FREE ESSAY ON OREGON V ELSTAD

OREGON V ELSTAD

OREGON v ELSTAD
470 U.S. 298, 105 S. Ct. 1285, 84 L.Ed. 2d 222 (1985)
MERITS:
Officers Burke and McAllister of the Polk County, Oregon Sheriff's office, on the basis
of a witness' statement, obtained an arrest warrant for Michael Elstad, who was suspected
of burglary. The officers went to Elstad's home and were escorted to his room by his
mother. After instructing the respondent to dress and accompany them to the living room,
Officer McAllister took Elstad's mother into the kitchen while Officer Burke stayed with
the respondent. Without advising Elstad of his Miranda rights, Officer Burke asked him
whether he was aware of the officer's reason for wanting to talk with him, and whether he
knew Mr. and Mrs. Gross (the victims). Elstad stated that he knew the Grosses, and that
he'd heard they'd been burglarized. Burke replied that he thought Elstad was involved in
the burglary, and the respondent admitted, Yes, I was there. He was then taken to the
Sheriff's office and was subsequently advised of his Miranda rights. Elstad stated that
he understood his rights and that he would give a statement, which he did in detail. His
confession was read back to him and read by him. Elstad initialed and signed the
statement and also added a sentence (After leaving the house Robby and I went back to
[the] van and Robby handed me a small bag of grass) to it. Elstad maintained that at no
time did the officers make threats or promises to him. He was charged with first degree
burglary and opted against a jury trial. Defense immediately moved to suppress both
Elstad's initial verbal statement and the signed confession, contending that the initial
statement he made at his house to Officer Burke let the cat out of the bag, causing his
ensuing written confession to be tainted as fruit of the poisonous tree. The judge
excluded the initial statement due to Elstad's not having been informed of his Miranda
rights prior to that statement. Elstad's written confession was not excluded, as the
judge did not agree that it was in any way tainted. Elstad was found guilty of
first-degree burglary.
APPELLATE:
Oregon State Court of Appeals: Conviction reversed. The State contended that although the
initial statement made by the respondent (prior to having been advised of his rights)
should be inadmissible, his written confession should be allowed. The Court of Appeals,
however, saw both statements as inadmissible, as there was little time between the two
statements, and that was not enough time to insulate the latter statement from the effect
of what went before ... the cat was sufficiently out of the bag to exert a coercive
impact on [respondent's] later admissions.
The Oregon Supreme Court declined the State's petition for review. The State then
petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court, and certiorari was granted.
ISSUE:
The question in this case was whether the Self-Incrimination Clause of the Fifth
Amendment requires that a confession made by a defendant, after having been advised of
his Miranda rights and having waived those rights, should be excluded because of another
admission made to officers by that defendant before he had been advised of his rights.
ARGUMENT:
Reasoning:
The Court cited the following cases to illustrate and establish precedence for its
reasoning:
Wong Sun v. United States: Where it was established that evidence and witnesses
discovered as the result of search in violation of the Fourth Amendment is considered
fruit of the poisonous tree, and must be excluded. The fruit doctrine also applies to
confessions. However, Wong Sun also illustrates that precise and proper advisement of
Miranda rights serves to cure the condition that rendered the unwarned statement
inadmissible: The warning conveys the relevant information and thereafter the suspect's
choice whether to exercise his privilege to remain silent should ordinarily be viewed as
an act of free will. (371 U.S. at 486)
Brown v Illinois: Illustrates that a procedural Miranda violation differs from Fourth
Amendment violation, as the purpose of the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule is to curb
unreasonable search.
Harris v New York: The Harris Court rejected the premise that a defendant's inadmissible
confession entitles that defendant to ...deny every fact disclosed or discovered as
'fruit' of his confession, free from confrontation with his prior statements. (401 U.S.
222) Failure to advise of Miranda rights creates a legal presumption of compulsion (of
testimony,) but this compulsion does not prohibit the use of such statements in
cross-examination.
Michigan v Tucker: In Tucker, police used information garnered from a statement, made
without Miranda warning, to uncover a witness. The Tucker Court established that this
action was not in violation of the Wong Sun fruits doctrine. 
Miranda v Arizona: The Miranda Court set precedence that Miranda warnings will only be
required after the accused has been taken into custody, or freedom has been restricted.
United States v Bayer: Illustrates that once the accused lets the cat out of the bag, he
can't get the cat back in the bag - he will be at a disadvantage. But this Court has
never gone so far as to hold that making a confession under circumstances which preclude
its use, perpetually disables the confessor from making a usable one after those
conditions have been removed. (331 U.S., at 540-541)
Lyons v Oklahoma: Establishes that even when a confession is forced, the coercive effect
of the confession can be dissipated with time.
