492 U.S. 195 (1989)

DUCKWORTH
v.
EAGAN

No. 88-317.

Supreme Court of United States.

Argued March 29, 1989 Decided June 26, 1989 CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT

*196 David Michael Wallman, Deputy Attorney General of Indiana, argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Linley E. Pearson, Attorney General, and Robert S. Spear and Michael A. Schoening, Deputy Attorneys General.

Michael R. Lazerwitz argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae urging reversal. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Fried, Assistant Attorney General Dennis, Deputy Solicitor General Bryson, and Joel M. Gershowitz.

Howard B. Eisenberg, by appointment of the Court, 488 U. S. 921 (1988), argued the cause and filed a brief for respondent.

*197 CHIEF JUSTICE REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court.

Respondent confessed to stabbing a woman nine times after she refused to have sexual relations with him, and he was convicted of attempted murder. Before confessing, respondent was given warnings by the police, which included the advice that a lawyer would be appointed "if and when you go to court." The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that such advice did not comply with the requirements of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966). We disagree and reverse.

Late on May 16, 1982, respondent contacted a Chicago police officer he knew to report that he had seen the naked body of a dead woman lying on a Lake Michigan beach. Respondent denied any involvement in criminal activity. He then took several Chicago police officers to the beach, where the woman was crying for help. When she saw respondent, the woman exclaimed: "Why did you stab me? Why did you stab me?" Respondent told the officers that he had been with the woman earlier that night, but that they had been attacked by several men who abducted the woman in a van.

The next morning, after realizing that the crime had been committed in Indiana, the Chicago police turned the investigation over to the Hammond, Indiana, Police Department. Respondent repeated to the Hammond police officers his story that he had been attacked on the lakefront, and that the woman had been abducted by several men. After he filled out a battery complaint at a local police station, respondent agreed to go to the Hammond police headquarters for further questioning.

At about 11 a.m., the Hammond police questioned respondent. Before doing so, the police read to respondent a waiver form, entitled "Voluntary Appearance; Advice of Rights," and they asked him to sign it. The form provided:

*198 "Before we ask you any questions, you must understand your rights. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in court. You have a right to talk to a lawyer for advice before we ask you any questions, and to have him with you during questioning. You have this right to the advice and presence of a lawyer even if you cannot afford to hire one. We have no way of giving you a lawyer, but one will be appointed for you, if you wish, if and when you go to court. If you wish to answer questions now without a lawyer present, you have the right to stop answering questions at any time. You also have the right to stop answering at any time until you've talked to a lawyer." 843 F. 2d 1554, 1555-1556 (CA7 1988) (emphasis added).^[1]

Respondent signed the form and repeated his exculpatory explanation for his activities of the previous evening.

Respondent was then placed in the "lockup" at the Hammond police headquarters. Some 29 hours later, at about 4 p.m. on May 18, the police again interviewed respondent. Before this questioning, one of the officers read the following waiver form to respondent:

"1. Before making this statement, I was advised that I have the right to remain silent and that anything I *199 might say may or will be used against me in a court of law.

"2. That I have the right to consult with an attorney of my own choice before saying anything, and that an attorney may be present while I am making any statement or throughout the course of any conversation with any police officer if I so choose.

"3. That I can stop and request an attorney at any time during the course of the taking of any statement or during the course of any such conversation.

"4. That in the course of any conversation I can refuse to answer any further questions and remain silent, thereby terminating the conversation.

"5. That if I do not hire an attorney, one will be provided for me." Id., at 1556.

Respondent read the form back to the officers and signed it. He proceeded to confess to stabbing the woman. The next morning, respondent led the officers to the Lake Michigan beach where they recovered the knife he had used in the stabbing and several items of clothing.

At trial, over respondent's objection, the state court admitted his confession, his first statement denying any involvement in the crime, the knife, and the clothing. The jury found respondent guilty of attempted murder, but acquitted him of rape. He was sentenced to 35 years' imprisonment. The conviction was upheld on appeal. Eagan v. State, 480 N. E. 2d 946 (Ind. 1985).

