text:
    No. D-837.
    No. 88-1353.
    No. 88-1480.
    No. 88-7299.
    No. 89-525.
    No. 89-908.
    No. 89-939.
    No. 89-976.
    No. 89-1053.
    No. 89-1065.
    No. 89-1070.
    No. 89-5223.
    No. 89-5877.
    No. 89-5927.
    No. 89-6005.
    No. 89-6040.
    No. 89-6208.
    No. 89-6222.
    No. 89-6240.
    No. 89-6246.
    In re Disbarment of Marcone, 493 U. S. 1066; United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, ante, p. 259; Reves et al. v. Ernst & Young, ante, p. 56; Pruitt v. Georgia, 493 U. S. 1093; Popal v. United States, 493 U. S. 1069; Automobile Club of Michigan, aka AAA, et al. v. Bullock, 493 U. S. 1072; HealthAmerica et al. v. Menton, 493 U. S. 1093; Sutton v. Department of Housing and Urban Development et al., 493 U. S. 1075; Camoscio v. Board of Registration in Podiatry, 493 U. S. 1079; Camoscio v. Murphy et al., 493 U. S. 1079; Terry v. Virginia, 493 U. S. 1080; Mack v. Illinois, 493 U. S. 1093; Brown v. Laborers’ International Union of North America et al., 493 U. S. 1082; Hassan v. New Jersey et al., 493 U. S. 1028; Wilkerson v. Smith, Warden, ante, p. 1005; Morales v. Office of Personnel Management, 493 U. S. 1060; Eierle v. Lambdin, Superintendent, Glades Correctional Institute, et al., 493 U. S. 1084; Gibbons, nka Raczkowski v. L. W. Blake Memorial Hospital et al., 493 U. S. 1085; McGhee v. City of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power et al., 493 U. S. 1085; Tasby, aka Amen-Ra v. Collins, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Institutional Division, et al., 493 U. S. 1085; Wool v. Fefel et al., 493 U. S. 1085; Chandler v. Moore et al., 493 U. S. 1086; In re Kleinschmidt, 493 U. S. 1068; Spychala v. Campoy, 493 U. S. 1090; Warren v. Texas, 493 U. S. 1090; Keyes v. San Francisco Probation Department, ante, p. 1006; Kim v. California et al., ante, p. 1006; Akmansoy v. Klevenhagen et al., ante, p. 1006; Morris v. Department of Social Services, ante, p. 1018; In re Madson, ante, p. 1015; and Street v. Jabe, Warden, ante, p. 1018.
    No. 89-6247.
    No. 89-6267.
    No. 89-6321.
    No. 89-6361.
    No. 89-6369.
    No. 89-6373.
    No. 89-6378.
    No. 89-6391.
    No. 89-6418.
    No. 89-6428.
    No. 89-6432.
   Petitions for rehearing denied.


source: Caselaw Access Project

author: Chief Justice Rehnquist Justice Brennan, Justice Blackmun, Justice Stevens,

license: Public Domain

text:
    FLORIDA v. WELLS
    No. 88-1835.
    Argued December 4, 1989
    Decided April 18, 1990

      Rehnquist, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which White, O’Connor, Scalia, and Kennedy, JJ., joined. Brennan, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which MARSHALL, J., joined, post, p. 5. Blackmun, J., post, p. 10, and Stevens, J., post, p. 12, filed opinions concurring in the judgment.

      Michael J. Neimand, Assistant Attorney General of Florida, argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the brief were Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, and Enoch J. Whitney.

      Huntley Johnson argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief was Fletcher N. Baldwin, Jr.

   Chief Justice Rehnquist

delivered the opinion of the Court.

A Florida Highway Patrol trooper stopped respondent Wells for speeding. After smelling alcohol on Wells’ breath, the trooper arrested Wells for driving under the influence. Wells then agreed to accompany the trooper to the station to take a breathalyzer test. The trooper informed Wells that the car would be impounded and obtained Wells’ permission to open the trunk. At the impoundment facility, an inventory search of the car turned up two marijuana cigarette butts in an ashtray and a locked suitcase in the trunk. Under the trooper’s direction, employees of the facility forced open the suitcase and discovered a garbage bag containing a considerable amount of marijuana.

Wells was charged with possession of a controlled substance. His motion to suppress the marijuana on the ground that it was seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution was denied by the trial court. He thereupon pleaded nolo contendere to the charge but reserved his right to appeal the denial of the motion to suppress. On appeal, the Florida District Court of Appeal for the Fifth District held, inter alia, that the trial court erred in denying suppression of the marijuana found in the suitcase. Over a dissent, the Supreme Court of Florida affirmed. 539 So. 2d 464, 469 (1989). We granted certiorari, 491 U. S. 903 (1989), and now affirm (although we disagree with part of the reasoning of the Supreme Court of Florida).

The Supreme Court of Florida relied on the opinions in Colorado v. Bertine, 479 U. S. 367 (1987); id., at 376 (Blackmun, J., concurring). Referring to language in the Bertine concurrence and a footnote in the majority opinion, the court held that

“[i]n the absence of a policy specifically requiring the opening of closed containers found during a legitimate inventory search, Bertine prohibits us from countenancing the procedure followed in this instance.” 539 So. 2d, at 469.

According to the court, the record contained no evidence of any Highway Patrol policy on the opening of closed containers found during inventory searches. Ibid. The court added, however:

“The police under Bertine must mandate either that all containers will be opened during an inventory search, or that no containers will be opened. There can be no room for discretion.” Ibid.

While this latter statement of the Supreme Court of Florida derived support from a sentence in the Bertine concurrence taken in isolation, we think it is at odds with the thrust of both the concurrence and the opinion of the Court in that case. We said in Bertine:

“Nothing in [South Dakota v.] Opperman[, 428 U. S. 364 (1976),] or [Illinois v.] Lafayette[, 462 U. S. 640 (1983),] prohibits the exercise of police discretion so long as that discretion is exercised according to standard criteria and on the basis of something other than suspicion of evidence of criminal activity.” 479 U. S., at 375.

Our view that standardized criteria, ibid., or established routine, Illinois v. Lafayette, 462 U. S. 640, 648 (1983), must regulate the opening of containers found during inventory searches is based on the principle that an inventory search must not be a ruse for a general rummaging in order to discover incriminating evidence. The policy or practice governing inventory searches should be designed to produce an inventory. The individual police officer must not be allowed so much latitude that inventory searches are turned into “a purposeful and general means of discovering evidence of crime,” Bertine, 479 U. S., at 376 (Blackmun, J., concurring).

