422 U.S. 590 (1975)
On May 13, 1968, Chicago police detectives William Nolan and William Lenz broke into petitioner Richard Brown's apartment without a warrant or probable cause, searched it, and waited inside.1
When Brown arrived around 7:45 p.m. and climbed the rear stairs, the detectives arrested him at gunpoint after one positioned himself at the rear door window and the other approached from behind.2 The detectives had obtained Brown's name from the brother of murder victim Roger Corpus, killed one week earlier on May 6 with a .38-caliber revolver, but had identified him only as an acquaintance and lacked probable cause for arrest.3 They transported Brown to the Maxwell Street police station.4
At the station, after obtaining the Corpus homicide file, the detectives gave Brown Miranda warnings around 8:45 p.m. and questioned him for twenty to twenty-five minutes.5 Brown signed a two-page statement acknowledging that he and Jimmy Claggett had visited Corpus on May 5, that Claggett ordered Brown at gunpoint to bind Corpus, and that Claggett shot Corpus three times with a revolver Brown had sold him.6 The detectives and Brown then searched for Claggett, arrested him around 12:15 a.m., and returned to the station.7
Brown remained at the station and at 2 a.m. spoke with Assistant State's Attorney Crilly, who again administered Miranda warnings.8 Brown gave a second statement around 3 a.m. that was substantially consistent with the first but contained inaccuracies about his employment and education; he refused to sign it.9 Brown made a phone call to his mother at 4 a.m. and was taken before a magistrate at 9:30 a.m., approximately fourteen hours after arrest.10
Brown and Claggett were indicted on June 20, 1968.11 The trial court denied Brown's motion to suppress the statements after a hearing.12 At trial the State introduced evidence of both statements through Detective Nolan's testimony and the reading of the second statement to the jury.13
Brown was convicted of murder and sentenced to fifteen to thirty years' imprisonment. The Illinois Supreme Court affirmed the conviction.14
Whether the Miranda warnings, standing alone, are sufficient to attenuate the taint of an illegal arrest so that subsequent statements are admissible?15
Under Wong Sun v. United States the exclusionary rule requires that statements obtained after an illegal arrest be excluded unless the connection between the arrest and the evidence has become so attenuated as to dissipate the taint.16 The statement must be sufficiently an act of free will to purge the primary taint of the unlawful invasion rather than the product of exploitation of the illegality.17 Miranda warnings protect Fifth Amendment rights against compelled self-incrimination.18 They do not by themselves remedy or deter Fourth Amendment violations because the exclusionary rule serves distinct interests and policies under the Fourth Amendment directed at all unlawful searches and seizures.19
No. The Illinois Supreme Court adopted a per se rule that the giving of Miranda warnings in itself broke the causal connection between the illegal arrest and the statements.20 This approach is rejected because it would substantially dilute the deterrent effect of the exclusionary rule.21 It would encourage arrests without probable cause for the purpose of investigation or questioning with the knowledge that Miranda warnings alone could render any resulting statements admissible.22
The temporal proximity of the arrest and the confession, the absence of intervening circumstances, and the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct must all be considered.23 The burden of showing admissibility rests on the prosecution.24
The Miranda warnings standing alone are not sufficient to attenuate the taint of an illegal arrest so that subsequent statements are admissible.25
Related opinions on this issue
Justice White concurred in the judgment.26 He agreed that despite Miranda warnings the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments require the exclusion from evidence of statements obtained as the fruit of an arrest which the arresting officers knew or should have known was without probable cause and unconstitutional.27 White further agreed that the statements obtained in this case fell into that category.28
His concurrence underscores that the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule operates independently from the Fifth Amendment safeguards supplied by Miranda warnings.29 The warnings alone cannot cure the taint when officers effect an arrest they know or should know lacks probable cause.30
Justice Powell joined the holding that the per se rule adopted by the Illinois Supreme Court inadequately accommodates the diverse interests underlying the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule.31 He would have remanded the case for reconsideration by the state courts under the general standards articulated in the opinion rather than deciding the attenuation question on the existing record.32 Powell emphasized the need for fact-specific analysis of attenuation factors and distinguished between flagrantly abusive violations and technical violations.
In technical cases he would require less to find attenuation once Miranda warnings were given and the statement proved voluntary.33
Whether the statements obtained from the petitioner were the product of exploitation of the illegal arrest or instead were sufficiently an act of free will to purge the primary taint?34
Wong Sun v. United States requires that the admissibility of statements following an illegal arrest be determined by asking whether the evidence has been come at by exploitation of the illegality or instead by means sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint.35 Relevant factors include the temporal proximity of the arrest and the confession, the presence of intervening circumstances, and particularly the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct.36 The voluntariness of the statement remains a threshold requirement.37 The prosecution bears the burden of proof.38
Yes. Brown's first statement was obtained less than two hours after the illegal arrest with no intervening event of significance and in circumstances closely resembling those of Toy in Wong Sun.39 The second statement was clearly the result and fruit of the first.40
The arrest itself had a quality of purposefulness.41 The detectives repeatedly acknowledged that their action was for investigation or questioning.42 They embarked upon this expedition for evidence in the hope that something might turn up.43 The manner in which Brown's arrest was effected gives the appearance of having been calculated to cause surprise, fright, and confusion.44
The statements obtained from the petitioner were the product of exploitation of the illegal arrest and were not sufficiently an act of free will to purge the primary taint.45
Related opinions on this issue
Justice White concurred in the judgment. He agreed that the statements obtained in this case were the fruit of an arrest which the arresting officers knew or should have known was without probable cause and unconstitutional.46
White stressed that despite Miranda warnings the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments require the exclusion from evidence of statements obtained as the fruit of such an arrest.47
Justice Powell would have remanded for further factual inquiry into whether the officers reasonably believed probable cause existed and into the precise nature of the taint before deciding whether the statements were sufficiently attenuated from the illegal arrest.48 He noted the incomplete record on the officers' perceptions and the need for state court application of the attenuation factors.49
Powell observed that the trial court had not focused on the justification for the arrest and that conflicting testimony left open the possibility of a reasonable but mistaken belief in probable cause.50