Vega v. Tekoh

597 U.S. 134, 213 L. Ed. 2d 479, 142 S. Ct. 2095

• Court: Supreme Court of the United States
• Decided: June 23, 2022
• Docket: 21-499
• Status: Published

Opinion

(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2021 1

Syllabus

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

VEGA v. TEKOH

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

No. 21–499. Argued April 20, 2022—Decided June 23, 2022 The case arose out of the interrogation of respondent, Terence Tekoh, by petitioner, Los Angeles County Sheriff ’s Deputy Carlos Vega. Deputy Vega questioned Tekoh at the medical center where Tekoh worked re- garding the reported sexual assault of a patient. Vega did not inform Tekoh of his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436. Tekoh eventually provided a written statement apologizing for inappropri- ately touching the patient’s genitals. Tekoh was prosecuted for unlaw- ful sexual penetration. His written statement was admitted against him at trial. After the jury returned a verdict of not guilty, Tekoh sued Vega under 42 U. S. C. §1983, seeking damages for alleged violations of his constitutional rights. The Ninth Circuit held that the use of an un-Mirandized statement against a defendant in a criminal proceed- ing violates the Fifth Amendment and may support a §1983 claim against the officer who obtained the statement. Held: A violation of the Miranda rules does not provide a basis for a §1983 claim. Pp. 4–16. (a) Section 1983 provides a cause of action against any person acting under color of state law who “subjects” a person “to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws.” Tekoh argues that a violation of Miranda constitutes a violation of the Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination. That is wrong. Pp. 4–13. (1) In Miranda, the Court concluded that additional procedural pro- tections were necessary to prevent the violation of the Fifth Amend- ment right against self-incrimination when suspects who are in cus- tody are interrogated by the police. Miranda imposed a set of prophylactic rules requiring that custodial interrogation be preceded 2 VEGA v. TEKOH

by now-familiar warnings and disallowing the use of statements ob- tained in violation of these new rules by the prosecution in its case-in- chief. 384 U. S., at 444, 479. Miranda did not hold that a violation of the rules it established necessarily constitute a Fifth Amendment vio- lation. That makes sense, as an un-Mirandized suspect in custody may make self-incriminating statements without any hint of compulsion. The Miranda Court stated that the Constitution did not itself require “adherence to any particular solution for the inherent compulsions of the interrogation process” and that its decision “in no way create[d] a constitutional straitjacket.” Id., at 467. Since Miranda, the Court has repeatedly described Miranda rules as “prophylactic.” Pp. 4–7. (2) After Miranda, the Court engaged in the process of charting the dimensions of these new prophylactic rules, and, in doing so, weighed the benefits and costs of any clarification of the prophylactic rules’ scope. See Maryland v. Shatzer, 559 U. S. 98, 106. Some post-Mi- randa decisions found that the balance of interests justified re- strictions that would not have been possible if Miranda described the Fifth Amendment right as opposed to a set of rules designed to protect that right. For example, in Harris v. New York, 401 U. S. 222, 224– 226, the Court held that a statement obtained in violation of Miranda could be used to impeach the testimony of a defendant, even though an involuntary statement obtained in violation of the Fifth Amendment could not have been employed in this way. In Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U. S. 443, 450–452, n. 26, the Court held that the “fruits” of an un- Mirandized statement can be admitted. In doing so, the Court distin- guished police conduct that “abridge[s] [a person’s] constitutional priv- ilege against compulsory self-incrimination” from conduct that “de- part[s] only from the prophylactic standards later laid down by this Court in Miranda to safeguard that privilege.” 417 U. S., at 445–446. Similarly, in Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U. S. 298, the Court, following the reasoning in Tucker, refused to exclude a signed confession and em- phasized that an officer’s error “in administering the prophylactic Mi- randa procedures . . . should not breed the same irremediable conse- quences as police infringement of the Fifth Amendment itself.” Id., at 309. While many of the Court’s decisions imposed limits on Miranda’s prophylactic rules, other decisions found that the balance of interests called for expansion. For example, in Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U. S. 610, the Court held that silence following a Miranda warning cannot be used to impeach. The Court acknowledged that Miranda warnings are “prophylactic,” 426 U. S., at 617, but it found that allowing the use of post-warning silence would undermine the warnings’ implicit promise that silence would not be used to convict. Id., at 618. Likewise, in Withrow v. Williams, 507 U. S. 680, the Court rejected an attempt to Cite as: 597 U. S. ____ (2022) 3

