Police officers, having probable cause to believe that
respondent Harris committed murder, entered his home without first
obtaining a warrant, read him his
Miranda rights, and
reportedly secured an admission of guilt. After he was arrested,
taken to the police station, and again given his
Miranda
rights, he signed a written inculpatory statement. The New York
trial court suppressed the first statement under
Payton v. New
York, 445 U. S. 573,
which held that the Fourth Amendment prohibits the police from
effecting a warrantless and nonconsensual entry into a suspect's
home in order to make a routine felony arrest. However, the court
admitted the second statement, and Harris was convicted of
second-degree murder. The Appellate Division affirmed, but the
State Court of Appeals reversed. Applying the rule of
Brown v.
Illinois, 422 U. S. 590, and
its progeny that the indirect fruits of an illegal search or arrest
should be suppressed when they bear a sufficiently close
relationship to the underlying illegality, the court deemed the
second statement inadmissible because its connection with the
arrest was not sufficiently attenuated.
Held: Where the police have probable cause to arrest a
suspect, the exclusionary rule does not bar the State's use of a
statement made by the defendant outside of his home, even though
the statement is taken after an arrest made in the home in
violation of
Payton. The penalties imposed on the
Government where its officers have violated the law must bear some
relation to the purposes which the law serves.
United States v.
Ceccolini, 435 U. S. 268,
435 U. S. 279.
The rule in
Payton was designed to protect the physical
integrity of the home, not to grant criminal suspects protection
for statements made outside their premises where the police have
probable cause to make an arrest.
Brown v. Illinois,
supra, and its progeny are distinguishable, since attenuation
analysis is only appropriate where, as a threshold matter, courts
determine that the challenged evidence is in some sense the product
of illegal governmental activity. Here, the police had a
justification to question Harris prior to his arrest; therefore,
his subsequent statement was not an exploitation of the illegal
entry into his home.
Cf. United States v. Crews,
445 U. S. 463.
Suppressing that statement would not serve the purpose of the
Payton rule, since anything incriminating gathered from
Harris' in-home arrest has already been excluded. The principal
incentive to obey
Page 495 U. S. 15
Payton still obtains: the police know that a
warrantless entry will lead to the suppression of evidence found or
statements taken inside the home. Moreover, the incremental
deterrent value of suppressing statements like Harris' would be
minimal, since it is doubtful that the desire to secure a statement
from a suspect whom the police have probable cause to arrest would
motivate them to violate
Payton. Pp.
495 U. S.
17-21.
72 N.Y.2d 614, 536 N.Y.S.2d 1, 532 N.E.2d 1229 (1988),
reversed.
WHITE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which
REHNQUIST, C.J., and O'CONNOR, SCALIA, and KENNEDY, JJ., joined.
MARSHALL, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which BRENNAN,
BLACKMUN, and STEVENS, JJ., joined,
post, p.
495 U. S.
21.
Justice WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.
On January 11, 1984, New York City police found the body of Ms.
Thelma Staton murdered in her apartment. Various facts gave the
officers probable cause to believe that the respondent in this
case, Bernard Harris, had killed Ms. Staton. As a result, on
January 16, 1984, three police officers went to Harris's apartment
to take him into custody. They did not first obtain an arrest
warrant.
When the police arrived, they knocked on the door, displaying
their guns and badges. Harris let them enter.
Page 495 U. S. 16
Once inside, the officers read Harris his
Miranda
rights. Harris acknowledged that he understood the warnings, and
agreed to answer the officers' questions. At that point, he
reportedly admitted that he had killed Ms. Staton.
Harris was arrested, taken to the station house, and again
informed of his
Miranda rights. He then signed a written
inculpatory statement. The police subsequently read Harris the
Miranda warnings a third time and videotaped an
incriminating interview between Harris and a district attorney,
even though Harris had indicated that he wanted to end the
interrogation.
The trial court suppressed Harris' first and third statements;
the State does not challenge those rulings. The sole issue in this
case is whether Harris's second statement -- the written statement
made at the station house -- should have been suppressed because
the police, by entering Harris' home without a warrant and without
his consent, violated
Payton v. New York, 445 U.
S. 573 (1980), which held that the Fourth Amendment
prohibits the police from effecting a warrantless and nonconsensual
entry into a suspect's home in order to make a routine felony
arrest. The New York trial court concluded that the statement was
admissible. Following a bench trial, Harris was convicted of
second-degree murder. The Appellate Division affirmed, 124 A.D.2d
472, 507 N.Y.S.2d 823 (1986).
