Breyer, J., concurring
would have been reasonable to regard the two sessions as parts of a continuum, in which it would have been unnatural to refuse to repeat at the second stage what had been said before. These circumstances must be seen as challenging the comprehensibility and efficacy of the Miranda warnings to the point that a reasonable person in the suspect's shoes would not have understood them to convey a message that she retained a choice about continuing to talk.[1]
VI
Strategists dedicated to draining the substance out of Miranda cannot accomplish by training instructions what Dickerson held Congress could not do by statute. Because the question first tactic effectively threatens to thwart Miranda's purpose of reducing the risk that a coerced confession would be admitted, and because the facts here do not reasonably support a conclusion that the warnings given could have served their purpose, Seibert's postwarning statements are inadmissible. The judgment of the Supreme Court of Missouri is affirmed.
Justice Breyer, concurring.
In my view, the following simple rule should apply to the two stage interrogation technique: Courts should exclude the "fruits" of the initial unwarned questioning unless the failure to warn was in good faith. Cf. Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298, 309, 318, n. 5 (1985); United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (1984). I believe this is a sound and workable approach to the problem this case presents. Prosecutors and judges have long understood how to apply the "fruits" approach, which they use in other areas of law. See [[Wong Sun v. United States|Wong Sun v. United States]], 371 U.S. 471 (1963). And in the workaday
- ↑ Because we find that the warnings were inadequate, there is no need to assess the actual voluntariness of the statement.
