#UNDERCOVER LAW TRIAL#

The police wanted to investigate further respondent's connection to the Stephenson murder, but feared that the use of an eavesdropping device would prove impracticable and unsafe.

#UNDERCOVER LAW TRIAL#

On hearing Charlton's account, the police recognized details of the Stephenson murder that were not well known, and so they treated Charlton's story as a credible one.īy the time the police heard Charlton's account, respondent had been released from Graham, but police traced him to a jail in Montgomery County, Illinois, where he was being held pending trial on a charge of aggravated battery, unrelated to the Stephenson murder. Charlton told police that, while at Graham, he had befriended respondent, who told him in detail about a murder that respondent had committed in East St. The fellow inmate was Lloyd Perkins, who is the respondent here. The murder remained unsolved until March, 1986, when one Donald Charlton told police that he had learned about a homicide from a fellow inmate at the Graham Correctional Facility, where Charlton had been serving a sentence for burglary. In November, 1984, Richard Stephenson was murdered in a suburb of East St. Miranda warnings are not required when the suspect is unaware that he is speaking to a law enforcement officer, and gives a voluntary statement. We hold that the statements are admissible. Respondent claims that the statements should be inadmissible because he had not been given Miranda warnings by the agent. Respondent made statements that implicated him in the crime that the agent sought to solve. Justice KENNEDY delivered the opinion of the Court.Īn undercover government agent was placed in the cell of respondent Perkins, who was incarcerated on charges unrelated to the subject of the agent's investigation. 303.ĬERTIORARI TO THE APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS, FIFTH MARSHALL, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. BRENNAN, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, post, p. KENNEDY, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C.J., and WHITE, BLACKMUN, STEVENS, O'CONNOR, and SCALIA, JJ., joined. Also unavailing is Perkins' argument that a bright-line rule for the application of Miranda is desirable, since law enforcement officers will have little difficulty applying the holding of this case.

201, and similar cases - which held that the government may not use an undercover agent to circumvent the Sixth Amendment right to counsel once a suspect has been charged - are inapplicable, since, here, no murder charges had been filed at the time of interrogation. Know that he is speaking to a government agent, there is no reason to assume the possibility of coercion. 1 - which held that an inmate's statements to a known agent were inadmissible because no Miranda warnings were given - is distinguishable. Detention, however, whether or not for the crime in question, does not warrant a presumption that such use of an undercover agent renders involuntary the incarcerated suspect's resulting confession. 293 - which upheld the placing of an undercover agent near a suspect in order to gather incriminating information - is that Perkins was incarcerated. The only difference between this case and Hoffa v.

In such circumstances, Miranda does not forbid mere strategic deception by taking advantage of a suspect's misplaced trust.

That coercive atmosphere is not present when an incarcerated person speaks freely to someone whom he believes to be a fellow inmate and whom he assumes is not an officer having official power over him. It is Miranda's premise that the danger of coercion results from the interaction of custody and official interrogation, whereby the suspect may feel compelled to speak by the fear of reprisal for remaining silent or in the hope of more lenient treatment should he confess. Those concerns are not implicated here, since the essential ingredients of a 'police dominated atmosphere' and compulsion are lacking. The Miranda doctrine must be enforced strictly, but only in situations where the concerns underlying that decision are present. Held: An undercover law enforcement officer posing as a fellow inmate need not give Miranda warnings to an incarcerated suspect before asking questions that may elicit an incriminating response. The Appellate Court of Illinois affirmed, holding that Miranda prohibits all undercover contacts with incarcerated suspects that are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response. The trial court granted respondent's motion to suppress his statements on the ground that Parisi had not given him the warnings required by Miranda v. When Parisi asked him if he had ever killed anybody, Perkins made statements implicating himself in the murder. Police placed undercover agent Parisi in a jail cellblock with respondent Perkins, who was incarcerated on charges unrelated to the murder that Parisi was investigating.

Undercover law