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NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in
the preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are
requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the
United States, Washington, D.C. 20543, of any typographical or other
formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the
preliminary print goes to press.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
--------
No. 91-1030
--------
PAMELA WITHROW, PETITIONER v. ROBERT ____
ALLEN WILLIAMS, JR.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED
STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH
CIRCUIT
[April 21, 1993]
JUSTICE SOUTER delivered the opinion of the Court.
In Stone v. Powell, 428 U. S. 465 (1976), we held that when a State has given _____ ______
a full and fair chance to litigate a Fourth Amendment claim, federal habeas
review is not available to a state prisoner alleging that his conviction rests
on evidence obtained through an unconstitutional search or seizure. Today we
hold that Stone's restriction on the exercise of federal habeas jurisdiction _____
does not extend to a state prisoner's claim that his conviction rests on
statements obtained in violation of the safeguards mandated by Miranda v. _______
Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966)._______
I
Police officers in Romulus, Michigan learned that respondent, Robert Allen
Williams, Jr., might have information about a double murder committed on April
6, 1985. On April 10, two officers called at Williams's house and asked him to
the police station for questioning. Williams agreed to go. The officers
searched Williams, but did not handcuff him, and they all drove to the station
in an unmarked car. One officer, Sergeant David Early, later testified that
Williams was not under arrest at this time, although a contemporaneous police
report indicates that the officers arrested Williams at his resi- 91-1030 - OPINION
2 WITHROW v. WILLIAMS ____
dence. App. 12a-13a, 24a-26a.
At the station, the officers questioned Williams about his knowledge of the
crime. Although he first denied any involvement, he soon began to implicate
himself, and the officers continued their questioning, assuring Williams that
their only concern was the identity of the "shooter." After consulting each
other, the officers decided not to advise Williams of his rights under Miranda _______
v. Arizona, supra. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 48a. When Williams persisted in _______ _____
denying involvement, Sergeant Early reproved him:
"You know everything that went down. You just don't want to talk about it.
What it's gonna amount to is you can talk about it now and give us the truth
and we're gonna check it out and see if it fits or else we're simply gonna
charge you and lock you up and you can just tell it to a defense attorney and
let him try and prove differently." Ibid. _____
The reproof apparently worked, for Williams then admitted he had furnished the
murder weapon to the killer, who had called Williams after the crime and told
him where he had discarded the weapon and other incriminating items. Williams
maintained that he had not been present at the crime scene.
Only at this point, some 40 minutes after they began questioning him, did the
officers advise Williams of his Miranda rights. Williams waived those rights _______
and during subsequent questioning made several more inculpatory statements.
Despite his prior denial, Williams admitted that he had driven the murderer to
and from the scene of the crime, had witnessed the murders, and had helped the
murderer dispose of incriminating evidence. The officers interrogated Williams
again on April 11 and April 12, and, on April 12, the State formally charged him
with murder.
Before trial, Williams moved to suppress his responses 91-1030 - OPINION
WITHROW v. WILLIAMS 3 ____
to the interrogations, and the trial court suppressed the statements of April 11
and April 12 as the products of improper delay in arraignment under Michigan
law. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 90a-91a. The court declined to suppress the
statements of April 10, however, ruling that the police had given Williams a
timely warning of his Miranda rights. Id., at 90a. A bench trial led to _______ ___
Williams's conviction on two counts each of first-degree murder and possession
of a firearm during the commission of a felony and resulted in two concurrent
life sentences. The Court of Appeals of Michigan affirmed the trial court's
ruling on the April 10 statements, People v. Williams, 171 Mich. App. 234, 429 ______ ________
N. W. 2d 649 (1988), and the Supreme Court of Michigan denied leave to appeal,
432 Mich. 913, 440 N. W. 2d 416 (1989). We denied the ensuing petition for writ
of certiorari. Williams v. Michigan, 493 U. S. 956 (1989). ________ ________
Williams then began this action pro se by petitioning for a writ of habeas ______
corpus in the District Court, alleging a violation of his Miranda rights as the _______
principal ground for relief. Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus in No.
