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If this Court finds that the initial encounter between Fellers and the arresting officers produced a Massiah violation, then this case centers on whether the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine extends to cover the jailhouse confession that was taken in conformity with Massiah and Mirandav. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1968). See supra, at 4-5. Courts administering this derivative evidence doctrine must be careful not to substitute metaphor for analysis. "Metaphors in the law are to be narrowly watched, for starting as devices to liberate thought, they end often by enslaving it." Berkey v. Third Ave. R. Co., 244 N. Y. 84, 94, 155 N. E. 58, 61 (1926) (Cardozo, J.). The fruit of the poisonous tree is a metaphor, seeOregon v. Elstad, 470 U. S. 298, 303 (1985), that is misleading when taken out of context. It is a more limited doctrine than its broad metaphor seemingly suggests.
The fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine is an extension of the exclusionary rule. Under the exclusionary rule, evidence taken through means that violate the Fourth Amendment is excluded in order to deter future constitutional violations. See United States v. Calandra, 414 U. S. 338, 347 (1974). The exclusion of relevant, reliable evidence comes at a high cost to society. See Stone v. Powell, 428 U. S. 465, 490-491 (1976). The fruits doctrine goes one step further, extending the exclusionary rule to evidence taken in a constitutional manner but somehow "tainted" by a prior constitutional violation, making an already costly doctrine even more expensive.
This Court appreciates the high cost of this doctrine. "The core rationale consistently advanced by this Court for extending the exclusionary rule to evidence that is the fruit of unlawful police conduct has been that this admittedly drastic and socially costly course is needed to deter police from violations of constitutional and statutory protections." Nix v. Williams, 467 U. S. 431, 442-443 (1984). Therefore, the fruits doctrine is applied practically rather than mechanically. Any application of the fruits doctrine must consider the context of the initial constitutional violation and the derivative evidence under attack.
There are times when the fruits doctrine can be applied without controversy. Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, 251 U. S. 385 (1920) provides the template for excluding derivative evidence. After an indictment against the company, agents of the United States illegally entered its office "and made a clean sweep of all the books, papers, and documents found there." Id., at 390. The Court ordered the originals returned, but the government made copies and used them to subpoena Silverthorne Lumber to produce the originals. See id., at 390-391. Forcing the company to produce the records through this trick "reduces the Fourth Amendment to a form of words." Id., at 392. The government cannot be allowed to exploit the illegal seizure to legally acquire the goods it illegally seized. The Fourth Amendment protects privacy. See Payton v. New York, 445 U. S. 573, 589 (1980). Upholding the subpoena in Silverthorne would have made a mockery of the company's privacy.
Silverthorne demonstrates that it is comparatively simple to apply the fruits doctrine to tangible evidence obtained in this manner. In these cases, the government typically gains knowledge of the evidence through an illegal act, and then uses that knowledge to gain possession over the newly discovered piece of evidence. Where the causal connection between the illegal act and the derivative evidence is inseparable, failing to suppress the derivative evidence fatally undermines the underlying right.
Nix v. Williams, 467 U. S. 431 (1984) is a more modern example of this relationship between a constitutional violation and derivative evidence. This decision addressed the second trial of the defendant in Brewer v. Williams, 430 U. S. 387 (1977). While the Brewer Court held that Massiahsuppressed the statements of Williams that were induced by the "Christian burial speech," it reserved the issue of whether the fruits of that speech should be suppressed. See id., at 406-407, n. 12. Nix applied the fruits doctrine to this Massiah violation, see 467 U. S., at 441-442, but admitted the derivative evidence under the inevitable discovery exception. See id., at 448. Like Silverthorne, there was an unmistakable connection between the constitutional violation and the tangible fruits of that violation.
The speech struck down in Brewer was an appeal to Williams to identify the location of his victim's body so that the young girl might be given a proper Christian burial. See 430 U. S., at 392. Nix addressed the admissibility of "evidence pertaining to the discovery and condition of the victim's body . . . ." 467 U. S., at 434. Williams' responses to the illegal speech allowed the government to find the victim's body. Since theMassiah violation gave the government the knowledge that allowed them to find this derivative evidence, the Nix Court had no choice but to apply the fruits doctrine. (3)
Nix cited United States v. Wade, 388 U. S. 218 (1967) for the proposition that the fruits doctrine applied to Sixth Amendment violations. See 467 U. S., at 442. Wade involved uniquely compelling reasons to suppress derivative evidence. Wade held that a post-indictment lineup without counsel violated the Sixth Amendment, 388 U. S., at 237, and that any in-court identification of the accused by witnesses who participated in the unconstitutional lineup was subject to suppression under the fruits doctrine. See id., at 241 (applying Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U. S. 471 (1963)). Here, the constitutional violation did not allow the government to discover the derivative evidence. Instead, the initial Sixth Amendment violation rendered the derivative evidence unreliable.
