Van Chester Thompkins was in custody in Michigan, suspected of a murder outside a mall. He's given a form listing his Miranda rights, which he declines to sign, and it's disputed on the record whether he orally confirmed his understanding of his rights. The interrogation begins, and as recounted by the Supreme Court today:
At no point during the interrogation did Thompkins say that he wanted to remain silent, that he did not want to talk with the police, or that he wanted an attorney. Thompkins was “[l]argely” silent during the interrogation, which lasted about three hours. He did give a few limited verbal responses, however, such as “yeah,” “no,” or “I don’t know.” And on occasion he communicated by nodding his head. Thompkins also said that he “didn’t want a peppermint” that was offered to him by the police and that the chair he was “sitting in was hard.”
About 2 hours and 45 minutes into the interrogation, Helgert asked Thompkins, “Do you believe in God?” Thompkins made eye contact with Helgert and said “Yes,” as his eyes “well[ed] up with tears.” Helgert asked, “Do you pray to God?” Thompkins said “Yes.” Helgert asked, “Do you pray to God to forgive you for shooting that boy down?” Thompkins answered “Yes” and looked away. Thompkins refused to make a written confession, and the interrogation ended about 15 minutes later.
[On policemen invoking God during interrogations, do read Brewer v. Williams (1977), the "Christian burial speech" case. It's a classic.]
Thompkins was charged with first-degree murder. He moved to have his interrogation statements suppressed under Miranda. In a 5-4 opinion today, the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed that Thompkins did not properly invoke his right to remain silent and that the police didn't need him to explicitly waive his right to remain silent; therefore, the statements were properly admitted.
Justice Kennedy wrote the opinion of the Court, for himself and the four you'd expect. In order of arguments made:
Thompkins makes various arguments that his answers to questions from the detectives were inadmissible. He first contends that he “invoke[d] his privilege” to remain silent by not saying anything for a sufficient period of time, so the interrogation should have “cease[d]” before he made his inculpatory statements... This argument is unpersuasive. In the context of invoking the Miranda right to counsel, the Court [has] held that a suspect must do so “unambiguously.” If an accused makes a statement concerning the right to counsel “that is ambiguous or equivocal” or makes no statement, the police are not required to end the interrogation, or ask questions to clarify whether the accused wants to invoke his or her Miranda rights.
There is good reason to require an accused who wants to invoke his or her right to remain silent to do so unambiguously. A requirement of an unambiguous invocation of Miranda rights results in an objective inquiry that “avoid[s] difficulties of proof and . . . provide[s] guidance to officers” on how to proceed in the face of ambiguity. If an ambiguous act, omission, or statement could require police to end the interrogation, police would be required to make difficult decisions about an accused’s unclear intent and face the consequence of suppression “if they guess wrong.” Suppression of a voluntary confession in these circumstances would place a significant burden on society’s interest in prosecuting criminal activity. ...
Thompkins did not say that he wanted to remain silent or that he did not want to talk with the police. Had he made either of these simple, unambiguous statements, he would have invoked his “right to cut off questioning." Here he did neither, so he did not invoke his right to remain silent.
Did Thompkins waive his right to remain silent, then?
The prosecution therefore does not need to show that a waiver of Miranda rights was express. An “implicit waiver” of the “right to remain silent” is sufficient to admit a suspect’s statement into evidence. ... If the State establishes that a Miranda warning was given and the accused made an uncoerced statement, this showing, standing alone, is insufficient to demonstrate “a valid waiver” of Miranda rights. The prosecution must make the additional showing that the accused understood these rights.... Where the prosecution shows that a Miranda warning was given and that it was understood by the accused, an accused’s uncoerced statement establishes an implied waiver of the right to remain silent.
Although Miranda imposes on the police a rule that is both formalistic and practical when it prevents them from interrogating suspects without first providing them with a Miranda warning, it does not impose a formalistic waiver procedure that a suspect must follow to relinquish those rights. As a general proposition, the law can presume that an individual who, with a full understanding of his or her rights, acts in a manner inconsistent with their exercise has made a deliberate choice to relinquish the protection those rights afford.
The record in this case shows that Thompkins waived his right to remain silent. There is no basis in this case to conclude that he did not understand his rights; and on these facts it follows that he chose not to invoke or rely on those rights when he did speak. First, there is no contention that Thompkins did not understand his rights; and from this it follows that he knew what he gave up when he spoke....
Thompkins’s answer to Detective Helgert’s question about whether Thompkins prayed to God for forgiveness for shooting the victim is a “course of conduct indicating waiver” of the right to remain silent. If Thompkins wanted to remain silent, he could have said nothing in response to Helgert’s questions,or he could have unambiguously invoked his Miranda rights and ended the interrogation. The fact that Thompkins made a statement about three hours after receiving a Miranda warning does not overcome the fact that he engaged in a course of conduct indicating waiver. Police are not required to rewarn suspects from time to time. Thompkins’s answer to Helgert’s question about praying to God for forgiveness for shooting the victim was sufficient to show a course of conduct indicating waiver. This is confirmed by the fact that before then Thompkins had given sporadic answers to questions throughout the interrogation.
Third, there is no evidence that Thompkins’s statement was coerced.... The fact that Helgert’s question referred to Thompkins’s religious beliefs also did not render Thompkins’s statement involuntary. “[T]he Fifth Amendment privilege is not concerned ‘with moral and psychological pressures to confess emanating from sources other than official coercion.’” In these circumstances, Thompkins knowingly and voluntarily made a statement to police, so he waived his right to remain silent.