90CV-70256, p. 5 (ED Mich.). The District Court granted relief, finding that
the police had placed Williams in custody for Miranda purposes when Sergeant _______
Early had threatened to "lock [him] up," and that the trial court should
accordingly have excluded all statements Williams had made between that point
and his receipt of the Miranda warnings. App. to Pet. for Cert. 49a-52a. The _______
court also concluded, though neither Williams nor petitioner had addressed the
issue, that Williams's statements after receiving the Miranda warnings were _______
involuntary under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and thus
likewise subject to suppression. App. to Pet. for Cert. 52a-71a. The court
found that the totality of circumstances, including repeated promises of lenient
treatment if he told the truth, had overborne Williams's 91-1030 - OPINION
4 WITHROW v. WILLIAMS ____
will. (Ftnote. 1) (Ftnote. 1)
The Court of Appeals affirmed, 944 F. 2d 284 (CA6 1991), holding the District
Court correct in determining the police had subjected Williams to custodial
interrogation before giving him the requisite Miranda advice, and in finding the _______
statements made after receiving the Miranda warnings involuntary. Id., at _______ ___
289-290. The Court of Appeals summarily rejected the argument that the rule in
Stone v. Powell, 428 U. S. 465 (1976), should apply to bar habeas review of_____ ______
Williams's Miranda claim. 944 F. 2d, at 291. We granted certiorari to resolve _______
the significant issue thus presented. 503 U. S. ---
(1992). (Ftnote. 2) (Ftnote. 2)
II
We have made it clear that Stone's limitation on federal habeas relief was not _____
jurisdictional in nature, (Ftnote. 3) but rested on prudential concerns (Ftnote. 3)
counseling against the application of the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule on
collateral review. See Stone, supra, at 494-495, n. 37; see also Kuhlmann v. _____ _____ ________
Wilson, 477 U. S. 436, 447 (1986) (opinion______
____________________
1) The District Court mistakenly believed that the trial court had allowed 1)
the introduction of the statements Williams had made on April 12, and its ruling
consequently extended to those statements as well. App. to Pet. for Cert.
72a-75a.
2) JUSTICE SCALIA argues in effect that the rule in Stone v. Powell, 428 2) _____ ______
U. S. 465 (1976), should extend to all claims on federal habeas review. See
post, at 6. With respect, that reasoning goes beyond the question on which we____
granted certiorari, Pet. for Cert. 1 ("where the premise of [a] Fifth Amendment
ruling is a finding of a Miranda violation, where the petitioner has had one _______
full and fair opportunity to raise the Miranda claim in state court, should _______
collateral review of the same claim on a habeas corpus petition be precluded?"),
and we see no good reason to address it in this case.
3) Title 28 U. S. C. S2254(a) provides: "The Supreme Court, a Justice 3)
thereof, a circuit judge, or a district court shall entertain an application for
a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the
judgment of a State court only on the ground that he is in custody in violation
of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States." 91-1030 - OPINION
WITHROW v. WILLIAMS 5 ____
of Powell, J.) (discussing equitable principles underlying Stone); Kimmelman v. _____ _________
Morrison, 477 U. S. 365, 379, n. 4 (1986); Allen v. McCurry, 449 U. S. 90, 103________ _____ _______
(1980) (Stone concerns "the prudent exercise of federal-court jurisdiction under _____
28 U. S. C. S2254"); cf. 28 U. S. C. S 2243 (court entertaining habeas petition
shall "dispose of the matter as law and justice require"). We simply concluded
in Stone that the costs of applying the exclusionary rule on collateral review _____
outweighed any potential advantage to be gained by applying it there. Stone, _____
supra, at 489-495._____
We recognized that the exclusionary rule, held applicable to the States in
Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643 (1961), "is not a personal constitutional right"; it____ ____
fails to redress "the injury to the privacy of the victim of the search or
seizure" at issue, "for any `[r]eparation comes too late.'" Stone, supra, at _____ _____
486 (quoting Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U. S. 618, 637 (1965)). The rule serves __________ ______
instead to deter future Fourth Amendment violations, and we reasoned that its
application on collateral review would only marginally advance this interest in
deterrence. Stone, 428 U. S., at 493. On the other side of the ledger, the ______
costs of applying the exclusionary rule on habeas were comparatively great. We