But in forbidding uncanalized discretion to police officers conducting inventory searches, there is no reason to insist that they be conducted in a totally mechanical “all or nothing” fashion, “[inventory procedures serve to protect an owner’s property while it is in the custody of the police, to insure against claims of lost, stolen, or vandalized property, and to guard the police from danger.” Id., at 372; see also South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U. S. 364, 369 (1976). A police officer may be allowed sufficient latitude to determine whether a particular container should or should not be opened in light of the nature of the search and characteristics of the container itself. Thus, while policies of opening all containers or of opening no containers are unquestionably permissible, it would be equally permissible, for example, to allow the opening of closed containers whose contents officers determine they are unable to ascertain from examining the containers’ exteriors. The allowance of the exercise of judgment based on concerns related to the purposes of an inventory search does not violate the Fourth Amendment.

In the present case, the Supreme Court of Florida found that the Florida Highway Patrol had no policy whatever with respect to the opening of closed containers encountered during an inventory search. We hold that absent such a policy, the instant search was not sufficiently regulated to satisfy the Fourth Amendment and that the marijuana which was found in the suitcase, therefore, was properly suppressed by the Supreme Court of Florida. Its judgment is therefore

Affirmed.

Justice Brennan,

with whom Justice Marshall joins, concurring in the judgment.

I agree with the Court that the judgment of the Florida Supreme Court should be affirmed because the Florida Highway Patrol had no policy at all with respect to opening closed containers. As the majority recognizes, see ante, at 4 and this page, the search was therefore unconstitutional under any reading of our cases. See Colorado v. Bertine, 479 U. S. 367, 374 (1987) (opening closed container found in a vehicle during an inventory search constitutional only because policy mandated opening of such containers). Our cases have required that inventory searches be “sufficiently regulated,” ante, this page, so as to avoid the possibility that police will abuse their power to conduct such a search. See South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U. S. 364, 384 (1976) (Powell, J., concurring) (“[N]o significant discretion is placed in the hands of the individual officer: he usually has no choice as to the subject of the search or its scope”).

The facts of this case demonstrate a prime danger of insufficiently regulated inventory searches: police may use the excuse of an “inventory search” as a pretext for broad searches of vehicles and their contents. In this case, there was no evidence that the inventory search was done in accordance with any standardized inventory procedure. Although the State characterized the search as an inventory search in the trial court, it did not point to any standard policy governing inventory searches of vehicles (much less to any policy governing the opening of closed containers) until the case reached the Florida Supreme Court. At that time, which was after our decision in Bertine, supra, the Florida Highway Patrol entered the case as amicus curiae and argued that Chapter 16 of the “Florida Highway Patrol Forms and Procedural Manual” contained the standard policy that guided the conduct of the search in this case. The Florida Supreme Court concluded that the manual did not provide any policy for the opening of closed containers. App. 256. But it now appears that the Florida Supreme Court may have been under the misapprehension that the manual was in effect at the time of the search in this case. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 30-31. The State conceded at oral argument before this Court that the manual was not in effect at the time of the search in this case, but argued nonetheless that the officer had performed the search according to “standard operating procedures” that were later incorporated into the Highway Patrol Manual. See id., at 17 (“The rules and regulations which . . . came into effect shortly thereafter, merely codified what the Florida Highway Patrol was doing to all procedures [sic] during that period of time”). But the State did not offer any evidence at the suppression hearing to support a finding that Trooper Adams performed the inventory according to “standard operating procedures.” Trooper Adams testified that he asked his immediate superior whether he should impound and inventory the car but that his superior left it to Adams’ discretion, stating that he found nothing suspicious about the car. Trooper Adams testified that he “took it upon [himself] to go ahead and have the car towed.” App. 88. He also testified that he thought that opening the suitcase was part of a proper inventory but that he did not ask anyone else’s opinion until after the search was completed. Id., at 82-83. He testified “Well, I had to take my chances.” Id., at 83.

In addition, there was no evidence that an inventory was actually done in this case: the State introduced neither an inventory sheet nor any testimony that the officer actually inventoried the items found in respondent’s car. Tr. of Oral Arg. 5, 25-26. Rather, the testimony at the suppression hearing suggests that the officer used the need to “inventory” as an excuse to search for drugs. The testimony establishes that after arresting respondent for driving under the influence of alcohol and accompanying him to the station house, Trooper Adams returned to the impound lot to conduct the inventory search at 1:30 a.m. Grover Bryan, who assisted the state trooper with the inventory, testified at the hearing that Trooper Adams told him that “he wanted to inventory the car good, he wanted to go through it real good because he felt that there was drugs in it.” App. 141. According to Bryan, Adams’ desire to inventory the car stemmed from the fact that there was a large amount of cash lying on the floor of the car when respondent was arrested. Bryan testified that Adams insisted that contraband would be found in the car because “[t]here ain’t nobody runs around with that kind of money in the floorboard unless they’re dealing drugs or something like that.” Id., at 142; see ibid. (“[H]e felt that the money that they had found was from a drug deal”). When they finally found the locked suitcase in the trunk, Bryan testified that Adams “want[ed] in the suitcase” because he “had a strong suspicion there was drugs in that car and it was probably in that suitcase.” Id., at 145. The men then spent 10 minutes prying open the lock on the suitcase with two knives. App. 82, 147. Bryan testified that once they opened the suitcase and found a bag of marijuana inside, “[Adams] was quite excited. He said ‘there it is.’” Id., at 147. See also Tr. of Oral Arg. 24 (“Well, to be quite frank, the officer as he got further and further along in his search, got hungrier and hungrier”).

The majority finds it unnecessary to recount these facts because it affirms the Florida Supreme Court on the narrow ground, clearly established by Opperman and Bertine, that police may not be given total discretion to decide whether to open closed containers found during an inventory search. With this much I agree. Like Justice Blackmun, post, at 11-12, however, I cannot join the majority opinion because it goes on to suggest that a State may adopt an inventory policy that vests individual police officers with some discretion to decide whether to open such containers. See ante, at 4 (“A police officer may be allowed sufficient latitude to determine whether a particular container should or should not be opened in light of the nature of the search and characteristics of the container itself”). This suggestion is pure dictum given the disposition of the case. But as Justice Black-MUN notes, post, at 11, there is a danger that this dictum will be relied on by lower courts in reviewing the constitutionality of particular inventory searches, or.even by local policymakers drafting procedures for police to follow when performing inventories of impounded vehicles. Thus, I write separately to emphasize that the majority’s suggestion is inconsistent with the reasoning underlying our inventory search cases and relies on a mischaracterization of the holding in Bertine.