Application: 
The Court asserted that although Elstad's admission made prior to Miranda advisement must
be excluded, as per Miranda v Arizona, The admissibility of any subsequent statement
should turn in these circumstances solely on whether it was knowingly and voluntarily
made. The Court affirmed that There is no question that respondent knowingly and
voluntarily waived his right to remain silent before he described his participation in
the burglary. It is not reasonable to interpret Miranda as requiring that mere neglect to
Mirandize a suspect, without any concurrent coercion, thereby corrupts any further
voluntary, informed statement. Furthermore, there was no evidence of any sort of coercion
on the part of the officers.
Mr. Elstad contended that because he was unaware of the fact that his initial statement
could not be used against him, he did not give a fully informed surrender of his rights.
Having let the cat out of the bag, Elstad believed his second statement was compulsory.
To this premise the Court responded, Certainly, in respondent's case, the causal
connection between any psychological disadvantage created by his admission and his
ultimate decision to cooperate is speculative and attenuated at best. We must conclude
that, absent deliberately coercive or improper tactics in obtaining the initial
statement, the mere fact that a suspect has made an unwarned admission does not warrant a
presumption of compulsion. 
Conclusion:
We hold today that a suspect who has once responded to unwarned yet uncoercive
questioning is not thereby disabled from waiving his rights and confessing after he has
been given the requisite Miranda warnings.
The judgement of the Court of Appeals of Oregon is reversed, and the case is remanded for
further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
ANALYSES
CRIME CONTROL:
The Oregon Court of Appeals finding, that once Elstad let the cat out of the bag his
subsequent confession was tainted as the fruit of the poisonous tree, was a detriment to
police efficiency. Police investigations rely upon a variety of informal procedures
including voluntary statements of suspects. By finding that a willing, non-coerced
admission made prior to Miranda warning could render a later, procedurally-correct,
voluntary and signed confession inadmissible, the Appeals Court imposed a barrier to
normal police tactics. Had that ruling been upheld, police officer's use of voluntary
statements would have been hindered, as police would have hesitated to solicit or receive
any suspect's voluntary statements at risk of tainting later confessions. By inhibiting
police procedure the efficiency of police would be impeded.
DUE PROCESS
This Supreme Court decision strikes a critical blow to due process and the rights of the
accused. There was no argument as to the fact that Officers Burke and McAllister were
remiss in their failure to advise the accused of his rights. But by simply disallowing
the initial unadvised statement and not the ensuing confession, the Court is ignoring the
coercive circumstances under which that formal statement was made. Elstad maintained that
he believed his first admission could be used against him, and it was due to that belief
that he gave his full confession. Unaware of his own precarious legal circumstances,
having neither been shown the arrest warrant or advised of his rights, Elstad made an
admission which he might not have made had he been advised of his rights. Under the
coercive belief that his first statement would be used against him, Elstad made a full
confession, a confession that was most certainly the fruit of the poisoned tree. By
denying the coercive impact of the first statement, the Supreme Court has denied much of
the Wong Sun fruit doctrine. In Wong Sun v. United States (371 U.S. 471,) the Supreme
Court holds that a suspect's voluntary statement, made in a situation of extreme tension,
cannot be considered voluntary; Under such circumstances it is unreasonable to infer that
[suspect's] response was sufficiently an act of free will to purge the primary taint of
unlawful invasion. Thus, under circumstances of duress, according to Supreme Court
precedent, a statement can be considered involuntary even when the coercion is not
immediately obvious. Under the conviction that one has already 'let the cat out of the
bag, therefore, a subsequent confession should be found involuntary if the Court is to
protect the rights of the accused.
CLASS JUSTICE
The failure of the Supreme Court to disallow the tainted confession of Elstad was
entirely predictable, as the Supreme Court is a component of our class-biased criminal
justice system. In this case, the accused imprudently made an unwarned admission -let the
cat out of the bag, in his mind - that, due to his lack of understanding of criminal
process, compelled him to make another, legally admissible statement. Elstad is
representative of the average suspect - typically a member of the lower class--in that he
was not well acquainted with due process. Had Elstad an education in criminal procedure,
or a lawyer on retainer, this case would have quite likely progressed in an entirely
different manner, if at all, as either condition would have prevented both his initial
admission and his ignorant decision that the cat was already out of the bag. But as the
criminal justice system is biased against those who are without education or means to
high-priced council, it stands to reason that the Supreme Court decided to discount the
accused's confusion as to the admissibility of his initial statement, thus finding
against the uneducated, unadvised lower class.