reasoned that doing so would not only exclude reliable evidence and divert
attention from the central question of guilt, but would also intrude upon the
public interest in "`(i) the most effective utilization of limited judicial
resources, (ii) the necessity of finality in criminal trials, (iii) the
minimization of friction between our federal and state systems of justice, and
(iv) the maintenance of the constitutional balance upon which the doctrine of
federalism is founded.'" Id., at 491, n. 31 (quoting Schneckloth v. ___ ___________
Bustamonte, 412 U. S. 218, 259 (1973) (Powell, J., concurring)).__________
Over the years, we have repeatedly declined to extend the rule in Stone beyond _____
its original bounds. In Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307 (1979), for example, _______ ________
we denied a request to apply Stone to bar habeas consideration of _____ 91-1030 - OPINION
6 WITHROW v. WILLIAMS ____
a Fourteenth Amendment due process claim of insufficient evidence to support a
state conviction. We stressed that the issue was "central to the basic question
of guilt or innocence," Jackson, 443 U. S., at 323, unlike a claim that a state ________
court had received evidence in violation of the Fourth Amendment exclusionary
rule, and we found that to review such a claim on habeas imposed no great
burdens on the federal courts. Id., at 321-322. ___
After a like analysis, in Rose v. Mitchell, 443 U. S. 545 (1979), we decided ____ ________
against extending Stone to foreclose habeas review of an equal protection claim _____
of racial discrimination in selecting a state grand-jury foreman. A charge that
state adjudication had violated the direct command of the Fourteenth Amendment
implicated the integrity of the judicial process, we reasoned, Rose, 443 U. S., _____
at 563, and failed to raise the "federalism concerns" that had driven the Court
in Stone. 443 U. S., at 562. Since federal courts had granted relief to state _____
prisoners upon proof of forbidden discrimination for nearly a century, we
concluded, "confirmation that habeas corpus remains an appropriate vehicle by
which federal courts are to exercise their Fourteenth Amendment
responsibilities" would not likely raise tensions between the state and federal
judicial systems. Ibid. _____
In a third instance, in Kimmelman v. Morrison, 477 U. S. 365 (1986), we again _________ ________
declined to extend Stone, in that case to bar habeas review of certain claims of _____
ineffective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment. We explained that
unlike the Fourth Amendment, which confers no "trial right," the Sixth confers a
"fundamental right" on criminal defendants, one that "assures the fairness, and
thus the legitimacy, of our adversary process." Kimmelman, 477 U. S., at 374. __________
We observed that because a violation of the right would often go unremedied
except on collateral review, "restricting the litigation of some Sixth Amendment
claims to trial and direct review would seriously interfere with an accused's
right to 91-1030 - OPINION
WITHROW v. WILLIAMS 7 ____
effective representation." Id., at 378. ___
In this case, the argument for extending Stone again falls _____
short. (Ftnote. 4) To understand why, a brief review of the derivation of the (Ftnote. 4)
Miranda safeguards, and the purposes they were designed to serve, is in order._______
The Self-Incrimination Clause of the Fifth Amendment guarantees that no person
"shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself."
U. S. Const., Amdt. 5. In Bram v. United States, 168 U. S. 532 (1897), the ____ _____________
Court held that the Clause barred the introduction in federal cases of
involuntary confessions made in response to custodial interrogation. We did not
recognize the Clause's applicability to state cases until 1964, however, see
Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U. S. 1, and, over the course of 30 years, beginning with______ _____
the decision in Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U. S. 278 (1936), we analyzed the _____ ___________
admissibility of confessions in such cases as a question of due process under
the Fourteenth Amendment. See Stone, The Miranda Doctrine in the Burger Court,
1977 S. Ct. Rev. 99, 101-102. Under this approach, we examined the totality of
circumstances to determine whether a confession had been "`made freely,
voluntarily and without compulsion or inducement of any sort.'" Haynes v. ______
Washington, 373 U. S. 503, 513 (1963) (quoting Wilson v. United States, 162__________ ______ _____________
U. S. 613, 623 (1896)); see also Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, supra, at 223-227 ___________ __________ _____
(discussing totality-of-circumstances approach). See generally 1 W. LaFave & J.