The primary threat posed by lineups is misidentification through suggestion. "A major factor contributing to the high incidence of miscarriage of justice from mistaken identification has been the degree of suggestion inherent in the manner in which the prosecution presents the suspect to witnesses for pretrial identification." Wade, 388 U. S., at 228. Once the witness identifies the victim in a lineup there is usually no going back for the witness.
"Moreover, '[i]t is a matter of common experience that, once a witness has picked out the accused at the line-up, he is not likely to go back on his word later on, so that in practice the issue of identity may (in the absence of other relevant evidence) for all practical purposes be determined there and then, before the trial.' " Id., at 229 (footnote omitted).
Wade's right to counsel guards against improperly suggestive lineups. See id., at 236-237. A lineup lacking this protection can illegally transmit the information that the accused is the perpetrator from the government to the witness. Once the witness accepts this suggestion he or she is almost certain to repeat it at trial, giving the government valuable evidence that is almost impossible to attack through cross-examination. See id., at 232. Any in-court identification after an uncounseled lineup poses an excessive risk of being unreliable. The Wade Court had little option but to apply the fruits doctrine and require the government to purge the taint. See id., at 241.
The present case is distinguished from these by the fact that the allegedly tainted evidence is a confession. Confessions are not discovered like photographs, drugs, or a body. A valid confession must be the voluntary act of the defendant. See Dickerson v. United States, 530 U. S. 428, 433 (2000). The exploitation of improperly gained knowledge does not enter this equation. A defendant who voluntarily confesses knows that he or she is guilty, and the interrogating officer thinks the same. This does not render the fruits doctrine irrelevant to confessions obtained after constitutional violations. Indeed, the most famous fruits case involved the suppression of a derivative confession. See Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U. S. 471, 485-486 (1963). Confessions, however, require more detailed analysis than found in the previously mentioned applications of the fruits doctrine. This analysis reveals the true nature of the fruits doctrine.
The Court's treatment of confessions under the fruits doctrine shows how this doctrine is driven by constitutional policy. Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U. S. 298 (1985) demonstrates this relationship between the Constitution and the fruits doctrine. Elstad involved an initial interrogation that produced a confession taken contrary to the Miranda rule, followed by a confession by the same suspect that complied with Miranda. See id., at 300. Instead of unthinkingly applying the fruits doctrine to suppress the second confession, the Elstad Court examined the constitutional ends served by the Fifth Amendment and Miranda.
The opinion first examined Miranda's relationship to the Fifth Amendment. "Miranda required suppression of many statements that would have been admissible under traditional due process analysis" through its conclusive presumption. See id., at 304. This overprotection of the Fifth Amendment, see id., at 306, came at a considerable cost. Voluntary confessions play a valuable role in our criminal justice system. See id., at 305. "Miranda's preventative medicine provides a remedy even to the defendant who has suffered no identifiable constitutional harm." Id., at 307. This means that a failure to give Miranda warnings is not itself a constitutional violation, see id., at 306, and n. 1, and thus statements taken contrary to Miranda can be used for other purposes. See id., at 307. Since Miranda already operates at the limits of the Fifth Amendment, applying the fruits doctrine to subsequent confessions would push this rule too far.
"It is an unwarranted extension of Miranda to hold that a simple failure to administer the warnings, unaccompanied by any actual coercion or circumstances calculated to undermine the suspect's ability to exercise his free will, so taints the investigatory process that a subsequent voluntary and informed waiver is ineffective for some indeterminate period." Id., at 309.
The Elstad Court compared Miranda to the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule and found "fundamental differences" between the two. Id., at 304. The Fourth Amendment's exclusionary rule only deters constitutional violations, see id., at 306, as opposed to Miranda's overdeterrence. This justified a broader application of the fruits doctrine to Fourth Amendment violations than to Miranda claims. See ibid. Since excluding an allegedly derivative, but otherwise legal confession would not advance the legitimate interests of Miranda or the Fifth Amendment, suppression was not justified.
Even the "traditionally mandated broad application" of the fruits doctrine to Fourth Amendment violations, see ibid., requires justification derived from constitutional policy. This reasoning is found in the first broad application of the doctrine, Wong Sun v. United States, supra. Wong Sunaddressed the admissibility of statements made by the arrestee in the course of his illegal arrest. See 371 U. S., at 484. It held that since the statements were derived from an illegal seizure they must be excluded under the logic of the exclusionary rule.
"Either in terms of deterring lawless conduct by federal officers, [citation] or of closing the doors of the federal courts to any use of evidence unconstitutionally obtained, [citation] the danger of relaxing the exclusionary rules in the case of verbal evidence would seem too great to warrant introducing such a distinction." Id., at 486.
The decisions after Wong Sun reinforce and explain the relationship between the fruits doctrine and the constitutional right it protects. Brown v.Illinois, 422 U. S. 590 (1975) addressed the impact of Miranda on Wong Sun. Since Wong Sun was decided before Miranda, a valid Mirandawaiver might distinguish the case from Wong Sun and the fruits doctrine. See id., at 591-592. This claim was rejected because of the role played by illegal seizures in securing confessions. " '[T]he "unreasonable searches and seizures" condemned in the Fourth Amendment are almost always made for the purpose of compelling a man to give evidence against himself, which in criminal cases is condemned in the Fifth Amendment.' " Id., at 602 (quoting Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616, 633 (1886)).
