question whether these Amendments applied to the action of the states, this court proceeded to examine the alleged violations of the 4th and 5th Amendments, and put its decision upon the ground that the papers found in the execution of the search warrant, which warrant had a legal purpose in the attempt to find gambling paraphernalia, was competent evidence against the accused, and their offer in testimony did not violate his constitutional privilege against unlawful search or seizure, for is was held that such incriminatory documents thus discovered were not the subject of an unreasonable search and seizure, and in effect that the same were incidentally seized in the lawful execution of a warrant, and not in the wrongful invasion of the home of a citizen, and the unwarranted seizure of his papers and property. It was further held, approving in that respect the doctrine laid down in 1 Greenleaf, Ev. 254a, that it was no valid objection to the use of the papers that they had been thus seized, and that the courts in the course of a trial would not make an issue to determine that question, and many state cases were cited supporting that doctrine.
The same point had been ruled in People v. Adams, 176 N. Y. 351, 63 L. R.A. 406, 98 Am. St. Rep. 675, 68 N. E. 636, from which decision the case was brought to this court, where it was held that if the papers seized in addition to the policy slips were competent evidence in the case, as the court held they were, they were admissible in evidence at the trial, the court saying (p. 358): 'The underlying principle obviously is that the court, when engaged in trying a criminal cause, will not take notice of [232 U.S. 383, 396] the manner in which witnesses have possessed themselves of papers, or other articles of personal property, which are material and properly offered in evidence.' This doctrine thus laid down by the New York court of appeals and approved by this court, that a court will not, in trying a criminal cause, permit a collateral issue to be raised as to the source of competent testimony, has the sanction of so many state cases that it would be impracticable to cite or refer to them in detail. Many of them are collected in the note to State v. Turner, 136 Am. St. Rep. 129, 135 et seq. After citing numerous cases the editor says: 'The underlying principle of all these decisions obviously is, that the court, when engaged in the trial of a criminal action, will not take notice of the manner in which a witness has possessed himself of papers or other chattels, subjects of evidence, which are material and properly offered in evidence. People v. Adams, supra. Such an investigation is not involved necessarily in the litigation in chief, and to pursue it would be to halt in the orderly progress of a cause, and consider incidentally a question which has happened to cross the path of such litigation, and which is wholly independent thereof.'
It is therefore evident that the Adams Case affords no authority for the action of the court in this case, when applied to in due season for the return of papers seized in violation of the Constitutional Amendment. The decision in that case rests upon incidental seizure made in the execution of a legal warrant, and in the application of the doctrine that a collateral issue will not be raised to ascertain the source from which testimony, competent in a criminal case, comes.
The government also relies upon Hale v. Henkel, 201 U.S. 43 , 50 L. ed. 652, 26 Sup. Ct. Rep. 370, in which the previous cases of Boyd v. United States, and Adams v. New York, supra; Interstate [232 U.S. 383, 397] Commerce Commission v. Brimson, 154 U.S. 447 , 38 L. ed. 1047, 4 Inters. Com. Rep. 545, 14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1125, and Interstate Commerce Commission v. Baird, 194 U.S. 25 , 48 L. ed. 860, 24 Sup. Ct. Rep. 563, are reviewed, and wherein it was held that a subpoena duces tecum requiring a corporation to produce all its contracts and correspondence with no less than six other companies, as well as all letters received by the corporation from thirteen other companies, located in different parts of the United States, was an unreasonable search and seizure within the 4th Amendment, and it was there stated that (p. 76) 'an order for the production of books and papers may constitute an unreasonable search and seizuer within the 4th Amendment. While a search ordinarily implies a quest by an officer of the law, and a seizure contemplates a forcible dispossession of the owner, still, as was held in the Boyd Case, the substance of the offense is the compulsory production of private papers, whether under a search warrant or a subpoena duces tecum, against which the person, be he individual or corporation, is entitled to protection.' If such a seizure under the authority of a warrant supposed to be legal, constitutes a violation of the constitutional protection, a fortiori does the attempt of an officer of the United States, the United States marshal, acting under color of his office, without even the sanction of a warrant, constitute an invasion of the rights within the protection afforded by the 4th Amendment.
Another case relied upon is American Tobacco Co. v. Werckmeister, 207 U.S. 284 , 52 L. ed. 208, 28 Sup. Ct. Rep. 72, 12 Ann. Cas. 595, in which it was held that the seizure by the United States marshal in a copyright case of certain pictures under a writ of replevin did not constitute an unreasonable search and seizure. The other case from this court relied upon is Holt v. United States, 218 U.S. 245 , 54 L. ed. 1021, 31 Sup. Ct. Rep. 20, 20 Ann. Cas. 1138, in which it was held that testimony tending to show that a certain blouse which was in evidence as incriminating him, had been put upon the prisoner, and fitted him, did not violate his constitutional right. We [232 U.S. 383, 398] are at a loss to see the application of these cases to the one in hand.
The right of the court to deal with papers and documents in the possession of the district attorney and other officers of the court, and subject to its authority, was recognized in Wise v. Henkel, 220 U.S. 556 , 55 L. ed. 581, 31 Sup. Ct. Rep. 599. That papers wrongfully seized should be turned over to the accused has been frequently recognized ognized in the early as well as later decisions of the courts. 1 Bishop, Crim. Proc. 210; Rex v. Barnett, 3 Car. & P. 600; Rex v. Kinsey, 7 Car. & P. 447; United States v. Mills, 185 Fed. 318; United States v. McHie, 194 Fed. 894, 898.
We therefore reach the conclusion that the letters in question were taken from the house of the accused by an official of the United States, acting under color of his office, in direct violation of the constitutional rights of the defendant; that having made a seasonable application for their return, which was heard and passed upon by the court, there was involved in the order refusing
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