Israel, Criminal Procedure S6.2 (1984). Indeed, we continue to employ the
totality-of-circumstances approach when addressing a claim that the introduction
of an involuntary confession has violated due process. E. g., Arizona v. _____ _______ _
Fulminante, 499 U. S. --- (1991); Miller v. Fenton, 474 U. S. 104, 109-110__________ ______ ______
(1985).
____________________
4) We have in the past declined to address the application of Stone in this 4) _____
context. See, e.g., Duckworth v. Eagan, 492 U. S. 195, 201, n. 3 (1989); ____ _ _________ _____
Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U. S. 72, 87, n. 11 (1977).__________ _____ 91-1030 - OPINION
8 WITHROW v. WILLIAMS ____
In Malloy, we recognized that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Fifth ______
Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, and thereby opened Bram's ____
doctrinal avenue for the analysis of state cases. So it was that two years
later we held in Miranda that the privilege extended to state custodial _______
interrogations. In Miranda, we spoke of the privilege as guaranteeing a person _______
under inter-rogation "the right `to remain silent unless he chooses to speak in
the unfettered exercise of his own will,'" Miranda, 384 U. S., at 460 (quoting _______
Malloy, supra, at 8), and held that "without proper safeguards the process of______ _____
in-custody interrogation . . . contains inherently compelling pressures which
work to undermine the individual's will to resist and to compel him to speak
where he would not otherwise do so freely." 384 U. S., at 467. To counter
these pressures we prescribed, absent "other fully effective means," the now-
familiar measures in aid of a defendant's Fifth Amendment privilege:
"He must be warned prior to any questioning that he has the right to remain
silent, that anything he says can be used against him in a court of law, that
he has the right to the presence of an attorney, and that if he cannot afford
an attorney one will be appointed for him prior to any questioning if he so
desires. Opportunity to exercise these rights must be afforded to him
throughout the interrogation. After such warnings have been given, and such
opportunity afforded him, the individual may knowingly and intelligently
waive these rights and agree to answer questions or make a statement." Id., ___
at 479.
Unless the prosecution can demonstrate the warnings and waiver as threshold
matters, we held, it may not overcome an objection to the use at trial of
statements obtained from the person in any ensuing custodial interrogation. See
ibid.; cf. Oregon v. Hass, 420 U. S. 714, 721-723 (1975) (permitting use for______ ______ ____
impeachment purposes of 91-1030 - OPINION
WITHROW v. WILLIAMS 9 ____
statements taken in violation of Miranda). _______
Petitioner, supported by the United States as amicus curiae, argues that _____________
Miranda's safeguards are not constitutional in character, but merely_______
"prophylactic," and that in consequence habeas review should not extend to a
claim that a state conviction rests on statements obtained in the absence of
those safeguards. Brief for Petitioner 91-93; Brief for United States as Amicus ______
Curiae 14-15. We accept petitioner's premise for purposes of this case, but not______
her conclusion.
The Miranda Court did of course caution that the Constitution requires no _______
"particular solution for the inherent compulsions of the interrogation process,"
and left it open to a State to meet its burden by adopting "other procedures
. . . at least as effective in apprising accused persons" of their rights.
