UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT
MORAN v. BURBINE
475 U.S. 412 (1986)
Justice O’Connor delivered the opinion of the Court.
After being informed of his rights pursuant to Miranda v. Arizona, 384 US 436, 16 L.Ed2d 694, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 10 Ohio Misc 9, 36 Ohio Ops 2d 237, 10 ALR3d 974 (1966), and after executing a series of written waivers, respondent confessed to the murder of a young woman. At no point during the course of the interrogation, which occurred prior to arraignment, did he request an attorney. While he was in police custody, his sister attempted to retain a lawyer to represent him. The attorney telephoned the police station and received assurances that respondent would not be questioned further until the next day. In fact, the interrogation session that yielded the inculpatory statements began later that evening. The question presented is whether either the conduct of the police or respondent’s ignorance of the attorney’s efforts to reach him taints the validity of the waivers and therefore requires exclusion of the confessions.
I
On the morning of March 3, 1977, Mary Jo Hickey was found unconscious in a factory parking lot in Providence, Rhode Island. Suffering from injuries to her skull apparently inflicted by a metal pipe found at the scene, she was rushed to a nearby hospital. Three weeks later she died from her wounds.
Several months after her death, the Cranston, Rhode Island police arrested respondent and two others in connection with a local burglary. Shortly before the arrest, Detective Ferranti of the Cranston police force had learned from a confidential informant that the man responsible for Ms. Hickey’s death lived at a certain address and went by the name of “Butch.” Upon discovering that respondent lived at that address and was known by that name, Detective Ferranti informed respondent of his Miranda rights. When respondent refused to execute a written waiver, Detective Ferranti spoke separately with the two other suspects arrested on the breaking and entering charge and obtained statements further implicating respondent in Ms. Hickey’s murder. At approximately 6 p.m., Detective Ferranti telephoned the police in Providence to convey the information he had uncovered. An hour later, three officers from that department arrived at the Cranston headquarters for the purpose of questioning respondent about the murder.
That same evening, at about 7:45 p.m., respondent’s sister telephoned the Public Defender’s Office to obtain legal assistance for her brother. Her sole concern was the breaking and entering charge, as she was unaware that respondent was then under suspicion for murder. She asked for Richard Casparian who had been scheduled to meet with respondent earlier that afternoon to discuss another charge unrelated to either the break- in or the murder. As soon as the conversation ended, the attorney who took the call attempted to reach Mr. Casparian. When those efforts were unsuccessful, she telephoned Allegra Munson, another Assistant Public Defender, and told her about respondent’s arrest and his sister’s subsequent request that the office represent him.
At 8:15 p.m., Ms. Munson telephoned the Cranston police station and asked that her call be transferred to the detective division. In the words of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island, whose factual findings we treat as presumptively correct, 28 USC 2254 (d) [28 USCS 2254(d)], the conversation proceeded as follows:
“A male voice responded with the word ‘Detectives’ Ms. Munson identified herself and asked if Brian Burbine was being held; the person responded affirmatively. Ms. Munson explained to the person that Burbine was represented by attorney Casparian who was not available; she further stated that she would act as Burbine’s legal counsel in the event the police intended to place him in a lineup or question him. The unidentified person told Ms. Munson that the police would not be questioning Burbine or putting him in a lineup and that they were through with him for the night. Ms. Munson was not informed that the Providence Police were at the Cranston police station or that Burbine was a suspect in Mary’s murder.” State v. Burbine, 451, A2d 22,23 – 24 (1982)
At all relevant times, respondent was unaware of his sister’s efforts to retain counsel and of the fact and contents of Ms. Munson’s telephone conversation.
Less than an hour later, the police brought respondent to an interrogation room and conducted the first of a series of interviews concerning the murder. Prior to each session, respondent was informed of his Miranda rights, and on three separate occasions he signed a written form acknowledging that he understood his right to the presence of an attorney and explicitly indicating that he “[did] not want an attorney called or appointed for [him]” before he gave a statement. App to Pet for Cert 94, 103, 107. Uncontradicted evidence at the suppression hearing indicated that at least twice during the course of the evening, respondent was left in a room where he had access to a telephone, which he apparently declined to use. Tr of Suppression Hearing 23, 85. Eventually, respondent signed three written statements fully admitting to the murder.
* * * * *
At the outset, while we share respondent’s distaste for the deliberate misleading of an officer of the court, reading Miranda to forbid police deception of an attorney “would cut [the decision] completely loose from its own explicitly stated rationale.” Beckwith v. United States, 425 US 341, 345, 48 L.Ed.2d 1, 96, S.Ct. 1612 (1976). As is now well established, “[t]he…Miranda warnings are ‘not themselves rights protected by the Constitution but [are] instead measures to insure that the [suspect’s] right against compulsory self-incrimination [is] protected.'” New York v. Quarles, 467 US 649, 654, 81 L.Ed.2d 550, 104 S.Ct. 2626 91984), quoting Michigan v. Tucker, 417 US 433, 444, 41 L.Ed2d 182, 94 S.Ct. 2357 (1974). Their objective is not to mold police conduct for its own sake. Nothing in the Constitution vests in us the authority to mandate a code of behavior for state officials wholly unconnected to any federal right or privilege. The purpose of the Miranda warnings instead is to dissipate the compulsion inherent in custodial interrogation and, in so doing, guard against abridgment of the suspect’s Fifth Amendment rights. Clearly, a rule that focuses on how the police treat an attorney – conduct that has no relevance at all to the degree of compulsion experienced by the defendant during interrogation – would ignore both Miranda’s mission and its only source of legitimacy.
Nor are we prepared to adopt a rule requiring that the police inform a suspect of an attorney’s efforts to reach him. While such a rule might add marginally to Miranda’s goal of dispelling the compulsion inherent in custodial interrogation, overriding practical considerations counsel against its adoption. As we have stressed on numerous occasions, “[o]ne of the principal advantages” of Miranda is the ease and clarity of its application. Citation omitted.
Finally, respondent contends that the conduct of the police was so offensive as to deprive him of the fundamental fairness guaranteed by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Focusing primarily on the impropriety of conveying false information to an attorney, he invites us to declare that such behavior should be condemned as violate of canons fundamental to the “‘traditions and conscience of our people.'” Rochin v. California, 342 U.S 165, 169, 96 L.Ed 183, 72 S.Ct. 205, 25 ALR2d 1396 (1952), quoting Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 US 97, 105, 78 L.Ed 674, 54 S.Ct. 330, 90 ALR 575 (1934). We do not question that on facts more egregious than those presented here police deception might rise to a level of a due process violation. Accordingly, Justice Stevens’ apocalyptic suggestion that we have approved any and all forms of police misconduct is demonstrably incorrect. We hold only that on these facts, the challenged conduct falls short of the kind of misbehavior that so shocks the sensibilities of civilized society as to warrant a federal intrusion into the criminal processes of the States.
We hold therefore that the Court of Appeals erred in finding that the Federal Constitution required the exclusion of the three inculpatory statements. Accordingly, we reverse and remand for proceeding consistent with this opinion.
So ordered.
Dissenting opinion omitted.