Our cases clearly hold that an inventory search is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment only if it is done in accordance with standard procedures that limit the discretion of the police. See Opperman, 428 U. S., at 384 (Powell, J., concurring). In Bertine, the Court held that the police may open closed containers found within an impounded vehicle only if the inventory policy mandates the opening of all such containers. See 479 U. S., at 374, n. 6 (“We emphasize that, in this case, the trial court found that the Police Department’s procedures mandated the opening of closed containers and the listing of their contents”). Contrary to the majority’s assertion today, ante, at 3, Bertine did not establish that police may exercise discretion with respect to the opening of closed containers during an inventory search. The statement in Bertine that “[njothing in Opperman . . . prohibits the exercise of police discretion so long as that discretion is exercised according to standard criteria,” 479 U. S., at 375, was made in response to an argument that the inventory search was unconstitutional because the police had some discretion to determine whether to impound the car. The Court’s conclusion that the opening of defendant’s backpack was constitutional was clearly premised on the city’s inventory policy that left no discretion to individual police officers as to the opening of containers found inside a car once it was impounded. See id., at 374, n. 6. Justice Blackmun’s concurrence in Bertine could not be clearer: “[I]t is permissible for police officers to open closed containers in an inventory search only if they are following standard police procedures that mandate the opening of such containers in every impounded vehicle. ” Id., at 377 (emphasis added).

Opening a closed container constitutes a great intrusion into the privacy of its owner even when the container is found in an automobile. See Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U. S. 753, 762-764 (1979); United States v. Chadwick, 433 U. S. 1, 13 (1977). For this reason, I continue to believe that in the absence of consent or exigency, police may not open a closed container found during an inventory search of an automobile. See Bertine, 479 U. S., at 387 (Marshall, J., joined by Brennan, J., dissenting). In any event, in Bertine, the Court recognized that opening a container constitutes such a great intrusion that the discretion of the police to do so must be circumscribed sharply to guard against abuse. If the Court wishes to revisit that holding, it must wait for another case. Attempting to cast doubt on the vitality of the holding in Bertine in this otherwise easy case is not justified.

Justice Blackmun,

concurring in the judgment.

I agree with the Court that the judgment of the Supreme Court of Florida is to be affirmed. If our cases establish anything, it is that an individual police officer cannot be given complete discretion in choosing whether to search or to leave undisturbed containers and other items encountered during an inventory search. See Colorado v. Bertine, 479 U. S. 367, 374, n. 6 (1987); South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U. S. 364 (1976). Here, given the complete discretion Florida Highway Patrol troopers enjoyed to open or not to open closed containers, the evidence in question properly was suppressed. I do not join the majority opinion, however, because, instead of ending the case at that point, it continues with language, unnecessary on the facts of this case, concerning the extent to which a policeman, under the Fourth Amendment, may be given discretion in conducting an inventory search.

The majority disagrees with the Florida Supreme Court’s statement that a police department must have a policy which “mandate[s] either that all containers will be opened during an inventory search, or that no containers will be opened.” Ante, at 3. The majority concludes that the Fourth Amendment does not impose such an “all or nothing” requirement. With this much I agree. A State, for example, consistent with the Fourth Amendment, probably could adopt a policy which requires the opening of all containers that are not locked, or a policy which requires the opening of all containers over or under a certain size, even though these policies do not call for the opening of all or no containers. In other words, a State has the discretion to choose a scheme that lies somewhere between the extremes identified by the Florida Supreme Court.

It is an entirely different matter, however, to say, as this majority does, that an individual policeman may be afforded discretion in conducting an inventory search. The exercise of discretion by an individual officer, especially when it cannot be measured against objective, standard criteria, creates the potential for abuse of Fourth Amendment rights our earlier inventory-search cases were designed to guard against. Thus, when the majority states that a “police officer may be allowed sufficient latitude to determine whether a particular container should or should not be opened in light of the nature of the search,” and that it is permissible for a State “to allow the opening of closed containers whose contents officers determine they are unable to ascertain from examining the containers’ exteriors,” ante, at 4 (emphasis added), the majority is doing more than refuting the Florida Supreme Court’s all-or-nothing approach; it is opining about a very different and important constitutional question not addressed by the state courts here and not raised by the circumstances of the case. Although the majority’s statements on the issue perhaps are to be regarded as no more than dicta, they nonetheless are problematic inasmuch as they may be taken out of context or misinterpreted by policymakers and trial courts. Because, as noted above, the complete discretion afforded Florida policemen in this case renders the search at issue undeniably unconstitutional, I see no reason for the Court to say anything about precisely how much, if ccny, discretion an individual policeman constitutionally may exercise.

Justice Stevens,

concurring in the judgment.

While I agree with Justice Blackmun’s opinion, I think additional criticism of the Court’s activism is appropriate. One must wonder why this case merited a grant of certiorari. The judgment of the Florida Supreme Court was obviously correct. Its opinion contained a minor flaw, as countless opinions do. Unless we are to become self-appointed editors of state-court opinions in the criminal law area, that is surely an insufficient reason for exercising our certiorari jurisdiction.

The flaw, of course, might impose a stricter standard for-the conduct of inventory searches in Florida than the Federal Constitution actually requires, but there is no suggestion that the extra layer of protection provided to Florida citizens by the Florida Supreme Court will hamper law enforcement in that State. Apparently the mere possibility of a minor burden on law enforcement interests is enough to generate corrective action by this Court.

But then, as Justice Blackmun properly observes, the Court does not content itself with commenting on the flaw in the Florida Supreme Court’s opinion. Instead, it plunges ahead with a flawed opinion of its own. While purportedly reaffirming the requirement of “standard criteria” to control police discretion in conducting inventory searches, see Colorado v. Bertine, 479 U. S. 367, 375 (1987), the Court invites the State to allow their officers discretion to open — or not to open — “closed containers whose contents officers determine they are unable to ascertain from examining the containers’ exteriors.” Ante, at 4. Thus, luggage, briefcases, handbags, brown paper bags, violin cases — indeed, virtually all containers except goldfish bowls — could be opened at the whim of the officer, whether locked or unlocked. What is left for the “standard criteria”?