Miranda, 384 U. S., at 467. The Court indeed acknowledged that, in barring_______
introduction of a statement obtained without the required warnings, Miranda _______
might exclude a confession that we would not condemn as "involuntary in
traditional terms," id., at 457, and for this reason we have sometimes called ___
the Miranda safeguards "prophylactic" in nature. E. g., Duckworth v. Eagan, 492 _______ _____ _________ _____
U. S. 195, 203 (1989); Connecticut v. Barrett, 479 U. S. 523, 528 (1987); Oregon ___________ _______ ______
v. Elstad, 470 U. S. 298, 305 (1985); New York v. Quarles, 467 U. S. 649, 654 ______ ________ _______
(1984); see Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U. S. 433, 444 (1974) (Miranda Court ________ ______ _______
"recognized that these procedural safeguards were not themselves rights
protected by the Constitution but were instead measures to insure that the right
against compulsory self-incrimination was protected"). But cf. Quarles, supra, _______ _____
at 660 (opinion of O'CONNOR, J.) (Miranda Court "held unconstitutional, because _______
inherently compelled, the admission of statements derived from in-custody
questioning not preceded by an explanation of the privilege against self-
incrimination and the consequences of forgoing it"). Calling the Miranda safe- _______
guards "prophylactic," however, is a far cry from putting Miranda on all _______ 91-1030 - OPINION
10 WITHROW v. WILLIAMS ____
fours with Mapp, or from rendering Miranda subject to Stone. ____ _______ _____
As we explained in Stone, the Mapp rule "is not a personal constitutional _____ ____
right," but serves to deter future constitutional violations; although it
mitigates the juridical consequences of invading the defendant's privacy, the
exclusion of evidence at trial can do nothing to remedy the completed and wholly
extrajudicial Fourth Amendment violation. Stone, 428 U. S., at 486. Nor can _____
the Mapp rule be thought to enhance the soundness of the criminal process by ____
improving the reliability of evidence introduced at trial. Quite the contrary,
as we explained in Stone, the evidence excluded under Mapp "is typically _____ ____
reliable and often the most probative information bearing on the guilt or
innocence of the defendant." 428 U. S., at 490.
Miranda differs from Mapp in both respects. "Prophylactic" though it may be, _______ ____
in protecting a defendant's Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination
Miranda safeguards "a fundamental trial right." United States v. Verdugo-_______ _____ _____________ ________
Urquidez, 494 U. S. 259, 264 (1990) (emphasis added); cf. Kimmelman, 477 U. S.,________ _________
at 377 (Stone does not bar habeas review of claim that the personal trial right _____
to effective assistance of counsel has been violated). The privilege embodies
"principles of humanity and civil liberty, which had been secured in the mother
country only after years of struggle," Bram, 168 U. S., at 544, and reflects ____
"many of our fundamental values and most noble aspirations: . . . our
preference for an accusatorial rather than an inquisitorial system of
criminal justice; our fear that self-incriminating statements will be
elicited by inhumane treatment and abuses; our sense of fair play which
dictates `a fair state-individual balance by requiring the government to
leave the individual alone until good cause is shown for disturbing him and
by requiring the government in its contest with the individual to shoulder
the entire 91-1030 - OPINION
WITHROW v. WILLIAMS 11 ____
load;' our respect for the inviolability of the human personality and of the
right of each individual `to a private enclave where he may lead a private
life;' our distrust of self-deprecatory statements; and our realization that
the privilege, while sometimes `a shelter to the guilty,' is often `a
protection to the innocent.'" Murphy v. Waterfront Comm'n of New York ______ _____________________________
Harbor, 378 U. S. 52, 55 (1964) (citations omitted). _______
Nor does the Fifth Amendment "trial right" protected by Miranda serve some _______
value necessarily divorced from the correct ascertainment of guilt. "`[A]
system of criminal law enforcement 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." Michigan v. Tucker, supra, at ________ ______________
448, n. 23 (quoting Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U. S. 478, 488-489 (1964)). By ________ ________
bracing against "the possibility of unreliable statements in every instance of
in-custody interrogation," Miranda serves to guard against "the use of _______
unreliable statements at trial." Johnson v. New Jersey, 384 U. S. 719, 730 _______ __________
(1966); see also Schneckloth, 412 U. S., at 240 (Miranda "Court made it clear ___________ _______
that the basis for decision was the need to protect the fairness of the trial
itself"); Halpern, Federal Habeas Corpus and the Mapp Exclusionary Rule After ____
Stone v. Powell, 82 Colum. L. Rev. 1, 40 (1982); cf. Rose v. Mitchell, 443 U. S._____ ______ ____ ________
545 (1979) (Stone does not bar habeas review of claim of racial discrimination _____
in selection of grand-jury foreman, as this claim goes to the integrity of the
judicial process).