A divided New York Court of Appeals reversed, 72 N.Y.2d 614, 536
N.Y.S.2d 1, 532 N.E.2d 1229 (1988). That court first accepted the
trial court's finding that Harris did not consent to the police
officers' entry into his home, and that the warrantless arrest
therefore violated
Payton even though there was probable
cause. Applying
Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.
S. 590 (1975), and its progeny, the court then
determined that the station house statement must be deemed to be
the inadmissible fruit of the illegal arrest because the connection
between the statement and the arrest was not sufficiently
attenuated.
Page 495 U. S. 17
The Court noted that some courts had reasoned that the "wrong in
Payton cases . . . lies not in the arrest,
but in the
unlawful entry into a dwelling without proper judicial
authorization,'" and had therefore declined to suppress confessions
that were made following Payton violations. 72 N.Y.2d at
623, 536 N.Y.S.2d at 6, 532 N.E.2d at 1234. The New York Court
disagreed with this analysis, finding it contrary to
Payton and its own decisions interpreting
Payton's scope. We granted certiorari to resolve the
admissibility of the station house statement. 490 U.S. 1018
(1989).
For present purposes, we accept the finding below that Harris
did not consent to the police officers' entry into his home and the
conclusion that the police had probable cause to arrest him. It is
also evident, in light of
Payton, that arresting Harris in
his home without an arrest warrant violated the Fourth Amendment.
But, as emphasized in earlier cases,
"we have declined to adopt a "per se or
but for' rule" that
would make inadmissible any evidence, whether tangible or
live-witness testimony, which somehow came to light through a chain
of causation that began with an illegal arrest."
United States v. Ceccolini, 435 U.
S. 268,
435 U. S. 276
(1978). Rather, in this context, we have stated that
"[t]he penalties visited upon the Government, and in turn upon
the public, because its officers have violated the law must bear
some relation to the purposes which the law is to serve."
Id. at
435 U. S. 279.
In light of these principles, we decline to apply the exclusionary
rule in this context because the rule in
Payton was
designed to protect the physical integrity of the home; it was not
intended to grant criminal suspects, like Harris, protection for
statements made outside their premises where the police have
probable cause to arrest the suspect for committing a crime.
Payton itself emphasized that our holding in that case
stemmed from the "overriding respect for the sanctity of the home
that has been embedded in our traditions since the origins of the
Republic." 445 U.S. at
445 U. S. 601.
Although it had
Page 495 U. S. 18
long been settled that a warrantless arrest in a public place
was permissible as long as the arresting officer had probable
cause,
see United States v. Watson, 423 U.
S. 411 (1976),
Payton nevertheless drew a line
at the entrance to the home. This special solicitude was necessary
because "
physical entry of the home is the chief evil against
which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed.'" 445 U.S.
at 445 U. S. 585
(citation omitted). The arrest warrant was required to "interpose
the magistrate's determination of probable cause" to arrest before
the officers could enter a house to effect an arrest. Id.
at 445 U. S.
602-603.
Nothing in the reasoning of that case suggests that an arrest in
a home without a warrant but with probable cause somehow renders
unlawful continued custody of the suspect once he is removed from
the house. There could be no valid claim here that Harris was
immune from prosecution because his person was the fruit of an
illegal arrest.
United States v. Crews, 445 U.
S. 463,
445 U. S. 474
(1980). Nor is there any claim that the warrantless arrest required
the police to release Harris, or that Harris could not be
immediately rearrested if momentarily released. Because the
officers had probable cause to arrest Harris for a crime, Harris
was not unlawfully in custody when he was removed to the station
house, given
Miranda warnings and allowed to talk. For
Fourth Amendment purposes, the legal issue is the same as it would
be had the police arrested Harris on his doorstep, illegally
entered his home to search for evidence, and later interrogated
Harris at the station house. Similarly, if the police had made a
warrantless entry into Harris' home, not found him there, but
arrested him on the street when he returned, a later statement made
by him after proper warnings would no doubt be admissible.
This case is therefore different from
Brown v.
Illinois, 422 U. S. 590
(1975),
Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.
S. 200 (1979), and
Taylor v. Alabama,
457 U. S. 687
(1982). In each of those cases, evidence obtained from a criminal
defendant
Page 495 U. S. 19
following arrest was suppressed because the police lacked
probable cause. The three cases stand for the familiar proposition
that the indirect fruits of an illegal search or arrest should be
suppressed when they bear a sufficiently close relationship to the
underlying illegality.