Respondent sought a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, claiming, inter alia, that his confession was inadmissible because the first waiver form did not comply with Miranda. The District Court denied the petition, holding that the record "clearly manifests adherence to Miranda . . . especially *200 as to the so-called second statement." App. to Pet. for Cert. A52.

A divided United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed. 843 F. 2d 1554 (1988). The majority held that the advice that counsel would be appointed "if and when you go to court," which was included in the first warnings given to respondent, was "constitutionally defective because it denies an accused indigent a clear and unequivocal warning of the right to appointed counsel before any interrogation," and "link[s] an indigent's right to counsel before interrogation with a future event." Id., at 1557. The majority relied on the Seventh Circuit's decision in United States ex rel. Williams v. Twomey, 467 F. 2d 1248, 1250 (1972), which had condemned, as "misleading and confusing," the inclusion of "if and when you go to court" language in Miranda warnings. Turning to the admissibility of respondent's confession, the majority thought that "as a result of the first warning, [respondent] arguably believed that he could not secure a lawyer during interrogation" and that the second warning "did not explicitly correct this misinformation." 843 F. 2d, at 1558. It therefore remanded the case for a determination whether respondent had knowingly and intelligently waived his right to an attorney during the second interview. The dissenting judge rejected the majority's "formalistic, technical and unrealistic application of Miranda" and argued that the first warnings passed constitutional muster. Id., at 1562. In any case, he thought that remand was not necessary because the record indicated that this case was covered by Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U. S. 298 (1985). 843 F. 2d, at 1570-1571.

The Court of Appeals denied rehearing en banc, with four judges dissenting from that order. App. to Pet. for Cert. A1-A2. We then granted certiorari, 488 U. S. 888 (1988), to resolve a conflict among the lower courts as to whether informing a suspect that an attorney would be appointed for him "if and when you go to court" renders Miranda warnings *201 inadequate.^[2] We agree with the majority of the lower courts that it does not.^[3]

In Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966), the Court established certain procedural safeguards that require police to advise criminal suspects of their rights under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments before commencing custodial interrogation. In now-familiar words, the Court said that the *202 suspect must be told that "he has the right to remain silent, that anything he says can be used against him in a court of law, that he has the right to the presence of an attorney, and that if he cannot afford an attorney one will be appointed for him prior to any questioning if he so desires." Id., at 479. The Court in Miranda "presumed that interrogation in certain custodial circumstances is inherently coercive and . . . that statements made under those circumstances are inadmissible unless the suspect is specifically warned of his Miranda rights and freely decides to forgo those rights." New York v. Quarles, 467 U. S. 649, 654 (1984) (footnote omitted).

We have never insisted that Miranda warnings be given in the exact form described in that decision.^[4] In Miranda itself, the Court said that "[t]he warnings required and the waiver necessary in accordance with our opinion today are, in the absence of a fully effective equivalent, prerequisites to the admissibility of any statement made by a defendant." 384 U. S., at 476 (emphasis added). See also Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U. S. 291, 297 (1980) (referring to "the now familiar Miranda warnings . . . or their equivalent"). In California v. Prysock, 453 U. S. 355 (1981) (per curiam), we stated that "the `rigidity' of Miranda [does not] exten[d] to the precise formulation of the warnings given a criminal defendant," and *203 that "no talismanic incantation [is] required to satisfy its strictures." Id., at 359.

Miranda has not been limited to station house questioning, see Rhode Island v. Innis, supra (police car), and the officer in the field may not always have access to printed Miranda warnings, or he may inadvertently depart from routine practice, particularly if a suspect requests an elaboration of the warnings. The prophylactic Miranda warnings are "not themselves rights protected by the Constitution but [are] instead measures to insure that the right against compulsory self-incrimination [is] protected." Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U. S. 433, 444 (1974). Reviewing courts therefore need not examine Miranda warnings as if construing a will or defining the terms of an easement. The inquiry is simply whether the warnings reasonably "conve[y] to [a suspect] his rights as required by Miranda." Prysock, supra, at 361.

