# United States v. Patane

> Supreme Court of the United States · June 28, 2004 · 542 U.S. 630

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9434687

## Case

- **Full name:** United States v. Patane
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** June 28, 2004
- **Citations:** 542 U.S. 630; 124 S. Ct. 2620; 159 L. Ed. 2d 667; 2004 U.S. LEXIS 4577
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Kennedy
- **Judges:** Thomas, Kennedy, Souter, Breyer
- **Cited by:** 575 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9434687

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- explaining that the right against self-incrimination is a trial right and Miranda warnings are prophylactic, and therefore "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 fu…
- finding 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 o…
- reasoning that since Miranda warnings are prophylactic, a failure to give them is not alone a Fifth Amendment violation, and that potential violations of a defendant’s Fifth Amendment rights “occur, if at all, only upon the admission of unwarned statements into evidence at trial”
- explaining that "the Miranda rule 'does not require that the [otherwise voluntary] statements [taken without complying with the rule] and their fruits be discarded as inherently tainted' " (quoting Oregon v. Elstad , 470 U.S. 298 , 307, 105 S.Ct. 1285 , 84 L.Ed.2d 222 (1985) )

## Opinion text

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 sys *645 tem. 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 Pa-tane’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 “[anything to deter” so long as the unwarned statements are not later introduced at trial. Ante, at 641-642.
With these observations, I concur in the judgment of the Court.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9434687. Public record. Not legal advice.