See also Wong Sun v. United States,
371 U. S. 471
(1963). We have emphasized, however, that attenuation analysis is
only appropriate where, as a threshold matter, courts determine
that "the challenged evidence is in some sense the product of
illegal governmental activity."
United States v. Crews,
supra, 445 U.S. at
445 U. S. 471.
As Justice Titone, concurring in the judgment on the basis of New
York State precedent, cogently argued below,
"[i]n cases such as
Brown v. Illinois (supra) and its
progeny, an affirmative answer to that preliminary question may be
assumed, since the 'illegality' is the absence of probable cause
and the wrong consists of the police's having control of the
defendant's person at the time he made the challenged statement. In
these cases, the 'challenged evidence' --
i.e., the
post-arrest confession -- is unquestionably 'the product of [the]
illegal governmental activity' --
i.e., the wrongful
detention."
72 N.Y.2d at 625, 536 N.Y.S.2d at 8, 532 N.E.2d at 1235.
Harris's statement taken at the police station was not the
product of being in unlawful custody. Neither was it the fruit of
having been arrested in the home rather than someplace else. The
case is analogous to
United States v. Crews, supra. In
that case, we refused to suppress a victim's in-court
identification despite the defendant's illegal arrest. The Court
found that the evidence was not "
come at by exploitation' of .
. . the defendant's Fourth Amendment rights," and that it was not
necessary to inquire whether the "taint" of the Fourth Amendment
violation was sufficiently attenuated to permit the introduction of
the evidence. 445 U.S. at 445 U. S. 471.
Here, likewise, the police had a justification to question Harris
prior to his arrest; therefore, his subsequent statement was not an
exploitation of the illegal entry into Harris' home.
Page 495 U. S.
20
We do not hold, as the dissent suggests, that a statement taken
by the police while a suspect is in custody is always admissible as
long as the suspect is in legal custody. Statements taken during
legal custody would of course be inadmissible for example, if, they
were the product of coercion, if
Miranda warnings were not
given, or if there was a violation of the rule of
Edwards v.
Arizona, 451 U. S. 477
(1981). We do hold that the station-house statement in this case
was admissible because Harris was in legal custody, as the dissent
concedes, and because the statement, while the product of an arrest
and being in custody, was not the fruit of the fact that the arrest
was made in the house, rather than someplace else.
To put the matter another way, suppressing the statement taken
outside the house would not serve the purpose of the rule that made
Harris's in-house arrest illegal. The warrant requirement for an
arrest in the home is imposed to protect the home, and anything
incriminating the police gathered from arresting Harris in his
home, rather than elsewhere, has been excluded, as it should have
been; the purpose of the rule has thereby been vindicated. We are
not required by the Constitution to go further and suppress
statements later made by Harris in order to deter police from
violating
Payton.
"As cases considering the use of unlawfully obtained evidence in
criminal trials themselves make clear, it does not follow from the
emphasis on the exclusionary rule's deterrent value that 'anything
which deters illegal searches is thereby commanded by the Fourth
Amendment.'"
United States v. Leon, 468 U.
S. 897,
468 U. S. 910
(1984) (citation omitted). Even though we decline to suppress
statements made outside the home following a
Payton
violation, the principal incentive to obey
Payton still
obtains: the police know that a warrantless entry will lead to the
suppression of any evidence found or statements taken inside the
home. If we did suppress statements like Harris', moreover, the
incremental deterrent value would be minimal. Given that the police
have probable cause to arrest a suspect in Harris' position, they
need
Page 495 U. S. 21
not violate
Payton in order to interrogate the suspect.
It is doubtful therefore that the desire to secure a statement from
a criminal suspect would motivate the police to violate
Payton. As a result, suppressing a station-house statement
obtained after a
Payton violation will have little effect
on the officers' actions, one way or another.
We hold that, where the police have probable cause to arrest a
suspect, the exclusionary rule does not bar the State's use of a
statement made by the defendant outside of his home, even though
the statement is taken after an arrest made in the home in
violation of
Payton. The judgment of the court below is
accordingly
Reversed.
Justice MARSHALL, with whom Justices BRENNAN, BLACKMUN and
STEVENS join, dissenting.
Police officers entered Bernard Harris' home and arrested him
there. They did not have an arrest warrant, he did not consent to
their entry, and exigent circumstances did not exist. An arrest in
such circumstances violates the Fourth Amendment.