We think the initial warnings given to respondent touched all of the bases required by Miranda. The police told respondent that he had the right to remain silent, that anything he said could be used against him in court, that he had the right to speak to an attorney before and during questioning, that he had "this right to the advice and presence of a lawyer even if [he could] not afford to hire one," and that he had the "right to stop answering at any time until [he] talked to a lawyer." 843 F. 2d, at 1555-1556. As noted, the police also added that they could not provide respondent with a lawyer, but that one would be appointed "if and when you go to court." The Court of Appeals thought this "if and when you go to court" language suggested that "only those accused who can afford an attorney have the right to have one present before answering any questions," and "implie[d] that if the accused does not `go to court,' i. e.[,] the government does not file charges, the accused is not entitled to [counsel] at all." Id., at 1557.

In our view, the Court of Appeals misapprehended the effect of the inclusion of "if and when you go to court" language *204 in Miranda warnings. First, this instruction accurately described the procedure for the appointment of counsel in Indiana. Under Indiana law, counsel is appointed at the defendant's initial appearance in court, Ind. Code § 35-33-7-6 (1988), and formal charges must be filed at or before that hearing, § 35-33-7-3(a).^[5] We think it must be relatively commonplace for a suspect, after receiving Miranda warnings, to ask when he will obtain counsel. The "if and when you go to court" advice simply anticipates that question.^[6] Second, Miranda does not require that attorneys be producible on call, but only that the suspect be informed, as here, that he has the right to an attorney before and during questioning, and that an attorney would be appointed for him if he could not afford one.^[7] The Court in Miranda emphasized that it was not suggesting that "each police station must have a `station house lawyer' present at all times to advise prisoners." 384 U. S., at 474. If the police cannot provide appointed counsel, Miranda requires only that the police not question a suspect unless he waives his right to counsel. Ibid. Here, respondent did just that.

Respondent relies, Brief for Respondent 24-29, on language in California v. Prysock, where we suggested that Miranda warnings would not be sufficient "if the reference to the right to appointed counsel was linked [to a] future point in time after the police interrogation." 453 U. S., at 360 (emphasis added). The Court of Appeals also referred to Prysock in finding deficient the initial warnings given to respondent. *205 843 F. 2d, at 1557. But the vice referred to in Prysock was that such warnings would not apprise the accused of his right to have an attorney present if he chose to answer questions. The warnings in this case did not suffer from that defect. Of the eight sentences in the initial warnings, one described respondent's right to counsel "before [the police] ask[ed] [him] questions," while another stated his right to "stop answering at any time until [he] talk[ed] to a lawyer." Id., at 1555-1556. We hold that the initial warnings given to respondent, in their totality, satisfied Miranda, and therefore that his first statement denying his involvement in the crime, as well as the knife and the clothing, was properly admitted into evidence.

The Court of Appeals thought it necessary to remand this case for consideration of whether respondent's second statement was tainted by the first warnings. Id., at 1557-1558. In view of our disposition of this case, we need not reach that question.^[8] The judgment of the Court of Appeals is accordingly reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with our decision.

It is so ordered.

JUSTICE O'CONNOR, with whom JUSTICE SCALIA joins, concurring.

I concur in THE CHIEF JUSTICE'S opinion for the Court. I write separately to address an alternative ground for decision in this case which was raised, but not relied upon, by the District Court. In my view, the rationale of our decision in Stone v. Powell, 428 U. S. 465 (1976), dictates that the suppression remedy be unavailable to respondent on federal habeas.