It is a proper part of the judicial function to make law as a necessary by-product of the process of deciding actual cases and controversies. But to reach out so blatantly and unnecessarily to make new law in a case of this kind is unabashed judicial activism.

       Indeed, the majority’s suggestion that police may be vested with discretion to open a container “in light of the nature of the search and characteristics of the container itself,” ante, at 4, flatly contradicts the reasoning in Bertine. In that case, the Court rejected the argument that police are required to “weigh the strength of the individual’s privacy interest in the container against the possibility that the container might serve as a repository for dangerous or valuable items.” Bertine, 479 U. S., at 374. The Court found such a rule unworkable for “ ‘it would be unreasonable to expect police officers in the everyday course of business to make fine and subtle distinctions in deciding which container or items may be searched and which must be sealed as a unit.’” Id., at 375, quoting Illinois v. Lafayette, 462 U. S. 640, 648 (1983); see also 479 U. S., at 375 (“We reaffirm these principles here: [a] single familiar standard is essential to guide police officers, who have only limited time and expertise to reflect on and balance the social and individual interests involved in the specific circumstances they confront”) (internal quotations omitted).

       The Court has recognized that an inventory search potentially can serve three governmental interests: protection of the owner’s valuables, protection of the police from false claims of theft or damage, and protection of the police from danger. South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U. S. 364, 369 (1976); id., at 378 (Powell, J., concurring). The Court has concluded that routine inventory searches are constitutional because these government interests outweigh an individual’s diminished expectation of privacy in a car. Id., at 378-379 (Powell, J., concurring). I do not agree that these interests justify the opening of a closed container in which an individual retains a significant expectation of privacy. See Bertine, supra, at 382-387 (Marshall, J., dissenting). Indeed, I do not see how the treatment of the luggage in this case — prying open the lock with two knives — served any of these governmental interests.


author: Justice White Justice Marshall,

text:
    NEW YORK v. HARRIS
    No. 88-1000.
    Argued January 10, 1990
    Decided April 18, 1990

      White, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and O’Connor, ScalÍa, and Kennedy, JJ., joined. Marshall, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Brennan, Blackmun, and Stevens, JJ., joined, post, p. 21.

      Peter D. Coddington argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Robert T. Johnson, Anthony J. Gírese, Stanley R. Kaplan, and Karen P. Swiger.

      Barrington D. Parker, Jr., by invitation of the Court, 492 U. S. 934, argued the cause as amicus curiae in support of the judgment below. With him on the brief was Ronald G. Blum.

      Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the United States by Solicitor General Starr, Assistant Attorney General Dennis, Deputy Solicitor General Bryson, Michael R. Dreeben, and Robert J. Erickson; for the Office of Prosecuting Attorney, Wayne County, Michigan, by John D. O’Hair and Timothy A. Baughman; and for .Americans for Effective Law Enforcement, Inc., et al. by Fred E. Inbau, Wayne W. Schmidt, James P. Manak, Gregory U. Evans, Daniel B. Hales, George D. Webster, and Jack E. Yelverton.

   Justice White

delivered the opinion of the Court.

On January 11, 1984, New York City police found the body of Ms. Thelma Staton murdered in her apartment. Various facts gave the officers probable cause to believe that the respondent in this case, Bernard Harris, had killed Ms. Staton. As a result, on January 16, 1984, three police officers went to Harris’ apartment to take him into custody. They did not first obtain an arrest warrant.

When the police arrived, they knocked on the door, displaying their guns and badges. Harris let them enter. Once inside, the officers read Harris his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966). Harris acknowledged that he understood the warnings, and agreed to answer the officers’ questions. At that point, he reportedly admitted that he had killed Ms. Staton.

Harris was arrested, taken to the station house, and again informed of his Miranda rights. He then signed a written inculpatory statement. The police subsequently read Harris the Miranda warnings a third time and videotaped an incriminating interview between Harris and a district attorney, even though Harris had indicated that he wanted to end the interrogation.

The trial court suppressed Harris’ first and third statements; the State does not challenge those rulings. The sole issue in this case is whether Harris’ second statement — the written statement made at the station house — should have been suppressed because the police, by entering Harris’ home without a warrant and without his consent, violated Payton v. New York, 445 U. S. 573 (1980), which held that the Fourth Amendment prohibits the police from effecting a warrantless and nonconsensual entry into a suspect’s home in order to make a routine felony arrest. The New York trial court concluded that the statement was admissible. Following a bench trial, Harris was convicted of second-degree murder. The Appellate Division affirmed, 124 App. Div. 2d 472, 507 N. Y. S. 2d 823 (1986).

A divided New York Court of Appeals reversed, 72 N. Y. 2d 614, 532 N. E. 2d 1229 (1988). That court first accepted the trial court’s finding that Harris did not consent to the police officers’ entry into his home and that the warrantless arrest therefore violated Payton even though there was probable cause. Applying Brown v. Illinois, 422 U. S. 590 (1975), and its progeny, the court then determined that the station house statement must be deemed to be the inadmissible fruit of the illegal arrest because the connection between the statement and the arrest was not sufficiently attenuated. The court noted that some courts had reasoned that the “wrong in Payton cases . . . lies not in the arrest, ‘but in the unlawful entry into a dwelling without proper judicial authorization’ ” and had therefore declined to suppress confessions that were made following Payton violations. 72 N. Y. 2d, at 623, 532 N. E. 2d, at 1234. The New York court disagreed with this analysis, finding it contrary to Payton and its own decisions interpreting Payton’s, scope. We granted certiorari to resolve the admissibility of the station house statement. 490 U. S. 1018 (1989).

For present purposes, we accept the finding below that Harris did not consent to the police officers’ entry into his home and the conclusion that the police had probable cause to arrest him. It is also evident, in light of Payton, that arresting Harris in his home without an arrest warrant violated the Fourth Amendment. But, as emphasized in earlier cases, “we have declined to adopt a ‘per se or “but for” rule’ that would make inadmissible any. evidence, whether tangible or five-witness testimony, which somehow came to fight through a chain of causation that began with an illegal arrest.” United States v. Ceccolini, 435 U. S. 268, 276 (1978). Rather, in this context, we have stated that “[t]he penalties visited upon the Government, and in turn upon the public, because its officers have violated the law must bear some relation to the purposes which the law is to serve. ” Id., at 279. In fight of these principles, we decline to apply the exclusionary rule in this context because the rule in Payton was designed to protect the physical integrity of the home; it was not intended to grant criminal suspects, like Harris, protection for statements made outside their premises where the police have probable cause to arrest the suspect for committing a crime.