restrict Miranda’s application in collateral proceedings based on the reasoning in Stone v. Powell, 428 U. S. 465 (1976). Once again ac- knowledging that Miranda adopted prophylactic rules, the Court bal- anced the competing interests and found that the costs of adopting a Stone-like rule outweighed any benefits. In sum, the Court’s post-Mi- randa cases acknowledge the prophylactic nature of the Miranda rules and engage in cost-benefit analysis to define their scope. Pp. 7–11. (3) The Court’s decision in Dickerson v. United States, 530 U. S. 428, did not upset the firmly established prior understanding of Miranda as a prophylactic decision. Dickerson involved a federal statute, 18 U. S. C. §3501, that effectively overruled Miranda by making the ad- missibility of a statement given during custodial interrogation turn solely on whether it was made voluntarily. 530 U. S., at 431–432. The Court held that Congress could not abrogate Miranda by statute be- cause Miranda was a “constitutional decision” that adopted a “consti- tutional rule,” 530 U. S., at 438–439, and the Court noted that these rules could not have been made applicable to the States if they did not have that status, see ibid. At the same time, the Court made it clear that it was not equating a violation of the Miranda rules with an out- right Fifth Amendment violation. Instead, the Dickerson Court de- scribed the Miranda rules as “constitutionally based” with “constitu- tional underpinnings,” 530 U. S., at 440, and n. 5. Those formulations obviously avoided saying that a Miranda violation is the same as a violation of the Fifth Amendment right. Miranda was a “constitutional decision” and it adopted a “constitutional rule” in the sense that the decision was based on the Court’s judgment about what is required to safeguard that constitutional right. And when the Court adopts a con- stitutional prophylactic rule of this nature, Dickerson concluded, the rule has the status of a “La[w] of the United States” that is binding on the States under the Supremacy Clause (as Miranda implicitly held, since three of the four decisions it reversed came from state court, 384 U. S., at 491–494, 497–499), and the rule cannot be altered by ordinary legislation. Dickerson thus asserted a bold and controversial claim— that this Court has the authority to create constitutionally based prophylactic rules that bind both federal and state courts—but Dick- erson cannot be understood any other way consistent with the Court’s prior decisions. Subsequent cases confirm that Dickerson did not up- end the Court’s understanding of the Miranda rules as prophylactic. In sum, a violation of Miranda does not necessarily constitute a viola- tion of the Constitution, and therefore such a violation does not consti- tute “the deprivation of [a] right . . . secured by the Constitution” for purposes of §1983. Pp. 11–13. (b) A §1983 claim may also be based on “the deprivation of any rights . . . secured by the . . . laws.” But the argument that Miranda rules 4 VEGA v. TEKOH

constitute federal “law” that can provide the ground for a §1983 claim cannot succeed unless Tekoh can persuade the Court that this “law” should be expanded to include the right to sue for damages under §1983. “A judicially crafted” prophylactic rule should apply “only where its benefits outweigh its costs,” Shatzer, 559 U. S., at 106. Here, while the benefits of permitting the assertion of Miranda claims under §1983 would be slight, the costs would be substantial. For example, allowing a claim like Tekoh’s would disserve “judicial economy,” Park- lane Hosiery Co. v. Shore, 439 U. S. 322, 326, by requiring a federal judge or jury to adjudicate a factual question (whether Tekoh was in custody when questioned) that had already been decided by a state court. Allowing §1983 suits based on Miranda claims could also pre- sent many procedural issues. Miranda and its progeny provide suffi- cient protection for the Fifth Amendment right against compelled self- incrimination. Pp. 13–16. 985 F. 3d 713, reversed and remanded.