*206 I

Over seven years ago respondent stabbed a woman nine times after she refused to have sexual relations with him. Claiming that he had innocently discovered the body, respondent led Chicago police to the woman, who, upon seeing respondent, immediately identified him as her assailant. Respondent was twice informed of his rights and questioned by detectives. The first time he gave an exculpatory statement indicating that he had been attacked by the same persons who had assaulted the victim. In the second interview, respondent confessed to the stabbing. He then led police to the knife he had used and to several items of his clothing which were found near the scene of the assault. Respondent sought suppression of both his statements and the knife and clothing on the ground that the warnings he was given were inadequate under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966). After an evidentiary hearing, the trial court denied the motion to suppress. The evidence was admitted at trial, and respondent was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to 35 years' imprisonment. On appeal, the Indiana Supreme Court rejected respondent's claim that the warnings given him during his first encounter with the police were insufficient under Miranda. Eagan v. State, 480 N. E. 2d 946, 949-950 (1985). The Indiana Supreme Court also noted that there was no evidence that respondent's two statements were the product of police coercion or overbearing. Id., at 950.

In 1986, respondent filed this petition for federal habeas corpus under 28 U. S. C. § 2254. He raised the same Miranda claim which had been fully litigated in, and rejected by, the state courts. The District Court noted the possibility that respondent's claim might not be cognizable on federal habeas under our decision in Stone v. Powell, but indicated that "[f]or present purposes that issue remains to be solved by the Supreme Court or this Circuit." App. to Pet. for Cert. A-50. The District Court found no evidence of "coercive *207 conduct" on the part of the police in this case, and denied the petition. Id., at A-52 — A-53. A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed, finding that a technical violation of the Miranda rule had occurred, and remanding the case to the District Court for a further evidentiary hearing to determine whether respondent's second statement was "tainted" by the allegedly inadequate warnings given in the first encounter. 843 F. 2d 1554, 1557 (1988). This Court now reverses. Eighteen state and federal judges have now given plenary consideration to respondent's Miranda claims. None of these judges has intimated any doubt as to respondent's guilt or the voluntariness and probative value of his confession. After seven years of litigation, the initial determination of the Miranda issue by the state trial judge and the Indiana Supreme Court has been found to be the correct one. In my view, the federal courts' exercise of habeas jurisdiction in this case has served no one: no violation of the Fifth Amendment itself has ever been alleged; there is no doubt that respondent is guilty of the crime of which he was convicted and deserving of punishment; respondent had a full and fair opportunity to litigate his claim in state court; and the marginal possibility that police adherence to Miranda will be enhanced by suppression of highly probative evidence some seven years after the police conduct at issue in this case is far outweighed by the harm to society's interest in punishing and incapacitating those who violate its criminal laws.

II

In Stone v. Powell this Court held that claims that probative evidence should have been excluded at trial because of police conduct alleged to have violated the Fourth Amendment would not be entertained in a federal habeas proceeding where a full and fair opportunity to litigate the claim had been made available in the state courts. The Stone Court noted that the exclusionary rule " `is a judicially created remedy designed to safeguard Fourth Amendment rights generally *208 through its deterrent effect.' " 428 U. S., at 486, quoting United States v. Calandra, 414 U. S. 338, 348 (1974). The costs of such a rule are high: highly probative and often conclusive evidence of a criminal defendant's guilt is withheld from the trier of fact in the hope of "encourag[ing] those who formulate law enforcement policies, and the officers who implement them, to incorporate Fourth Amendment ideals into their value system." Stone, supra, at 492. The exclusionary rule is a structural device designed to promote sensitivity to constitutional values through its deterrent effect. As such, the rule's utility must, as this Court has long recognized, be weighed against other important values in its application. Where the rule's deterrent effect is likely to be marginal, or where its application offends other values central to our system of constitutional governance or the judicial process, we have declined to extend the rule to that context. See, e. g., United States v. Leon, 468 U. S. 897, 920-921 (1984) (refusing to apply exclusionary rule where police rely in good faith on a warrant issued by a neutral magistrate); Calandra, supra, at 349 (refusing to extend the rule to grand jury proceedings because its application "would seriously impede the grand jury"); Walder v. United States, 347 U. S. 62, 65 (1954) (exclusionary rule does not create "a shield against contradiction of [the defendant's] untruths" and evidence seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment may be used for impeachment purposes).