Payton itself emphasized that our holding in that case stemmed from the “overriding respect for the sanctity of the home that has been embedded in our traditions since the origins of the Republic.” 445 U. S., at 601. Although it had long been settled that a warrantless arrest in a public place was permissible as long as the arresting officer had probable cause, see United States v. Watson, 423 U. S. 411 (1976), Payton nevertheless drew a line at the entrance to the home. This special solicitude was necessary because ‘“physical entry of the home is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed.’” 445 U. S., at 585 (citation omitted). The arrest warrant was required to “interpose the magistrate’s determination of probable cause” to arrest before the officers could enter a house to effect an arrest. Id., at 602-603.

Nothing in the reasoning of that case suggests that an arrest in a home without a warrant but with probable cause somehow renders unlawful continued custody of the suspect once he is removed from the house. There could be no valid claim here that Harris was immune from prosecution because his person was the fruit of an illegal arrest. United States v. Crews, 445 U. S. 463, 474 (1980). Nor is there any claim that the warrantless arrest required the police to release Harris or that Harris could not be immediately rearrested if momentarily released. Because the officers had probable cause to arrest Harris for a crime, Harris was not unlawfully in custody when he was removed to the station house, given Miranda warnings, and allowed to talk. For Fourth Amendment purposes, the legal issue is the same as it would be had the police arrested Harris on his doorstep, illegally entered his home to search for evidence, and later interrogated Harris at the station house. Similarly, if the police had made a warrantless entry into Harris’ home, not found him there, but arrested him on the street when he returned, a later statement made by him after proper warnings would no doubt be admissible.

This case is therefore different from Brown v. Illinois, 422 U. S. 590 (1975), Dunaway v. New York, 442 U. S. 200 (1979), and Taylor v. Alabama, 457 U. S. 687 (1982). In each of those cases, evidence obtained from a criminal defendant following arrest was suppressed because the police lacked probable cause. The three cases stand for the familiar proposition that the indirect fruits of an illegal search or arrest should be suppressed when they bear a sufficiently close relationship to the underlying illegality. See also Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U. S. 471 (1963). We have emphasized, however, that attenuation analysis is only appropriate where, as a threshold matter, courts determine that “the challenged evidence is in some sense the product of illegal governmental activity.” United States v. Crews, supra, at 471. As Judge Titone, concurring in the judgment on the basis of New York state precedent, cogently argued below, “[i]n cases such as Brown v. Illinois (supra) and its progeny, an affirmative answer to that preliminary question may be assumed, since the ‘illegality’ is the absence of probable cause and the wrong consists of the police’s having control of the defendant’s person at the time he made the challenged statement. In these cases, the ‘challenged evidence’ — i. e., the post arrest confession — is unquestionably ‘the product,of [the] illegal governmental activity’ — i. e., the wrongful detention.” 72 N. Y. 2d, at 625, 532 N. E. 2d, at 1235.

Harris’ statement taken at the police station was not the product of being in unlawful custody. Neither was it the fruit of having been arrested in the home rather than someplace else. The case is analogous to United States v. Crews, supra. In that case, we refused to suppress a victim’s in-court identification despite the defendant’s illegal arrest. The Court found that the evidence was not “‘come at by exploitation’ of . . . the defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights,” and that it was not necessary to inquire whether the “taint” of the Fourth Amendment violation was sufficiently attenuated to permit the introduction of the evidence. 445 U. S., at 471. Here, likewise, the police had a justification to question Harris prior to his arrest; therefore, his subsequent statement was not an exploitation of the illegal entry into Harris’ home.

We do not hold, as the dissent suggests, that a statement taken by the police while a suspect is in custody is always admissible as long as the suspect is in legal custody. Statements taken during legal custody would of course be inadmissible, for example, if they were the product of coercion, if Miranda warnings were not given, or if there was a violation of the rule of Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U. S. 477 (1981). We do hold that the station house statement in this case was admissible because Harris was in legal custody, as the dissent concedes, and because the statement, while the product of an arrest and being in custody, was not the fruit of the fact that the arrest was made in the house rather than someplace else.

To put the matter another way, suppressing the statement taken outside the house would not serve the purpose of the rule that made Harris’ in-house arrest illegal. The warrant requirement for an arrest in the home is imposed to protect the home, and anything incriminating the police gathered from arresting Harris in his home, rather than elsewhere, has been excluded, as it should have been; the purpose of the rule has thereby been vindicated. We are not required by the Constitution to go further and suppress statements later made by Harris in order to deter police from violating Payton. “As cases considering the use of unlawfully obtained evidence in criminal trials themselves make clear, it does not follow from the emphasis on the exclusionary rule’s deterrent value that ‘anything which deters illegal searches is thereby commanded by the Fourth Amendment.’” United States v. Leon, 468 U. S. 897, 910 (1984) (citation omitted). Even though we decline to suppress statements made outside the home following a Payton violation, the principal incentive to obey Payton still obtains: the police know that a warrant-less entry will lead to the suppression of any evidence found, or statements taken, inside the home. If we did suppress statements like Harris’, moreover, the incremental deterrent value would be minimal. Given that the police have probable cause to arrest a suspect in Harris’ position, they need not violate Payton in order to interrogate the suspect. It is doubtful therefore that the desire to secure a statement from a criminal suspect would motivate the police to violate Payton. As a result, suppressing a station house statement obtained after a Payton violation will have little effect on the officers’ actions, one way or another.

We hold that, where the police have probable cause to arrest a suspect, the exclusionary rule does not bar the State’s use of a statement made by the defendant outside of his home, even though the statement is taken after an arrest made in the home in violation of Payton. The judgment of the court below is accordingly

Reversed.

Justice Marshall,

with whom Justice Brennan, Justice Blackmun, and Justice Stevens join, dissenting.

Police officers entered Bernard Harris’ home and arrested him there. They did not have an arrest warrant, he did not consent to their entry, and exigent circumstances did not exist. An arrest in such circumstances violates the Fourth Amendment. See Payton v. New York, 445 U. S. 573 (1980); see also ante, at 16, 17. About an hour after his arrest, Harris made an incriminating statement, which the government subsequently used at his trial. The majority concedes that the fruits of that illegal entry must be suppressed. See ante, at 20. The sole question before us is whether Harris’ statement falls within that category.

