O'Connor, J., dissenting
vidual's interest in not being compelled to testify against himself." Id., at 312. The plurality might very well think that we struck the balance between Fifth Amendment rights and law enforcement interests incorrectly in Elstad; but that is not normally a sufficient reason for ignoring the dictates of stare decisis.
I would analyze the two step interrogation procedure under the voluntariness standards central to the Fifth Amendment and reiterated in Elstad. Elstad commands that if Seibert's first statement is shown to have been involuntary, the court must examine whether the taint dissipated through the passing of time or a change in circumstances: "When a prior statement is actually coerced, the time that passes between confessions, the change in place of interrogations, and the change in identity of the interrogators all bear on whether that coercion has carried over into the second confession." Id., at 310 (citing Westover v. United States, decided with Miranda, 384 U.S., at 494). In addition, Seibert's second statement should be suppressed if she showed that it was involuntary despite the Miranda warnings. Elstad, supra, at 318 ("The relevant inquiry is whether, in fact, the second statement was also voluntarily made. As in any such inquiry, the finder of fact must examine the surrounding circumstances and the entire course of police conduct with respect to the suspect in evaluating the voluntariness of his statements"). Although I would leave this analysis for the Missouri courts to conduct on remand, I note that, unlike the officers in Elstad, Officer Hanrahan referred to Seibert's unwarned statement during the second part of the interrogation when she made a statement at odds with her unwarned confession. App. 70 ("'Trice, didn't you tell me that he was supposed to die in his sleep?"); cf. Elstad, supra, at 316 (officers did not "exploit the unwarned admission to pressure respondent into waiving his right to remain silent"). Such a tactic may bear on the voluntariness inquiry. Cf. Frazier v. Cupp, 394 U.S. 731, 739 (1969) (fact that police had falsely