In Stone, we found that application of the exclusionary rule to Fourth Amendment violations on federal habeas was likely to have only marginal effectiveness in deterring police misconduct, while offending important principles of federalism and finality in the criminal law which have long informed the federal courts' exercise of habeas jurisdiction. In my view, this same weighing process leads ineluctably to the conclusion that the suppression remedy should not be available on federal habeas where the state courts have accorded a petitioner a full and fair opportunity to litigate a claim that *209 Miranda warnings were not given or were somehow deficient. Indeed, the scales appear to me to tip further toward finality and repose in this context than in Stone itself.

The Fifth Amendment guarantees that "[n]o person . . . shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." The Amendment has its roots in the Framers' belief that a system of justice in which the focus is on the extraction of proof of guilt from the criminal defendant himself is often an adjunct to tyranny and may lead to the conviction of innocent persons. Thus, a violation of the constitutional guarantee occurs when one is "compelled" by governmental coercion to bear witness against oneself in the criminal process. See Colorado v. Connelly, 479 U. S. 157, 163-164, and n. 1 (1986); Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U. S. 1, 6-8 (1964). The suppression remedy is quite possibly contained within the guarantee of the Fifth Amendment itself.

The Miranda rule is not, nor did it ever claim to be, a dictate of the Fifth Amendment itself. The Miranda Court implicitly acknowledged as much when it indicated that procedures other than the warnings dictated by the Court's opinion might satisfy constitutional concerns, see Miranda, 384 U. S., at 444, and what was implicit in the Miranda opinion itself has been made explicit in our subsequent cases. See, e. g., Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U. S. 298, 306-310 (1985) (noting that the Miranda rule "sweeps more broadly than the Fifth Amendment itself" and "may be triggered even in the absence of a Fifth Amendment violation"); accord, New York v. Quarles, 467 U. S. 649 (1984); Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U. S. 433, 442-446 (1974). Like all prophylactic rules, the Miranda rule "overprotects" the value at stake. In the name of efficient judicial administration of the Fifth Amendment guarantee and the need to create institutional respect for Fifth Amendment values, it sacrifices society's interest in uncovering evidence of crime and punishing those who violate its laws. While this balance of interests may be perfectly justified in the context of direct review of criminal convictions, *210 in my view the balance shifts when applied to a presumptively final criminal judgment which is collaterally attacked in a federal habeas corpus proceeding. As JUSTICE KENNEDY has recently noted:

"[F]ederal habeas review itself entails significant costs. It disturbs the State's significant interest in repose for concluded litigation, denies society the right to punish some admitted offenders, and intrudes on state sovereignty to a degree matched by few exercises of federal judicial authority." Harris v. Reed, 489 U. S. 255, 282 (1989) (dissenting opinion).

Indeed, within weeks after our decision in Miranda, we declined to apply that decision retroactively to state prisoners on federal habeas, noting that the Miranda rule was unrelated to the truth seeking function of the criminal trial, and that its application on federal habeas "would require the retrial or release of numerous prisoners found guilty by trustworthy evidence." Johnson v. New Jersey, 384 U. S. 719, 730-731 (1966). As in the Fourth Amendment context addressed in Stone, we have consistently declined to extend the Miranda rule and the suppression remedy attached to it to situations where its deterrent effect is minimal and is outweighed by other compelling interests. See, e. g., Oregon v. Hass, 420 U. S. 714, 722-723 (1975) (statements taken in violation of Miranda may be used to impeach the defendant's testimony at trial); Tucker, 417 U. S., at 448-449 (refusing to apply suppression remedy to third party testimony alleged to be the fruits of a Miranda violation); id., at 461 (WHITE, J., concurring in judgment) ("The arguable benefits from excluding such testimony by way of possibly deterring police conduct that might compel admissions are, in my view, far outweighed by the advantages of having relevant and probative testimony, not obtained by actual coercion, available at criminal trials to aid in the pursuit of truth").

