U.S. v. Patane, Samuel (06/28/2004)

Questions presented: Whether a failure to give a suspect the warnings prescribed by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), requires the suppression of physical evidence derived from the suspect's unwarned but voluntary statement?

BY MATT DUEHOLM, MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

Colorado Springs police officers can be forgiven for believing that Samuel Francis Patane knew his Miranda rights.

Miranda rights require police to tell a suspect he has the right to remain silent; if he talks, what he says can be used against him; he has a right to have a lawyer present during questioning; and if he can't afford one, a lawyer will be appointed for him.

When Patane, 53, told his arresting officers on June 6, 2001, that he already knew his Miranda rights, he had been read these rights at least twice before.

At the time of the June 6 arrest, Patane was out on bail following a previous arrest for threatening his ex-girlfriend, who then received a restraining order prohibiting Patane from contacting her.

She received a hang-up call that she thought Patane had made, and a police officer came to his home to arrest him for violating the restraining order. A second officer also appeared at Patane's home because of a tip that Patane had a gun, which was illegal because he was a felon with previous drug convictions.

The officers arrested Patane for violating the restraining order and began reading him his Miranda rights. Patane only listened as far as "you have the right to remain silent" when he interrupted to say that he knew his rights.

Although Patane denied calling his ex-girlfriend, he admitted he had a gun in the house, and gave an officer permission to enter his room and get it. He was prosecuted for possession of the gun.

Though Patane said he knew his Miranda rights, the prosecution conceded that the police were guilty of a Miranda violation.

"I was a state's attorney in New York and you always read a suspect his Miranda rights," even if the suspect were a police officer on the take, emphasized Doug Godfrey, now a professor of criminal procedure at Chicago-Kent College of Law. "We'd arrest a policeman who would tell us hed heard these rights a thousand times, and wed say, 'Your'e going to hear them 1,001 times."'

Patane mounted a two-pronged defense against the gun charge, claiming that he was arrested without probable cause and that the gun, as the fruit of a Miranda violation, couldn't be admitted as evidence against him.

The federal district court didnt address the Miranda violation because it agreed that Patane had been arrested without probable cause, and therefore threw out the case.

The government appealed to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled on Sept. 17, 2002, that Patane's ex-girlfriend had given police probable cause to arrest him. This decision prompted the appeals court to consider Patane's claim that the gun be excluded as evidence because it was the fruit of an illegal confession.

The 10th Circuit ruled in Patane's favor, concluding that the confiscated gun could not be used as evidence in court. Judge David Ebel wrote the unanimous opinion.

The 10th Circuit based its decision on the landmark 2000 Supreme Court ruling in Dickerson v U.S., which held that Miranda rights are constitutional in nature, not merely prophylactic in application. Before Dickerson, Miranda rights were seen as a mere safeguard to ensure that law enforcement officials didnt abuse their power to get suspects to confess.

Earlier Supreme Court cases such as the 1974 opinion in Michigan v. Tucker and the 1985 opinion in Oregon v. Elstad refer to the evidence resulting from an illegal search under the 4th Amendment as "fruits of the poisonous tree," which are not admissible in court. The 10th Circuit ruled that the poisonous fruit doctrine also applies to confessions obtained in violation of a defendants 5th Amendment protection against self-incrimination.

The government appealed, arguing that the poisonous fruit doctrine does not apply to physical evidence obtained through an un-Mirandized confession.

On April 21, 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court accepted review in the case and allowed Patane to have his case reviewed without cost.

While Patane's confession is a Miranda violation and cant be used, the question before the Supreme Court is whether the physical evidence resulting from such a confession can be used.

The Supreme Court was being asked to settle a disagreement that has arisen between the 10th Circuit and other circuit courts over the past three years.

The 3rd circuit in U.S. v. DeSumma and the 4th circuits in U.S. v. Sterling had ruled that physical evidence obtained through Miranda violations is admissible; the 1st Circuit in U.S. v. Faulkingham ruled that intentional Miranda violations make evidence inadmissible, whereas negligent violations don't.

Both parties in U.S. v Patane hoped the Court would clarify this issue.

"In concluding that physical evidence that is the fruit of an unwarned statement must be surpressed, the [10th Circuit] court created a conflict among the circuits on an important constitutional issue that arises with regularity," the government wrote in its petition to the Supreme Court. "The resolution of that issue directly affects the administration of criminal law in the federal and state courts."On June 28, 2004, a day before the very end of the Court's 2003-04 term, the Court issued its opinion, along with an opinion in Missouri v. Seibert, another Miranda case.

Here, the Court divided along ideological lines and held 5-4 to allow the confiscated gun to be introduced into evidence even though Patane's Miranda rights were violated.

Writing the lead opinion in the case, Justice Clarence Thomas 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. The principal rationale: 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, the jury should be allowed to weigh such evidence.

In so holding, the plurality of Justices Thomas and Antonin Scalia and Chief Justice William Rehnquist concluded that a mere failure to give Miranda warnings does not, by itself, violate a suspect's constitutional rights or even the Miranda rule. The plurality distinguished this case from the Court's landmark 2000 Supreme Court ruling in Dickerson v U.S., which held that Miranda rights are constitutional in nature, not merely prophylactic in application, by stating that the introduction of the nontestimonial fruit of a voluntary statement, such as Patane's pistol, does not implicate the Self-Incrimination Clause. It presents no risk that a defendant's coerced statements (however defined) will be used against him at a criminal trial.

In concurring, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote a one-paragraph opinion for himself and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor that noted it was unnecessary of the plurality 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.

Three of the dissenters -- Justice David Souter, John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg -- expressed concern that the majority were "closing their eyes to the consequences of giving an evidentiary advantage to those who ignore Miranda" and adding "an important inducement for interrogators to ignore the lessons of Miranda. That four-paragraph dissent penned by Justice Souter concluded with a stern criticism of the Court's new direction:

"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," wrote Souter. "The incentive is an odd one, coming from the Court on the same day it decides Missouri v. Seibert [which held 5-4 against admissibility of a confession obtained without proper Miranda warnings].

Justice Stephen Breyer's dissent was even shorter, directing attention to his concurring opinion in Missouri v. Seibert.