The majority answers this question by adopting a broad and unprecedented principle, holding that “where the police have probable cause to arrest a suspect, the exclusionary rule does not bar the State’s use of a statement made by the defendant outside of his home, even though the statement is taken after an arrest made in the home in violation of Payton.” Ante, this page. The majority’s conclusion is wrong. Its reasoning amounts to nothing more than an analytical sleight of hand, resting on errors in logic, misreadings of our cases, and an apparent blindness to the incentives the Court’s ruling creates for knowing and intentional constitutional violations by the police. I dissent.

I — I

In recent years, this Court has repeatedly stated that the principal purpose of the Fourth Amendment’s exclusionary rule is to eliminate incentives for police officers to violate that Amendment. See, e. g., United States v. Leon, 468 U. S. 897, 906 (1984). A police officer who violates the Constitution usually does so to obtain evidence that he could not secure lawfully. The best way to deter him is to provide that any evidence so obtained will not be admitted at trial. Deterrence of constitutional violations thus requires the suppression not only of evidence seized during an unconstitutional search, but also of “derivative evidence, both tangible and testimonial, that is the product of the primary evidence, or that is otherwise acquired as an indirect result of the unlawful search.” Murray v. United States, 487 U. S. 533, 536-537 (1988) (citing Nardone v. United States, 308 U. S. 338, 341 (1939)); see also Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U. S. 471, 488 (1963). Not all evidence connected to a constitutional violation is suppressible, however. Rather, the Court has asked “‘whether, granting establishment of the primary illegality, the evidence to which instant objection is made has been come at by exploitation of that illegality or instead by means sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint.’” Ibid. (quoting J. Maguire, Evidence of Guilt 221 (1959)). Accord, Brown v. Illinois, 422 U. S. 590, 599 (1975); Dunaway v. New York, 442 U. S. 200, 217-218 (1979); Taylor v. Alabama, 457 U. S. 687, 690 (1982).

Because deterrence is a principal purpose of the exclusionary rule, our attenuation analysis must be driven by an understanding of how extensive exclusion must be to deter violations of the Fourth Amendment. We have long held that where police have obtained a statement after violating the Fourth Amendment, the interest in deterrence does not disappear simply because the statement was voluntary, as required by the Fifth Amendment. See, e. g., Brown, supra, at 601-602; Dunaway, supra, at 216-217; Taylor, supra, at 690. Police officers are well aware that simply because a statement is “voluntary” does not mean that it was entirely unaffected by the Fourth Amendment violation. See Brown, supra, at 601-602. Indeed, if the Fourth Amendment required exclusion only of statements taken in violation of the Fifth Amendment, the Fourth Amendment would serve no independent purpose. A regime that suppresses only some fruits of constitutional violations is a regime, that barely begins to eliminate the incentives to violate the Constitution.

When faced with a statement obtained after an illegal arrest, then, a court will have occasion to engage in the attenuation inquiry only if it first determines that the statement is “voluntary,” for involuntary statements are suppressible in any event. Attenuation analysis assumes that the statement is “voluntary” and asks whether the connection between the illegal police conduct and the statement nevertheless requires suppression to deter Fourth Amendment violations. That question cannot be answered with a set of per se rules. An inquiry into whether a suspect’s statement is properly treated as attributable to a Fourth Amendment violation or to the suspect’s independent act of will has an irreducibly psychological aspect, and irrebuttable presumptions are peculiarly unhelpful in such a context. Accordingly, we have identified several factors as relevant to the issue of attenuation: the length of time between the arrest and the statement, the presence of intervening circumstances, and the “purpose and flagrancy” of the violation. See, e. g., Brown, supra, at 603-604.

We have identified the last factor as “particularly” important. 422 U. S., at 604. When a police officer intentionally violates what he knows to be a constitutional command, exclusion is essential to conform police behavior to the law. Such a “flagrant” violation is in marked contrast to a violation that is the product of a good-faith misunderstanding of the relevant constitutional requirements. This Court has suggested that excluding evidence that is the product of the latter variety of violation may result in deterrence of legitimate law enforcement efforts. See Leon, supra, at 918-920. Underlying this view is the theory that officers fear that if their judgment as to the constitutionality of their conduct turns out to be wrong, the consequences of their misjudgments may be too costly to justify the possible law enforcement benefits. Any doubt concerning the constitutionality of a course of action will therefore be resolved against that course of action. Whatever the truth of that theory, the concern that officers who act in good faith will be overdeterred is nonexistent when, based on a cynical calculus of the likely results of a suppression hearing, an officer intentionally decides to violate what he knows to be a constitutional command.

An application of the Brown factors to this case compels the conclusion that Harris’ statement at the station house must be suppressed. About an hour elapsed between the illegal arrest and Harris’ confession, without any intervening factor other than the warnings required by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966). This Court has held, however, that “Miranda warnings, alone and per se, . . . cannot assure in every case that the Fourth Amendment violation has not been unduly exploited.” Brown, supra, at 603 (citing Westover v. United States, decided with Miranda v. Arizona, supra, at 496-497). See also supra, at 22-23. Indeed, in Brown, we held that a statement made almost two hours after an illegal arrest, and after Miranda warnings had been given, was not sufficiently removed from the violation so as to dissipate the taint. 422 U. S., at 604.

As to the flagrancy of the violation, petitioner does not dispute that the officers were aware that the Fourth Amendment prohibited them from arresting Harris in his home without a warrant. Notwithstanding the officers’ knowledge that a warrant is required for a routine arrest in the home,

“the police went to defendant’s apartment to arrest him and, as the police conceded, if defendant refused to talk to them there they intended to take him into custody for questioning. Nevertheless, they made no attempt to obtain a warrant although five days had elapsed between the killing and the arrest and they had developed evidence of probable cause early in their investigation. Indeed, one of the officers testifed that it was departmental policy not to get warrants before making arrests in the home. From this statement a reasonable inference can be drawn . . . that the department’s policy was a device used to avoid restrictions on questioning a suspect until after the police had strenthened their case with a confession. Thus, the police illegality was knowing and intentional, in the language of Brown, it ‘had a quality of purposefulness,’ and the linkage between the illegality and the confession is clearly established.” 72 N. Y. 2d 614, 622, 532 N. E. 2d 1229, 1233-1234 (1988) (citation omitted).