See Payton v.
New York, 445 U. S. 573
(1980);
see also ante at
495 U. S. 16,
495 U. S. 17.
About an hour after his arrest, Harris made an incriminating
statement, which the government subsequently used at his trial. The
majority concedes that "[t]he fruits of that illegal entry" must be
suppressed.
Ante at
495 U. S. 20.
The sole question before us is whether Harris' statement falls
within that category.
The majority answers this question by adopting a broad and
unprecedented principle, holding that
"where the police have probable cause to arrest a suspect, the
exclusionary rule does not bar the State's use of a statement made
by the defendant outside of his home, even though the statement is
taken after an arrest made in the home in violation of
Payton."
Ante this page. The majority's conclusion is wrong. Its
reasoning amounts to nothing more than an analytical
sleight-of-hand, resting on errors in logic, misreadings of our
cases, and an apparent blindness to the incentives the Court's
Page 495 U. S. 22
ruling creates for knowing and intentional constitutional
violations by the police. I dissent.
I
In recent years, this Court has repeatedly stated that the
principal purpose of the Fourth Amendment's exclusionary rule is to
eliminate incentives for police officers to violate that Amendment.
See, e.g., United States v. Leon, 468 U.
S. 897,
468 U. S. 906
(1984). A police officer who violates the Constitution usually does
so to obtain evidence that he could not secure lawfully. The best
way to deter him is to provide that any evidence so obtained will
not be admitted at trial. Deterrence of constitutional violations
thus requires the suppression not only of evidence seized during an
unconstitutional search but also of
"derivative evidence, both tangible and testimonial, that is the
product of the primary evidence, or that is otherwise acquired as
an indirect result of the unlawful search."
Murray v. United States, 487 U.
S. 533,
487 U. S.
536-537 (1988) (citing
Nardone v. United
States, 308 U. S. 338,
308 U. S. 341
(1939));
see also Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.
S. 471,
371 U. S. 488
(1963). Not all evidence connected to a constitutional violation is
suppressible, however. Rather, the Court has asked
"'whether, granting establishment of the primary illegality, the
evidence to which instant objection is made has been come at by
exploitation of that illegality or instead by means sufficiently
distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint.'"
Wong Sun, supra, at
371 U. S. 488
(quoting J. Maguire, Evidence of Guilt, 221 (1959)).
Accord,
Brown v. Illinois, 422 U. S. 590,
422 U. S. 599
(1975);
Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.
S. 200,
442 U. S.
217-218 (1979);
Taylor v. Alabama, 457 U.
S. 687,
457 U. S. 690
(1982).
Because deterrence is a principal purpose of the exclusionary
rule, our attenuation analysis must be driven by an understanding
of how extensive exclusion must be to deter violations of the
Fourth Amendment. We have long held that, where police have
obtained a statement after violating the Fourth Amendment, the
interest in deterrence does not
Page 495 U. S. 23
disappear simply because the statement was voluntary, as
required by the Fifth Amendment.
See, e.g., Brown, supra,
422 U.S. at
422 U. S.
601-602;
Dunaway, supra, 442 U.S. at
442 U. S.
216-217;
Taylor, supra, 457 U.S. at
457 U. S. 690.
Police officers are well aware that simply because a statement is
"voluntary" does not mean that it was entirely unaffected by the
Fourth Amendment violation.
See Brown, supra, 422 U.S. at
422 U. S.
601-602. Indeed, if the Fourth Amendment required
exclusion only of statements taken in violation of the Fifth
Amendment, the Fourth Amendment would serve no independent purpose.
A regime that suppresses only some fruits of constitutional
violations is a regime that barely begins to eliminate the
incentives to violate the Constitution.
When faced with a statement obtained after an illegal arrest,
then, a court will have occasion to engage in the attenuation
inquiry only if it first determines that the statement is
"voluntary," for involuntary statements are suppressible in any
event. Attenuation analysis
assumes that the statement is
"voluntary," and asks whether the connection between the illegal
police conduct and the statement nevertheless requires suppression
to deter Fourth Amendment violations. That question cannot be
answered with a set of
per se rules. An inquiry into
whether a suspect's statement is properly treated as attributable
to a Fourth Amendment violation or to the suspect's independent act
of will has an irreducibly psychological aspect, and irrebutable
presumptions are peculiarly unhelpful in such a context.