Finally, and most importantly, eliminating review of Miranda claims would not _______
significantly benefit the federal courts in their exercise of habeas
jurisdiction, or advance the cause of federalism in any substantial way. As one
amicus concedes, eliminating habeas review of Miranda issues would not prevent a______ _______
state prisoner from simply converting his barred Miranda claim into a due _______
process claim that his conviction rested on an involuntary confes- 91-1030 - OPINION
12 WITHROW v. WILLIAMS ____
sion. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 17. Indeed, although _____________
counsel could provide us with no empirical basis for projecting the consequence
of adopting petitioner's position, see Tr. of Oral Arg. 9-11, 19-21, it seems
reasonable to suppose that virtually all Miranda claims would simply be recast _______
in this way. (Ftnote. 5) (Ftnote. 5)
If that is so, the federal courts would certainly not have heard the last of
Miranda on collateral review. Under the due process approach, as we have_______
already seen, courts look to the totality of circumstances to determine whether
a confession was voluntary. Those potential circumstances include not only the
crucial element of police coercion, Colorado v. Connelly, 479 U. S. 157, 167 ________ ________
(1986); the length of the interrogation, Ashcraft v. Tennessee, 322 U. S. 143, ________ _________
153-154 (1944); its location, see Reck v. Pate, 367 U. S. 433, 441 (1961); its ____ ____
continuity, Leyra v. Denno, 347 U. S. 556, 561 (1954); the defendant's maturity, _____ _____
Haley v. Ohio, 332 U. S. 596, 599-601 (1948) (opinion of Douglas, J.);_____ ____
education, Clewis v. Texas, 386 U. S. 707, 712 (1967); physical condition, ______ _____
Greenwald v. Wisconsin, 390 U. S. 519, 520-521 (1968) (per curiam); and mental_________ _________ _____________
health, Fikes v. Alabama, 352 U. S. 191, 196 (1957). They also include the _____ _______
failure of police to advise the defendant of his rights to remain silent and to
have counsel present during custodial interrogation. Haynes v. Washington, 373 ______ __________
U. S. 503, 516-517 (1963); Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 19, n. 17; _____________
see also Schneckloth, supra, at 226 (discussing factors). We could lock the ___________________
front door against Miranda, but not the back. _______
We thus fail to see how abdicating Miranda's bright-line (or, at least, _______
brighter-line) rules in favor of an exhaustive totality-of-circumstances
approach on habeas would do much of anything to lighten the burdens placed on
busy
____________________
5) JUSTICE O'CONNOR is confident that many such claims would be 5)
unjustified, see post, at 13, but that is beside the point. Justifiability is ____
not much of a gatekeeper on habeas. 91-1030 - OPINION
WITHROW v. WILLIAMS 13 ____
federal courts. See P. Bator, D. Meltzer, P. Mishkin, & D. Shapiro, Hart and
Wechsler's The Federal Courts and the Federal System 188 (3d ed. 1988, Supp.
1992); Halpern, supra, at 40; Schulhofer, Confessions and the Court, 79 Mich. L. _____
Rev. 865, 891 (1981); see also Quarles, 467 U. S., at 664 (opinion of O'CONNOR, _______
J.) (quoting Fare v. Michael C., 439 U. S. 1310, 1314 (1978) (REHNQUIST, J., in ____ __________
chambers on application for stay)) (Miranda's "`core virtue' " was "`afford[ing] _______
police and courts clear guidance on the manner in which to conduct a custodial
investigation'"). We likewise fail to see how purporting to eliminate Miranda _______
issues from federal habeas would go very far to relieve such tensions as Miranda _______
may now raise between the two judicial systems. Relegation of habeas
petitioners to straight involuntariness claims would not likely reduce the
amount of litigation, and each such claim would in any event present a legal
question requiring an "independent federal determination" on habeas. Miller v. ______
Fenton, 474 U. S., at 112.______
One might argue that tension results between the two judicial systems whenever
a federal habeas court overturns a state conviction on finding that the state
court let in a voluntary confession obtained by the police without the Miranda _______
safeguards. And one would have to concede that this has occurred in the past,
and doubtless will occur again. It is not reasonable, however, to expect such
occurrences to be frequent enough to amount to a substantial cost of reviewing
Miranda claims on habeas or to raise federal-state tensions to an appreciable_______
degree. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 11, 21. We must remember in this regard that