In short, the officers decided, apparently consistent with a “departmental policy,” to violate Harris’ Fourth Amendment rights so they could get evidence that they could not otherwise obtain. As the trial court held, “No more clear violation of [Payton], in my view, could be established.” App. 20. Where, as here, there is a particularly flagrant constitutional violation and little in the way of elapsed time or intervening circumstances, the statement in the police station must be suppressed.

II

Had the Court analyzed this case as our precedents dictate that it should, I could end my discussion here — the dispute would reduce to an application of the Brown factors to the constitutional wrong and the inculpatory statement that followed. But the majority chooses no such unremarkable battleground. Instead, the Court redrafts our cases in the service of conclusions they straightforwardly and explicitly reject. Specifically, the Court finds suppression unwarranted on the authority of its newly fashioned per se rule. In the majority’s view, when police officers make a warrant-less home arrest in violation of Payton, their physical exit from the suspect’s home necessarily breaks the causal chain between the illegality and any subsequent statement by the suspect, such that the statement is admissible regardless of the Brown factors.

The Court purports to defend its new rule on the basis of the self-evident proposition that the Fourth Amendment does not necessarily require the police to release or to forgo the prosecution of a suspect arrested in violation of Payton. Ante, at 18. To the Court, it follows as a matter of course from this proposition that a Payton violation cannot in any way be the “cause” of a statement obtained from the suspect after he has been forced from his home and is being lawfully detained. Because an attenuation inquiry presupposes some connection between the illegality and the statement, the Court concludes that no such inquiry is necessary here. Ante, at 18. Neither logic nor precedent supports that conclusion.

A

Certainly, the police were not required to release Harris or forgo his prosecution simply because officers arrested him in violation of Payton. But it is a dramatic leap from that unexceptionable proposition to the suggestion that the Payton violation thus had no effect once the police took Harris from his home. The Court’s view to the contrary appears to rest on a cramped understanding of the purposes underlying Payton. The home is a private place, more private than any other. An invasion into the home is therefore the worst kind of invasion of privacy. An intrusion into that sanctum is an assault on the individual’s solitude and on the family’s communal bonds. As we said in Payton:

“The Fourth Amendment protects the individual’s privacy in a variety of settings. In none is the zone of privacy more clearly defined than when bounded by the unambiguous physical dimensions.of an individual’s home — a zone that finds its roots in clear and specific constitutional terms: ‘The right of the people to be secure in their . . . houses . . . shall not be violated.’' That language unequivocally establishes the proposition that ‘[a]t the very core [of the Fourth Amendment] stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion.’” 445 U. S., at 589-590 (ellipses in original) (quoting Silverman v. United States, 365 U. S. 505, 511 (1961)).

See also California v. Ciraolo, 476 U. S. 207, 212-213 (1986) (“The protection afforded the curtilage is essentially a protection of families and personal privacy in an area intimately linked to the home, both physically and psychologically, where privacy expectations are most heightened”).

The majority’s per se rule in this case fails to take account of our repeated holdings that violations of privacy in the home are especially invasive. Rather, its rule is necessarily premised on the proposition that the effect of a Payton violation magically vanishes once the suspect is dragged from his home. But the concerns that make a warrantless home arrest a violation of the Fourth Amendment are nothing so evanescent. A person who is forcibly separated from his family and home in the dark of night after uniformed officers have broken down his door, handcuffed him, and forced him at gunpoint to accompany them to a police station does not suddenly breathe a sigh of relief at the moment he is dragged across his doorstep. Rather, the suspect is likely to be so frightened and rattled that he will say something incriminating. These effects, of course, extend far beyond the moment the physical occupation of the home ends. The entire focus of the Brown factors is to fix the point at which those effects are sufficiently dissipated that deterrence is not meaningfully advanced by suppression. The majority’s assertion, as though the proposition were axiomatic, that the effects of such an intrusion must end when the violation ends is both undefended and indefensible. The Court’s saying it may make it law, but it does not make it true.

B

The majority’s reading of our cases similarly lacks foundation. In the majority’s view, our attenuation cases are not concerned with the lingering taint of an illegal arrest; rather, they focus solely on whether a subsequently obtained statement is made during an illegal detention of the suspect. Ante, at 18-19 (quoting 72 N. Y. 2d, at 625, 532 N. E. 2d, at 1235 (Titone, J., concurring)). In the Court’s view, if (and only if) the detention is illegal at the moment the statement is made will it be suppressed. Unlike an arrest without probable cause, a Payton violation alone does not make the subsequent detention of the suspect illegal. Thus, the Court argues, no statement made after a Payton violation has ended is suppressible by reason of the Fourth Amendment violation as long as the police have probable cause.

The majority’s theory lacks any support in our cases. In each case presenting issues similar to those here, we have asked the same question: whether the invasion of privacy occasioned by the illegal arrest taints a statement made after the violation has ended — stated another way, whether the arrest caused the statement. See, e. g., Wong Sun, 371 U. S., at 485-488; Brown, 422 U. S., at 591-592, 599, 603; Dun- away, 442 U. S., at 217, 218; Taylor, 457 U. S., at 690, 694. Never before today has this Court asked whether the illegality itself was continuing at the time the evidence was secured. See Leon, 468 U. S., at 911 (White, J., for the Court) (“In short, the ‘dissipation of the taint’ concept that the Court has applied in deciding whether exclusion is appropriate in a particular case ‘attempts to mark the point at which the detrimental consequences of illegal police action become so attenuated that the deterrent effect of the exclusionary rule no longer justifies its cost’ ”) (citation omitted).

Indeed, such an approach would render irrelevant the first and second of the Brown factors, which focus, respectively, on the passage of time and the existence of intervening factors between the illegality and the subsequently obtained statement. If, as the majority claims, the Brown analysis does not even apply unless the illegality is ongoing at the time the evidence is secured, no time would ever pass and no circumstance would ever intervene between the illegality and the statement.