Custody does play an important role in securing confessions. The isolation and control brought about by custody placed considerable pressure to confess on the suspect. "[T]he very fact of custodial interrogation exacts a heavy toll on individual liberty and trades on the weakness of individuals." Miranda, 384 U. S., at 455. The "inherently compelling pressures" on custodial suspects justified requiring the Miranda warnings before custodial interrogations. See id., at 467. Therefore illegal arrests give police an unwarranted edge in getting the suspect to confess.
If the fruits doctrine did not apply to confessions following illegal arrests, then the temptation to arrest without probable cause would be too great.
"Arrests made without warrant or without probable cause, for questioning or 'investigation,' would be encouraged by the knowledge that evidence derived therefrom could well be made admissible at trial by the simple expedient of giving Miranda warnings. Any incentive to avoid Fourth Amendment violations would be eviscerated by making the warnings, in effect, a 'cure-all,' and the constitutional guarantee against unlawful searches and seizures could be said to be reduced to 'a form of words.' " Brown, 422 U. S., at 602-603 (footnote omitted).
The close connection between illegal arrests and confessions meant that the prosecution must independently establish that the confession was "the product of a free will under Wong Sun" under "the facts of each case." Id., at 603. While Miranda played an important role in attenuating the taint of the illegal arrest, it was far from dispositive on this issue. See id., at 603-604.
Like Elstad, the Brown decision reflected the different interests served by the Fourth and Fifth Amendment exclusionary rules. See id., at 601. "Brown articulated a test designed to vindicate the 'distinct policies and interests of the Fourth Amendment.' " Dunaway v. New York, 442 U. S. 200, 217 (1979) (quoting Brown, 422 U. S., at 602). It focused on the relationship between the illegal arrest and the confession in order to advance the policies behind the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule. See Dunaway, supra, at 217-218. Concentrating on the causal connection between the arrest and the confessions reinforces the exclusionary rule's deterrent and promotes the integrity of the courts. See id., at 218. Where suspects are arrested without probable cause in the hope that they will confess while in custody, police should not profit from that illegality without some meaningful intervening event. See Taylor v. Alabama, 457 U. S. 687, 693 (1982).
Confessions are treated differently than other evidence because the causal connection between a voluntary confession and a prior constitutional violation is more difficult to establish. Brown, Wong Sun, and Dunaway show that application of the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine is driven by constitutional policy rather than by simple logical causation. While the custody gained through an arrest may be an important factor in securing a confession, custody does not "cause" a confession in any logical sense. At least since Miranda, many custodial interrogations do not generate confessions. See Cassel, Protecting the Innocent from False Confessions and Lost Confessions--And from Miranda, 88 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 497, 542 (1998). Under the fruits doctrine, causation in this sense is a function of constitutional policy. Derivative evidence is only excluded when necessary to protect the principles of the constitutional right that was violated.
The inevitable discovery exception reflects this limited fruits doctrine. In Nix v. Williams, 467 U. S. 431 (1984), the purpose of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel drove the application of this exception. "Exclusion of physical evidence that would inevitably have been discovered adds nothing to either the integrity or fairness of a criminal trial." Id., at 446. The Sixth Amendment guards against unfairness by testing the reliability of evidence through the adversary process. See ibid. Since there was no reason to doubt the reliability of the evidence here, see ibid., "[s]uppression, in these circumstances would do nothing to promote the integrity of the trial process, but would inflict a wholly unacceptable burden on the administration of criminal justice." Ibid. The Sixth Amendment insures fairness by protecting the defendant from "one-sided" confrontations with the prosecution. See id., at 447 (internal quotation marks omitted). If application of the fruits doctrine places the state in the same position it would be in if the constitutional violation never happened, then fairness is assured. See ibid. Admitting evidence that would have been discovered anyway only keeps the state from being put in a worse position, which is only fair. See ibid.
Decisions to apply the exclusionary rule in particular circumstances are made through a cost-benefit analysis. This applies both to the types of proceedings to which the exclusionary rule extends, see Immigration & Naturalization Service v. Lopez-Mendoza, 468 U. S. 1032, 1042 (1984) (deportation proceedings), or when deciding not to apply the exclusionary rule to a particular set of facts. See United States v. Leon, 468 U. S. 897, 913 (1984) (good faith exception for warrant searches); Elstad, 470 U. S., at 312. As in Elstad, any decision on whether to apply the fruits doctrine to this case must be informed by balancing the relevant constitutional interests. The balance tilts sharply against excluding voluntary confessions made after Massiah violations.
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3. While the result in Nix differed from that in Silverthorne, that is a result of the availability of the inevitable discovery rule rather than the
relationship between the derivative evidence and the constitutional violation. Compare Nix, 467 U. S., at 449-450, with Silverthorne, 251 U. S., at
392.