Accordingly, we have identified several factors as relevant to the
issue of attenuation: the length of time between the arrest and the
statement, the presence of intervening circumstances, and the
"purpose and flagrancy" of the violation.
See, e.g., Brown,
supra, 422 U.S. at
422 U. S.
603-604.
We have identified the last factor as "particularly" important.
422 U.S. at
422 U. S. 604.
When a police officer intentionally violates what he knows to be a
constitutional command, exclusion is essential to conform police
behavior to the law. Such a "flagrant" violation is in marked
contrast to a violation
Page 495 U. S. 24
that is the product of a good-faith misunderstanding of the
relevant constitutional requirements. This Court has suggested that
excluding evidence that is the product of the latter variety of
violation may result in deterrence of
legitimate law
enforcement efforts.
See Leon, supra, 468 U.S. at
468 U. S.
918-920. Underlying this view is the theory that
officers fear that if their judgment as to the constitutionality of
their conduct turns out to be wrong, the consequences of their
misjudgments may be too costly to justify the possible law
enforcement benefits. Any doubt concerning the constitutionality of
a course of action will therefore be resolved against that course
of action. Whatever the truth of that theory, [
Footnote 1] the concern that officers who act in
good faith will be overdeterred is nonexistent when, based on a
cynical calculus of the likely results of a suppression hearing, an
officer intentionally decides to violate what he knows to be a
constitutional command.
An application of the
Brown factors to this case
compels the conclusion that Harris' statement at the station house
must be suppressed. About an hour elapsed between the illegal
arrest and Harris' confession, without any intervening factor other
than the warnings required by
Miranda v. Arizona,
384 U. S. 436
(1966). This Court has held, however, that
"
Miranda warnings, alone and
per se, . . .
cannot assure in every case that the Fourth Amendment violation has
not been unduly exploited."
Brown, supra, 422 U.S. at
422 U. S. 603
(citing
Westover v. United States, decided with
Miranda v. Arizona, supra, 384 U.S. at
384 U. S.
496-497).
See also supra at
495 U. S. 22-23.
Indeed, in
Brown, we held that a statement made almost two
hours after an illegal arrest, and after
Miranda warnings
had
Page 495 U. S. 25
been given, was not sufficiently removed from the violation so
as to dissipate the taint. 422 U.S. at
422 U. S.
604.
As to the flagrancy of the violation, petitioner does not
dispute that the officers were aware that the Fourth Amendment
prohibited them from arresting Harris in his home without a
warrant. Notwithstanding the officers' knowledge that a warrant is
required for a routine arrest in the home,
"the police went to defendant's apartment to arrest him and, as
the police conceded, if defendant refused to talk to them there,
they intended to take him into custody for questioning.
Nevertheless, they made no attempt to obtain a warrant, although
five days had elapsed between the killing and the arrest and they
had developed evidence of probable cause early in their
investigation. Indeed, one of the officers testified that it was
departmental policy not to get warrants before making arrests in
the home. From this statement a reasonable inference can be drawn .
. . that the department's policy was a device used to avoid
restrictions on questioning a suspect until after the police had
strengthened their case with a confession. Thus, the police
illegality was knowing and intentional, in the language of
Brown, it 'had a quality of purposefulness,' and the
linkage between the illegality and the confession is clearly
established."
72 N.Y.2d 614, 622, 536 N.Y.S.2d 1, 6, 532 N.E.2d 1229,
1233-1234 (1988) (citation omitted). [
Footnote 2]
Page 495 U. S. 26
In short, the officers decided, apparently consistent with a
"departmental policy," to violate Harris' Fourth Amendment rights
so they could get evidence that they could not otherwise obtain. As
the trial court held, "No more clear violation of
[
Payton], in my view, could be established." App. 20.
Where, as here, there is a particularly flagrant constitutional
violation and little in the way of elapsed time or intervening
circumstances, the statement in the police station must be
suppressed.
II
Had the Court analyzed this case as our precedents dictate that
it should, I could end my discussion here -- the dispute would
reduce to an application of the
Brown factors to the
constitutional wrong and the inculpatory statement that followed.
But the majority chooses no such unremarkable battleground.