Nor must police obtain an explicit waiver in advance of questioning:
Interrogation provides the suspect with additional information that can put his or her decision to waive, or not to invoke, into perspective. As questioning commences and then continues, the suspect has the opportunity to consider the choices he or she faces and to make a more informed decision, either to insist on silence or to cooper-ate. When the suspect knows that Miranda rights can be invoked at any time, he or she has the opportunity to reassess his or her immediate and long-term interests. Cooperation with the police may result in more favorable treatment for the suspect; the apprehension of accomplices; the prevention of continuing injury and fear; beginning steps towards relief or solace for the victims; and the beginning of the suspect’s own return to the law and the social order it seeks to protect.... Thus, after giving a Miranda warning, police may interrogate a suspect who has neither invoked nor waived his or her Miranda rights.
[I am skipping the AEDPA and effective assistance of counsel issues.]
Justice Sotomayor, writing for the four dissenters, focused upon the burden which prosecutors should have to meet in order to demonstrate a valid waiver of Miranda rights:
It is undisputed here that Thompkins never expressly waived his right to remain silent. His refusal to sign even an acknowledgment that he understood his Miranda rights evinces, if anything, an intent not to waive those rights. That Thompkins did not make the inculpatory statements at issue until after approximately 2 hours and 45 minutes of interrogation serves as “strong evidence” against waiver....
In these circumstances, Thompkins’ “actions and words” preceding the inculpatory statements simply do not evidence a “course of conduct indicating waiver” sufficient to carry the prosecution’s burden. Although the Michigan court stated that Thompkins “sporadically” participated in the interview,that court’s opinion and the record before us are silent as to the subject matter or context of even a single question to which Thompkins purportedly responded, other than the exchange about God and the statements respecting the peppermint and the chair. Thompkins made no initial declaration akin to “I will talk to you.” Indeed, Michigan and the United States concede that no waiver occurred in this case until Thompkins responded “yes” to the questions about God. I believe it is objectively unreasonable under our clearly established precedents to conclude the prosecution met its “heavy burden” of proof on a record consisting of three one-word answers, following 2 hours and 45 minutes of silence punctuated by a few largely nonverbal responses to unidentified questions.
And as for the majority's holding:
These [new] principles flatly contradict our longstanding views that “a valid waiver will not be presumed ... simply from the fact that a confession was in fact eventually obtained,” and that “[t]he courts must presume that a defendant did not waive his rights.” Indeed, we have in the past summarily reversed a state-court decision that inverted Miranda’s antiwaiver presumption, characterizing the error as “readily apparent.” At best, the Court today creates an unworkable and conflicting set of presumptions that will undermine Miranda’s goal of providing “concrete constitutional guidelines for law enforcement agencies and courts to follow." At worst, it overrules sub silentio an essential aspect of the protections Miranda has long provided for the constitutional guarantee against self-incrimination. ...
Today’s dilution of the prosecution’s burden of proof to the bare fact that a suspect made inculpatory statements after Miranda warnings were given and understood takes an unprecedented step away from the “high standards of proof for the waiver of constitutional rights” this Court has long demanded. When waiver is to be inferred during a custodial interrogation, there are sound reasons to require evidence beyond inculpatory statements themselves. Miranda and our subsequent cases are premised on the idea that custodial interrogation is inherently coercive. Requiring proof of a course of conduct beyond the inculpatory statements themselves is critical to ensuring that those statements are voluntary admissions and not the dubious product of an overborne will.
Today’s decision thus ignores the important interests Miranda safeguards. The underlying constitutional guarantee against self-incrimination reflects “many of our fundamental values and most noble aspirations,” our society’s “preference for an accusatorial rather than an inquisitorial system of criminal justice”; a “fear that self-incriminating statements will be elicited by inhumane treatment and abuses” and a resulting “distrust of self-deprecatory statements”; and a realization that while the privilege is “sometimes a shelter to the guilty, [it] is often a protection to the innocent.” For these reasons, we have observed, a criminal law system “which comes to depend on the ‘confession’ will, in the long run, be less reliable and more subject to abuses than a system relying on independent investigation.” "By bracing against ‘the possibility of unreliable statements in every instance of in-custody interrogation,” Miranda’s prophylactic rules serve to “protect the fairness of the trial itself.” Today’s decision bodes poorly for the fundamental principles that Miranda protects.
Today’s decision turns Miranda upside down. Criminal suspects must now unambiguously invoke their right to remain silent—which, counterintuitively, requires them to speak. At the same time, suspects will be legally presumed to have waived their rights even if they have given no clear expression of their intent to do so. Those results, in my view, find no basis in Miranda or our subsequent cases and are inconsistent with the fair-trial principles on which those precedents are grounded. Today’s broad new rules are all the more unfortunate because they are unnecessary to the disposition of the case before us. I respectfully dissent.
SCOTUSblog has the rest of today's opinions -- nothing else meriting front-page treatment, IMHO, but do take a look.
Here's my follow-up question: should the Miranda warnings now include a warning regarding the impact of this decision? "If you want to invoke your right to remain silent, you need to say that -- either now or later on while we're together. Otherwise, we will presume you have waived these rights and are voluntarily willing to answer some questions."