Michigan v. Mosley

Mr. Justice White,

concurring in the result.

I concur in the result and in much of the majority’s reasoning. However, it appears to me that, in an effort to make only a limited holding in this case, the majority has implied that some custodial confessions will be suppressed even though they follow an informed and voluntary waiver of the defendant’s rights. The majority seems to say that a statement obtained within some unspecified time after an assertion by an individual of his “right to silence” is always inadmissible, even if it was the result of an informed and voluntary decision — following, for example, a disclosure to such an individual of a piece of information bearing on his waiver decision which the police had failed to give him prior to his assertion of the privilege but which they gave him immediately thereafter. Indeed, ante, at 102, the majority char *108 acterizes as “absurd” any contrary rule. I disagree. I do not think the majority’s conclusion is compelled by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966), and I suspect that in the final analysis the majority will adopt voluntariness as the standard by which to judge the waiver of the right to silence by a properly informed defendant. I think the Court should say so now.

Miranda holds that custody creates an inherent compulsion on an individual to incriminate himself in response to questions, and that statements obtained under such circumstances are therefore obtained in violation of the Fifth Amendment privilege against compelled testimonial self-incrimination unless the privilege is “knowingly and intelligently waived.” Id., at 471, 475 . It also holds that an individual will not be deemed to have made a knowing and intelligent waiver of his “right to silence” unless the authorities have first informed him, inter alia, of that right — “the threshold requirement for an intelligent decision as to its exercise.” Id., at 468 . I am no more convinced that Miranda was required by the United States Constitution than I was when it was decided. However, there is at least some support in the law both before and after Miranda for the proposition that some rights will never be deemed waived unless the defendant is first expressly advised of their existence. E. g., Carnley v. Cochran, 369 U. S. 506 (1962); Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U. S. 238 (1969); Fed. Rules Crim. Proc. 11, 32 (a)(2). There is little support in the law or in common sense for the proposition that an informed waiver of a right may be ineffective even where voluntarily made. Indeed, the law is exactly to the contrary, e. g., Tollett v. Henderson, 411 U. S. 258 (1973); Brady v. United States, 397 U. S. 742 (1970); McMann v. Richardson, 397 U. S. 759 (1970); Parker v. North Carolina, 397 U. S. 790 (1970). Unless an individual is *109 incompetent, we have in the past rejected any paternalistic rule protecting a defendant from his intelligent and voluntary decisions about his own criminal case. Faretta v. California, 422 U. S. 806 (1975). To do so would be to "imprison a man in his privileges,” 1 Adams v. United States ex rel. McCann, 317 U. S. 269, 280 (1942), and to disregard “ 'that respect for the individual which is the lifeblood of the law,’ ” Faretta v. California, supra, at 834 . I am very reluctant to conclude that Miranda stands for such a proposition.

The language of Miranda no more compels such a result than does its basic rationale. As the majority points out, the statement in Miranda, 384 U. S., at 474 , requiring interrogation to cease after an assertion of the “right to silence” tells us nothing because it does not indicate how soon this interrogation may resume. The Court showed in the very next paragraph, moreover, that when it wanted to create a per se rule against further interrogation after assertion of a right, it knew how to do so. The Court there said “[i]f the individual states that he *110 wants an attorney, the interrogation must cease until an attorney is present.” Ibid. 2 However, when the individual indicates that he will decide unaided by counsel whether or not to assert his “right to silence” the situation is different. In such a situation, the Court in Miranda simply said: “If the interrogation continues without the presence of an attorney and a statement is taken, a heavy burden rests on the government to demonstrate that the defendant knowingly and intelligently waived his privilege against self-incrimination and his right to retained or appointed counsel.” Id., at 475 . Apparently, although placing a heavy burden on the government, Miranda intended waiver of the “right to silence” to be tested by the normal standards. In any event, insofar as the Miranda decision might be read to require interrogation to cease for some magical and unspecified period of time following an assertion of the “right to silence,” and to reject voluntariness as the standard by which to judge informed waivers of that right, it should be disapproved as inconsistent with otherwise uniformly applied legal principles.

In justifying the implication that questioning must inevitably cease for some unspecified period of time following an exercise of the “right to silence,” the ma *111 jority says only that such a requirement would be necessary to avoid •'‘undermining” “the will of the person being questioned.” Yet surely a waiver of the “right to silence” obtained by “undermining the will” of the person being questioned would be considered an involuntary waiver. Thus, in order to achieve the majority’s only stated purpose, it is sufficient to exclude all confessions which are the result of involuntary waivers. To exclude any others is to deprive the factfinding process of highly probative information for no reason at all. The “repeated rounds” of questioning following an assertion of the privilege, which the majority is worried about, would, of course, count heavily against the State in any determination of voluntariness — particularly if no reason (such as new facts communicated to the accused or a new incident being inquired about) appeared for repeated questioning. There is no reason, however, to rob the accused of the choice to answer questions voluntarily for some unspecified period of time following his own previous contrary decision. The Court should now so state.

The majority’s rule may cause an accused injury. Although a recently arrested individual may have indicated an initial desire not to answer questions, he would nonetheless want to know immediately — if it were true — that his ability to explain a particular incriminating fact or to supply an alibi for a particular time period would result in his immediate release. Similarly, he might wish to know — if it were true — that (1) the case against him was unusually strong and that (2) his immediate cooperation with the authorities in the apprehension and conviction of others or in the recovery of property would redound to his benefit in the form of a reduced charge. Certainly the individual’s lawyer, if he had one, would be interested in such information, even if communication of such information followed closely on an assertion of the “right to silence.” Where the individual has not requested counsel and has chosen instead to make his own decisions regarding his conversations with the authorities, he should not be deprived even temporarily of any information relevant to the decision.

The question of the proper procedure following expression by an individual of his desire to consult counsel is not presented in this case. It is sufficient to note that the reasons to keep the lines of communication between the authorities and the accused open when the accused has chosen to make his own decisions are not present when he indicates instead that he wishes legal advice with respect thereto. The authorities may then communicate with him through an attorney. More to the point, the accused having expressed his own view that he is not competent to deal with the authorities without legal advice, a later decision at the authorities’ insistence to make a statement without counsel’s presence may properly be viewed with skepticism.