Instead, the Court redrafts our cases in the service of conclusions
they straightforwardly and explicitly reject. Specifically, the
Court finds suppression unwarranted on the authority of its newly
fashioned
per se rule. In the majority's view, when police
officers make a warrantless home arrest in violation of
Payton, their physical exit from the suspect's home
necessarily breaks the causal chain between the illegality and any
subsequent statement by the suspect, such that the statement is
admissible regardless of the
Brown factors. [
Footnote 3]
Page 495 U. S. 27
The Court purports to defend its new rule on the basis of the
self-evident proposition that the Fourth Amendment does not
necessarily require the police to release or to forego the
prosecution of a suspect arrested in violation of
Payton.
Ante at
495 U. S. 18. To
the Court, it follows as a matter of course from this proposition
that a
Payton violation cannot in any way be the "cause"
of a statement obtained from the suspect after he has been forced
from his home and is being lawfully detained. Because an
attenuation inquiry presupposes some connection between the
illegality and the statement, the Court concludes that no such
inquiry is necessary here.
Ibid. Neither logic nor
precedent supports that conclusion.
A
Certainly, the police were not required to release Harris or
forego his prosecution simply because officers arrested him in
violation of
Payton. But it is a dramatic leap from that
unexceptionable proposition to the suggestion that the
Payton violation thus had no effect once the police took
Harris from his home. The Court's view to the contrary appears to
rest on a cramped understanding of the purposes underlying
Payton. The home is a private place, more private than any
other. An invasion into the home is therefore the worst kind of
invasion of privacy. An intrusion into that sanctum is an assault
on the individual's solitude and on the family's communal bonds. As
we said in
Payton:
"The Fourth Amendment protects the individual's privacy in a
variety of settings. In none is the zone of privacy more clearly
defined than when bounded by
Page 495 U. S. 28
the unambiguous physical dimensions of an individual's home -- a
zone that finds its roots in clear and specific constitutional
terms: 'The right of the people to be secure in their . . . houses
. . . shall not be violated.' That language unequivocally
establishes the proposition that"
"[a]t the very core [of the Fourth Amendment] stands the right
of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from
unreasonable governmental intrusion."
445 U.S. at
445 U. S.
589-590 (ellipses in original) (quoting
Silverman v.
United States, 365 U. S. 505,
365 U. S. 511
(1961)).
See also California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.
S. 207,
476 U. S.
212-213 (1986) ("The protection afforded the curtilage
is essentially a protection of families and personal privacy in an
area intimately linked to the home, both physically and
psychologically, where privacy expectations are most
heightened").
The majority's
per se rule in this case fails to take
account of our repeated holdings that violations of privacy in the
home are especially invasive. Rather, its rule is necessarily
premised on the proposition that the effect of a
Payton
violation magically vanishes once the suspect is dragged from his
home. But the concerns that make a warrantless home arrest a
violation of the Fourth Amendment are nothing so evanescent. A
person who is forcibly separated from his family and home in the
dark of night after uniformed officers have broken down his door,
handcuffed him, and forced him at gunpoint to accompany them to a
police station does not suddenly breathe a sigh of relief at the
moment he is dragged across his doorstep. Rather, the suspect is
likely to be so frightened and rattled that he will say something
incriminating. These effects, of course, extend far beyond the
moment the physical occupation of the home ends. The entire focus
of the
Brown factors is to fix the point at which those
effects are sufficiently dissipated that deterrence is not
meaningfully advanced by suppression. The majority's assertion, as
though the proposition were axiomatic, that the effects of such an
intrusion must end when the violation ends is both
Page 495 U. S. 29
undefended and indefensible. The Court's saying it may make it
law, but it does not make it true.
B
The majority's reading of our cases similarly lacks foundation.
In the majority's view, our attenuation cases are not concerned
with the lingering taint of an illegal arrest; rather, they focus
solely on whether a subsequently obtained statement is made during
an illegal detention of the suspect.
Ante at
495 U. S. 18-19
(quoting 72 N.Y.2d at 625, 536 N.Y.S.2d at 7, 532 N.E.2d at 1235
(Titone, J., concurring)). In the Court's view, if (and only if)
the detention is illegal at the moment the statement is made will
it be suppressed. Unlike an arrest without probable cause, a
Payton violation alone does not make the subsequent
detention of the suspect illegal. Thus, the Court argues, no
statement made after a
Payton violation has ended is
suppressible by reason of the Fourth Amendment violation as long as
the police have probable cause. [
Footnote 4]
The majority's theory lacks any support in our cases. In each
case presenting issues similar to those here, we have asked the
same question: whether the invasion of privacy occasioned by the
illegal
arrest taints a statement made after the violation
has ended -- stated another way, whether the arrest caused the
statement.
