Caseflicks

Supreme Court of the United States • 1975

Michigan v. Mosley

423 U.S. 96 | 96 S. Ct. 321 | 46 L. Ed. 2d 313 | 1975 U.S. LEXIS 100

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Takeaway

In short, this case holds that police may resume questioning after a suspect invokes the right to remain silent only when they have scrupulously honored the suspect's decision to stop the earlier interrogation.

Background

Detroit police arrested Richard Mosley in connection with two robberies. After receiving and acknowledging Miranda warnings, Mosley told Detective Cowie that he did not want to answer questions about the robberies. Cowie immediately stopped questioning him. Mosley neither asked for counsel nor challenged the adequacy of the initial warnings.

More than two hours later, a homicide detective took Mosley from his cell block to another office and questioned him about a different crime: the shooting death of Leroy Williams during a holdup. The detective gave Mosley fresh, complete Miranda warnings, which Mosley read and signed. Mosley initially denied involvement, but then made an incriminating statement. He did not request a lawyer or say that he wished to remain silent during the second interview.

Charged with first-degree murder, Mosley moved to suppress the statement. The trial court denied the motion, and a jury convicted him. The Michigan Court of Appeals reversed, treating the second interrogation as a per se Miranda violation because Mosley had earlier invoked his right to remain silent. After the Michigan Supreme Court declined further review, the State obtained Supreme Court review.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether Miranda creates a permanent, per se bar against all further custodial interrogation after a suspect invokes the right to remain silent.

Holding

No. Miranda does not prohibit all later questioning forever; it requires that the suspect's right to cut off questioning be scrupulously honored.

Reasoning

The Miranda language requiring interrogation to cease when a person indicates a desire to remain silent does not itself specify whether, or when, questioning may later resume. Reading it as a permanent bar on every officer, subject, and future interrogation would go beyond Miranda's purpose and create irrational barriers to legitimate investigation and to a suspect's own ability to make informed choices about speaking.

At the same time, police cannot evade Miranda by merely pausing briefly and then returning to wear down a suspect through repeated questioning. The central protection is the suspect's ability to stop an interrogation. Whether a later statement is admissible therefore turns on whether police respected, or “scrupulously honored,” that exercise of the right to cut off questioning.

Issue #2

Whether Mosley's homicide statement was obtained in violation of Miranda after he had declined to answer questions about the robberies.

Holding

No. Mosley's right to remain silent was scrupulously honored, so his later statement was admissible under Miranda.

Reasoning

Detective Cowie immediately stopped the first interrogation when Mosley said he did not want to discuss the robberies. Cowie did not press Mosley to reconsider, resume the robbery questioning, or attempt to persuade him to speak.

The second interview occurred only after an interval of more than two hours. A different officer gave Mosley a fresh and complete set of Miranda warnings, giving him another clear opportunity to remain silent or request counsel before the homicide questioning began.

The second interrogation concerned the Leroy Williams homicide rather than the robberies that Detective Cowie had discussed. On the record before the Court, Mosley's initial refusal was reasonably understood as limited to questions about the robberies, and the later questioning did not undermine that earlier decision.

The case was unlike Westover v. United States, where federal agents received the benefit of an uninterrupted, prolonged, unwarned interrogation conducted by local police. Mosley received warnings before both interviews, the first interview was brief, and questioning stopped entirely for a substantial period before the second interview.

Concurrences

Justice White

Reasoning

Justice White agreed that Mosley's statement was admissible, but objected to any suggestion that a statement following an assertion of the right to silence could be excluded despite an informed and voluntary waiver. In his view, Miranda requires warnings as a condition for a knowing waiver, but it does not support a rule that invalidates a voluntary, informed decision to speak merely because it follows soon after an earlier decision to remain silent.

He would make voluntariness the governing standard for a properly warned suspect's later waiver of the right to silence. Repeated or coercive questioning would weigh heavily against voluntariness, but a suspect who has not requested counsel should remain free to reconsider and voluntarily speak without waiting through an undefined mandatory period.

Dissents

Justice Brennan

Reasoning

Justice Brennan, joined by Justice Marshall, maintained that Miranda established a prophylactic rule against renewed interrogation after a suspect invokes the right to remain silent. Miranda was designed to address the inherently coercive setting of custodial interrogation through objective safeguards, not merely through a case-by-case inquiry into whether a later statement appears voluntary.

The majority's “scrupulously honored” test, in his view, assumes the very point that Miranda rejects: that renewed questioning after detention does not itself overcome the suspect's will. A suspect's failure to invoke silence again after renewed questioning is presumptively the product of the coercive pressures of custody, even when police repeat the Miranda warnings.

Justice Brennan rejected both a permanent ban on all future questioning and the majority's vague middle ground. He proposed concrete safeguards before interrogation could resume, such as arraignment before a judicial officer or the appointment and arrival of counsel. Those measures would better dispel the coercive atmosphere that Miranda identified.

He also disputed the majority's characterization of the facts. The original tip implicated Mosley in both the robberies and the robbery-murder, the two interviews occurred in the same police headquarters building, and Mosley's refusal to discuss “anything about the robberies” could reasonably include the robbery-murder. On that record, Brennan concluded that the police had not scrupulously honored Mosley's choice to remain silent.