Miranda came down some 27 years ago. In that time, law enforcement has grown in_______
constitutional as well as technological sophistication, and there is little
reason to believe that the police today are unable, or even generally unwilling,
to satisfy Miranda's requirements. See Quarles, supra, at 663 (opinion of _______ _______ _____
O'CONNOR, J.) (quoting Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U. S. 291, 304 (1980) ____________ _____ 91-1030 - OPINION
14 WITHROW v. WILLIAMS ____
(Burger, C. J., concurring in judgment)) ("`meaning of Miranda has become _______
reasonably clear and law enforcement practices have adjusted to its
strictures'"); Schulhofer, Reconsidering Miranda, 54 U. Chi. L. Rev. 435, _______
455-457 (1987). (Ftnote. 6) And if, finally, one should question the need for (Ftnote. 6)
federal collateral review of requirements that merit such respect, the answer
simply is that the respect is sustained in no small part by the existence of
such review. "It is the occasional abuse that the federal writ of habeas corpus
stands ready to correct." Jackson, 443 U. S., at 322. _______
III
One final point should keep us only briefly. As he had done in his state
appellate briefs, on habeas Williams raised only one claim going to the
admissibility of his statements to the police: that the police had elicited
those statements without satisfying the Miranda requirements. See supra, at 3. _______ _____
In her answer, petitioner addressed only that claim. See Brief in Support of
Answer in No. 90CV-70256 DT, p. 3 (ED Mich.). The District Court, nonetheless,
without an evidentiary hearing or even argument, went beyond the habeas petition
and found the statements Williams made after receiving the Miranda warnings to _______
be involuntary under due process criteria. Before the Court of Appeals, peti-
tioner objected to the District Court's due process enquiry on the ground that
the habeas petition's reference to Miranda rights had given her insufficient _______
notice to address a due process claim. Brief for Respondent-Appellant in No.
90-2289, p. 6 (CA6). Petitioner pursues the objection here. See Pet.
____________________
6) It should indeed come as no surprise that one of the submissions arguing 6)
against the extension of Stone in this case comes to us from law enforcement _____
organizations. See Brief for the Police Foundation et al. as Amici Curiae. ____________ 91-1030 - OPINION
WITHROW v. WILLIAMS 15 ____
for Cert. 1; Brief for Petitioner 14-15, n. 2.
Williams effectively concedes that his habeas petition raised no
involuntariness claim, but he argues that the matter was tried by the implied
consent of the parties under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
15(b), (Ftnote. 7) and that petitioner can demonstrate no prejudice from the (Ftnote. 7)
District Court's action. See Brief for Respondent 41-42, n. 22. The record,
however, reveals neither thought, word, nor deed of petitioner that could be
taken as any sort of consent to the determination of an independent due process
claim, and petitioner was manifestly prejudiced by the District Court's failure
to afford her an opportunity to present evidence bearing on that claim's
resolution. The District Court should not have addressed the involuntariness
question in these circumstances. (Ftnote. 8) (Ftnote. 8)
IV
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed in part and reversed in part,
and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered. _________________
____________________
7) The relevant part of Rule 15(b) provides: "When issues not raised by the 7)
pleadings are tried by express or implied consent of the parties, they shall be
treated in all respects as if they had been raised in the pleadings. Such
amendment of the pleadings as may be necessary to cause them to conform to the
evidence and to raise these issues may be made upon motion of any party at any
time, even after judgment; but failure so to amend does not affect the result of
the trial of these issues." See 28 U. S. C. S2254 Rule 11 (application of
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to habeas petitions); 1 J. Liebman, Federal
Habeas Corpus Practice and Procedure S17.2 (1988) (Rule 15 applies in habeas
actions).
8) We need not address petitioner's arguments that Williams failed to 8)
exhaust the involuntariness claim in the state courts and that the District
Court applied a new rule under Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288 (1989). Of course, ______ ____
we also express no opinion on the merits of the involuntariness claim.