See, e.g., Wong Sun, 371 U.S. at
371 U. S. 485,
371 U. S. 488;
Brown, 422 U.S. at
422 U. S.
591-592,
422 U. S. 599,
422 U. S. 603;
Dunaway,
Page 495 U. S. 30
442 U.S. at
442 U. S. 217,
442 U. S. 218;
Taylor, 457 U.S. at
457 U. S. 690,
457 U. S. 694.
Never before today has this Court asked whether the illegality
itself was continuing at the time the evidence was secured.
See
Leon, 468 U.S. at
468 U. S. 911
(WHITE, J., for the Court) ("In short, the
dissipation of the
taint' concept that the Court has applied in deciding whether
exclusion is appropriate in a particular case `attempts to mark the
point at which the detrimental consequences of illegal police
action become so attenuated that the deterrent effect of the
exclusionary rule no longer justifies its cost'") (citation
omitted).
Indeed, such an approach would render irrelevant the first and
second of the
Brown factors, which focus, respectively, on
the passage of time and the existence of intervening factors
between the illegality and the subsequently obtained statement. If,
as the majority claims, the
Brown analysis does not even
apply unless the illegality is ongoing at the time the
evidence is secured, no time would ever pass and no circumstance
would ever intervene between the illegality and the statement.
The only Supreme Court case in which the majority even attempts
to find support is
United States v. Crews, 445 U.
S. 463 (1980).
Crews, however, is inapposite.
In that case, the defendant moved to suppress a witness's in-court
identification of him on the ground that he had been illegally
arrested. Crews' theory was that he was the fruit of his own
illegal arrest -- that he himself should have been "suppressed."
Because no identification of him could have been made if he were
not in the courtroom, his argument proceeded, that identification
had to be suppressed in turn. The Court rejected Crews'
argument:
"Insofar as [Crews] challenges his own presence at trial, he
cannot claim immunity from prosecution simply because his
appearance in court was precipitated by an unlawful arrest. An
illegal arrest, without more, has never been viewed as a bar to
subsequent prosecution, nor as a defense to a valid conviction. The
exclusionary
Page 495 U. S. 31
principle of
Wong Sun and
Silverthorne Lumber Co.
[v. United States, 251 U. S. 385 (1920)] delimits
what
proof the Government may offer against the accused at
trial, closing the courtroom door to
evidence secured by
official lawlessness. [Crews] is not himself a suppressible
'fruit,' and the illegality of his detention cannot deprive the
Government of the opportunity to prove his guilt through the
introduction of evidence wholly untainted by the police
misconduct."
445 U.S. at
445 U. S. 474
(citations omitted; footnote omitted; emphases added).
Seen in context, the majority's misuse of
Crews is
apparent. As in
Wong Sun, Brown, and
Taylor,
Harris seeks to suppress
evidence -- a statement he made
one hour after his arrest. He does not contend that he cannot be
tried because he was arrested illegally, nor does he in any way
link his demand for suppression of his statement to a claim that
his presence at trial, or anywhere else, should somehow be
suppressed.
Crews is therefore irrelevant. The only
authority the majority cites that directly supports its novel view
of
Brown is a concurring opinion in the New York Court of
Appeals,
ante at
495 U. S. 19,
which is hardly a sufficient basis on which to reject almost 30
years of cases.
C
Perhaps the most alarming aspect of the Court's ruling is its
practical consequences for the deterrence of
Payton
violations. Imagine a police officer who has probable cause to
arrest a suspect but lacks a warrant. The officer knows if he were
to break into the home to make the arrest without first securing a
warrant, he would violate the Fourth Amendment and any evidence he
finds in the house would be suppressed. Of course, if he does not
enter the house, he will not be able to use any evidence inside the
house either, for the simple reason that he will never see it. The
officer also knows, though, that waiting for the suspect to leave
his house before arresting him could entail a lot of waiting, and
the time he
Page 495 U. S. 32
would spend getting a warrant would be better spent arresting
criminals. The officer could leave the scene to obtain a warrant,
thus avoiding some of the delay, but that would entail giving the
suspect an opportunity to flee.