The only Supreme Court case in which the majority even attempts to find support is United States v. Crews, 445 U. S. 463 (1980). Crews, however, is inapposite. In that case, the defendant moved to suppress a witness’s in-court identification of him on the ground that he had been illegally arrested. Crews’ theory was that he was the fruit of his own illegal arrest — that he himself should have been “suppressed.” Because no identification of him could have been made if he were not in the courtroom, his argument proceeded, that identification had to be suppressed in turn. The Court rejected Crews’ argument:

“Insofar as [Crews] challenges his own presence at trial, he cannot claim immunity from prosecution simply because his appearance in court was precipitated by an unlawful arrest. An illegal arrest, without more, has never been viewed as a bar to subsequent prosecution, nor as a defense to a valid conviction. The exclusionary principle of Wong Sun and Silverthorne Lumber Co. [v. United States, 251 U. S. 385 (1920),] delimits what proof the Government may offer against the accused at trial, closing the courtroom door to evidence secured by official lawlessness. [Crews] is not himself a suppressible ‘fruit,’ and the illegality of his detention cannot deprive the Government of the opportunity to prove his guilt through the introduction of evidence wholly untainted by the police misconduct.” 445 U. S., at 474 (citations omitted; footnote omitted; emphases added).

Seen in context, the majority’s misuse of Crews is apparent. As in Wong Sun, Brown, and Taylor, Harris seeks to suppress evidence — a statement he made one hour after his arrest. He does not contend that he cannot be tried because he was arrested illegally, nor does he in any way link his demand for suppression of his statement to a claim that his presence at trial, or anywhere else, should somehow be suppressed. Crews is therefore irrelevant. The only authority the majority cites that directly supports its novel view of Brown is a concurring opinion in the New York Court of Appeals, ante, at 19, which is hardly a sufficient basis on which to reject almost 30 years of cases.

C

Perhaps the most alarming aspect of the Court’s ruling is its practical consequences for the deterrence of Payton violations. Imagine a police officer who has probable cause to arrest a suspect but lacks a warrant. The officer knows if he were to break into the home to make the arrest without first securing a warrant, he would violate the Fourth Amendment and any evidence he finds in the house would be suppressed. Of course, if he does not enter the house, he will not be able to use any evidence inside the house either, for the simple reason that he will never see it. The officer also knows, though, that waiting for the suspect to leave his house before arresting him could entail a lot of waiting, and the time he would spend getting a warrant would be better spent arresting criminals. The officer could leave the scene to obtain a warrant, thus avoiding some of the delay, but that would entail giving the suspect an opportunity to flee.

More important, the officer knows that if he breaks into the house without a warrant and drags the suspect outside, the suspect, shaken by the enormous invasion of privacy he has just undergone, may say something incriminating. Before today's decision, the government would only be able to use that evidence if the Court found that the taint of the arrest had been attenuated; after the decision, the evidence will be admissible regardless of whether it was the product of the unconstitutional arrest. Thus, the officer envisions the following best-case scenario if he chooses to violate the Constitution: He avoids a major expenditure of time and effort, ensures that the suspect will not escape, and procures the most damaging evidence of all, a confession. His worst-case scenario is that he will avoid a major expenditure of effort, ensure that the suspect will not escape, and will see evidence in the house (which would have remained unknown absent the constitutional violation) that cannot be used in the prosecution’s case in chief. The Court thus creates powerful incentives for police officers to violate the Fourth Amendment. In the context of our constitutional rights and the sanctity of our homes, we cannot afford to presume that, officers will be entirely impervious to those incentives.

I dissent.

       This Court has never held that an officer’s good-faith misunderstanding of the law justifies the admission of unconstitutionally seized evidence except in the limited context of the officer’s good-faith and objectively reasonable reliance on a facially valid warrant issued by a neutral and detached magistrate. United States v. Leon, 468 U. S. 897, 925-926 (1984). Even in that limited context, I think that suppression is required. See id., at 928-960 (Brennan, J., dissenting).

       The “restrictions on questioning” to which the court refers are restrictions imposed by New York law. New York law provides that an arrest warrant may not issue until an “accusatory instrument” has been filed against the suspect. N. Y. Crim. Proc. Law § 120.20 (McKinney 1981). The New York courts have held that police officers may not question a suspect in the absence of an attorney once such an accusatory instrument has been filed. People v. Samuels, 49 N. Y. 2d 218, 400 N. E. 2d 1344 (1980). These two rules operate to prohibit police from questioning a suspect after arresting him in his home unless his lawyer is present. If the police comply with Payton, the suspect’s lawyer will likely tell him not to say anything, and the police will get nothing. On the other hand, if they violate Payton by refusing to obtain a warrant, the suspect’s right to counsel will not have attached at the time of the arrest, and the police may be able to question him without interference by a lawyer. The lower court’s inference that a departmental policy of violating the Fourth Amendment existed was thus fully justified.

       The Court has a caveat of sorts. It holds that “where the -police have probable cause to arrest a suspect, the exclusionary rule does not bar the State’s use of a statement made by the defendant outside of his home, even though the statement is taken after an arrest made in the home in violation of Payton.’’ Ante, at 21 (emphasis added). But the caveat adds nothing. As the Court concedes, it is unconstitutional for the police to hold a suspect without probable cause, and any statement made during a detention for which probable cause is lacking “is unquestionably the product of [the] illegal governmental activity — i. e., the wrongful detention.” Ante, at 19. (internal quotation marks omitted; citation omitted). Thus, the Court concedes that any statement taken from a suspect who is in custody without probable cause must be suppressed, irrespective of whether there was an antecedent Payton violation.

         The Court assures us that it does not hold “that a statement taken by the police while a suspect is in custody is always admissible as long as the suspect is in legal custody.” Ante, at 20. Rather, such statements “would of course be inadmissible if, for example, they were the product of coercion, if Miranda warnings were not given, or if there was a violation of the rule of Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U. S. 477 (1981).” Ibid. As the majority is no doubt well aware, each of these examples constitutes a violation of the Fifth Amendment. But suppressing the consequences of a violation of the Fifth Amendment does nothing to deter violations of the Fourth. See, supra, at 23. The Court’s disclaimer thus only serves to reinforce the conclusion that its ruling rests on the still-undefended premise that the effects of Payton violations end at the suspect’s doorstep.

       Indeed, if the officer, as here, works in New York State, the Court’s assertion that “[i]t is doubtful therefore that the desire to secure a statement from a criminal suspect would motivate the police to violate Payton,” ante, at 21, takes on a singularly ironic cast. The court below found as a matter of fact that the officers in this case had intentionally violated Payton for 'precisely the reason the Court identifies as “doubtful.” See n. 2, supra, and accompanying text.