*211 In my view, these principles compel the conclusion that Miranda claims seeking suppression of probative evidence are not cognizable on federal habeas. Title 28 U. S. C. § 2243 requires a federal habeas court to "dispose of the matter as law and justice require," and we have long recognized that "in some circumstances considerations of comity and concerns for the orderly administration of criminal justice require a federal court to forgo the exercise of its habeas corpus power." Francis v. Henderson, 425 U. S. 536, 539 (1976). Relitigation of Miranda claims offers little or no additional structural incentive to the police to abide by the dictates of that decision. The awarding of habeas relief years after conviction will often strike like lightning, and it is absurd to think that this added possibility of exclusion years after the police conduct at issue will have any appreciable effect on police training or behavior. As Judge Friendly wrote: "The mere failure to administer Miranda warnings . . . creates little risk of unreliability, and the deterrent value of permitting collateral attack goes beyond the point of diminishing returns." Friendly, Is Innocence Irrelevant?, Collateral Attack on Criminal Judgments, 38 U. Chi. L. Rev. 142, 163 (1970). On the other hand, the costs of suppression in the federal habeas setting are significantly magnified. As in this case, lower federal courts often sit in "review" of the judgments of the highest courts of a state judicial system. This situation has always been a flashpoint of tension in the delicate relationship of the federal and state courts, and this exercise of federal power should not be undertaken lightly where no significant federal values are at stake. Perhaps most troubling is the cost to society in the efficient enforcement of its criminal laws. Excluding probative evidence years after trial, when a new trial may be a practical impossibility, will often result in the release of an admittedly guilty individual who may pose a continuing threat to society. While federal courts must and do vindicate constitutional values outside the truth seeking function of a criminal trial, where those values are *212 unlikely to be served by the suppression remedy, the result is positively perverse. Exclusion in such a situation teaches not respect for the law, but casts the criminal system as a game and sends the message that society is so unmoved by the violation of its own laws that it is willing to frustrate their enforcement for the smallest of returns. If Stone v. Powell bars relitigation of allegations of constitutional violations on federal habeas, it seems to me clear that its rationale is directly applicable to relitigation of nonconstitutional claims under Miranda.

JUSTICE MARSHALL'S dissenting opinion accuses me of exhibiting "a profound distaste for Miranda," post, at 224, in suggesting that the rationale of Stone v. Powell should be applied to Miranda claims on federal habeas review. It is not a sign of disrespect for a particular substantive rule to refuse to apply it in a situation where it does not serve the purposes for which it was designed. Our jurisprudence has long recognized a distinction between direct and collateral review, and I am not the first Justice of this Court to suggest that prophylactic rules should be treated differently in collateral proceedings than on direct review. See, e. g., Greer v. Miller, 483 U. S. 756, 767-769 (1987) (STEVENS, J., concurring) (distinguishing between direct review and collateral proceedings for purposes of application of rule of Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U. S. 610 (1976), which forbids prosecutorial comment on postarrest silence); Brewer v. Williams, 430 U. S. 387, 420-429 (1977) (Burger, C. J., dissenting) (suggesting applicability of Stone v. Powell to Miranda claims on federal habeas); see also Rose v. Lundy, 455 U. S. 509, 543-544, and n. 8 (1982) (STEVENS, J., dissenting); Vasquez v. Hillery, 474 U. S. 254, 272-273 (1986) (Powell, J., dissenting). Indeed, in United States v. Timmreck, 441 U. S. 780 (1979), a unanimous Court concluded that a purely formal violation of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11 did not justify the granting of relief in collateral proceedings despite the fact that at the time of our decision in Timmreck such a violation