More important, the officer knows that, if he breaks into the
house without a warrant and drags the suspect outside, the suspect,
shaken by the enormous invasion of privacy he has just undergone,
may say something incriminating. Before today's decision, the
government would only be able to use that evidence if the Court
found that the taint of the arrest had been attenuated; after the
decision, the evidence will be admissible regardless of whether it
was the product of the unconstitutional arrest. [
Footnote 5] Thus, the officer envisions the
following best-case scenario if he chooses to violate the
Constitution: he avoids a major expenditure of time and effort,
ensures that the suspect will not escape, and procures the most
damaging evidence of all, a confession. His worst-case scenario is
that he will avoid a major expenditure of effort, ensure that the
suspect will not escape, and will see evidence in the house (which
would have remained unknown absent the constitutional violation)
that cannot be used in the prosecution's case-in-chief. The Court
thus creates powerful incentives for police officers to violate the
Fourth Amendment. In the context of our constitutional rights and
the sanctity of our homes, we cannot afford to presume that
officers will be entirely impervious to those incentives.
* * * *
I dissent.
[
Footnote 1]
This Court has never held that an officer's good-faith
misunderstanding of the law justifies the admission of
unconstitutionally seized evidence except in the limited context of
the officer's good-faith and objectively reasonable reliance on a
facially valid warrant issued by a neutral and detached magistrate.
United States v. Leon, 468 U. S. 897,
468 U. S.
925-926 (1984). Even in that limited context, I think
that suppression is required.
See id. at
468 U. S.
928-960 (BRENNAN, J., dissenting).
[
Footnote 2]
The "restrictions on questioning" to which the court refers are
restrictions imposed by New York law. New York law provides that an
arrest warrant may not issue until an "accusatory instrument" has
been filed against the suspect. N.Y.Crim.Proc.Law ยง 120.20
(McKinney 1981). The New York courts have held that police officers
may not question a suspect in the absence of an attorney once such
an accusatory instrument has been filed.
People v.
Samuels, 49 N.Y.2d 218, 424 N.Y.S.2d 892, 400 N.E.2d 1344
(1980). These two rules operate to prohibit police from questioning
a suspect after arresting him in his home unless his lawyer is
present. If the police comply with
Payton, the suspect's
lawyer will likely tell him not to say anything, and the police
will get nothing. On the other hand, if they violate
Payton by refusing to obtain a warrant, the suspect's
right to counsel will not have attached at the time of the arrest,
and the police may be able to question him without interference by
a lawyer. The lower court's inference that a departmental policy of
violating the Fourth Amendment existed was thus fully
justified.
[
Footnote 3]
The Court has a caveat of sorts. It holds that
"
where the police have probable cause to arrest a
suspect, the exclusionary rule does not bar the State's use of
a statement made by the defendant outside of his home, even though
the statement is taken after an arrest made in the home in
violation of
Payton."
Ante at
495 U. S. 21
(emphasis added). But the caveat adds nothing. As the Court
concedes, it is unconstitutional for the police to hold a suspect
without probable cause, and any statement made during a detention
for which probable cause is lacking "is unquestionably the product
of [the] illegal governmental activity --
i.e., the
wrongful detention."
Ante at
495 U. S. 19
(internal quotation marks omitted; citation omitted). Thus, the
Court concedes that any statement taken from a suspect who is in
custody without probable cause must be suppressed,
irrespective
of whether there was an antecedent Payton violation.
[
Footnote 4]
The Court assures us that it does not hold "that a statement
taken by the police while a suspect is in custody is always
admissible as long as the suspect is in legal custody."
Ante at
495 U. S. 20.
Rather, such statements
"would of course be inadmissible if, for example, they were the
product of coercion, if
Miranda warnings were not given,
or if there was a violation of the rule of
Edwards v.
Arizona, 451 U. S. 477 (1981)."
Ibid. As the majority is no doubt well aware, each of
these examples constitutes a violation of the
Fifth
Amendment. But suppressing the consequences of a violation of the
Fifth Amendment does nothing to deter violations of the Fourth.
See supra, at
495 U. S. 23.
The Court's disclaimer thus only serves to reinforce the conclusion
that its ruling rests on the still-undefended premise that the
effects of
Payton violations end at the suspect's
doorstep.
[
Footnote 5]
Indeed, if the officer, as here, works in New York State, the
Court's assertion that
"[i]t is doubtful therefore that the desire to secure a
statement from a criminal suspect would motivate the police to
violate
Payton,"
ante at
495 U. S. 21,
takes on a singularly ironic cast. The court below found as a
matter of fact that the officers in this case had intentionally
violated
Payton for
precisely the reason the
Court identifies as "doubtful."
See n 2,
supra, and accompanying text.