ALITO, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and THOMAS, GORSUCH, KAVANAUGH, and BARRETT, JJ., joined. KAGAN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which BREYER and SOTOMAYOR, JJ., joined. Cite as: 597 U. S. ____ (2022) 1

Opinion of the Court

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash- ington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES _________________

No. 21–499 _________________

CARLOS VEGA, PETITIONER v. TERENCE B. TEKOH ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT [June 23, 2022]

JUSTICE ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court. This case presents the question whether a plaintiff may sue a police officer under Rev. Stat. §1979, 42 U. S. C. §1983, based on the allegedly improper admission of an “un- Mirandized”1 statement in a criminal prosecution. The case arose out of the interrogation of respondent, Terence Tekoh, by petitioner, Los Angeles County Sheriff ’s Deputy Carlos Vega. Deputy Vega questioned Tekoh at his place of em- ployment and did not give him a Miranda warning. Tekoh was prosecuted, and his confession was admitted into evi- dence, but the jury returned a verdict of not guilty. Tekoh then sued Vega under §1983, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the use of Tekoh’s un-Mirandized statement provided a valid basis for a §1983 claim against Vega. We now reject this extension of our Miranda case law. I In March 2014, Tekoh was working as a certified nursing assistant at a Los Angeles medical center. When a female patient accused him of sexually assaulting her, the hospital —————— 1 See Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966). 2 VEGA v. TEKOH

staff reported the accusation to the Los Angeles County Sheriff ’s Department, and Deputy Vega responded. Vega questioned Tekoh at length in the hospital, and Tekoh even- tually provided a written statement apologizing for inap- propriately touching the patient’s genitals. The parties dis- pute whether Vega used coercive investigatory techniques to extract the statement, but it is undisputed that he never informed Tekoh of his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966), which held that during a custodial inter- rogation police officers must inform a suspect that “he has the right to remain silent, that anything he says can be used against him in a court of law, that he has the right to the presence of an attorney, and that if he cannot afford an at- torney one will be appointed for him prior to any question- ing.” Id., at 479. Tekoh was arrested and charged in California state court with unlawful sexual penetration. At Tekoh’s first trial, the judge held that Miranda had not been violated because Tekoh was not in custody when he provided the statement, but the trial resulted in a mistrial. When Tekoh was re- tried, a second judge again denied his request to exclude the confession. This trial resulted in acquittal, and Tekoh then brought this action under 42 U. S. C. §1983 against Vega and several other defendants seeking damages for alleged violations of his constitutional rights, including his Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination. When this §1983 case was first tried, the jury returned a verdict in favor of Vega, but the judge concluded that he had given an improper jury instruction and thus granted a new trial. Before the second trial, Tekoh asked the court to in- struct the jury that it was required to find that Vega vio- lated the Fifth Amendment right against compelled self- incrimination if it determined that he took a statement from Tekoh in violation of Miranda and that the statement was then improperly used against Tekoh at his criminal trial. The District Court declined, reasoning that Miranda Cite as: 597 U. S. ____ (2022) 3

established a prophylactic rule and that such a rule could not alone provide a ground for §1983 liability. Instead, the jury was asked to decide whether Tekoh’s Fifth Amendment right had been violated. The court instructed the jury to determine, based on “the totality of all the surrounding cir- cumstances,” whether Tekoh’s statement had been “im- properly coerced or compelled,” and the court explained that “[a] confession is improperly coerced or compelled . . . if a police officer uses physical or psychological force or threats not permitted by law to undermine a person’s abil- ity to exercise his or her free will.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 119a. The jury found in Vega’s favor, and Tekoh appealed. A Ninth Circuit panel reversed, holding that the “use of an un-Mirandized statement against a defendant in a crim- inal proceeding violates the Fifth Amendment and may support a §1983 claim” against the officer who obtained the statement. Tekoh v. County of Los Angeles, 985 F. 3d 713, 722 (2021). The panel acknowledged that this Court has repeatedly said that Miranda adopted prophylactic rules designed to protect against constitutional violations and that the decision did not hold that the contravention of those rules necessarily constitutes a constitutional viola- tion. See 985 F. 3d, at 719–720. But the panel thought that our decision in Dickerson v. United States, 530 U. S. 428 (2000), “made clear that the right of a criminal defendant against having an un-Mirandized statement introduced in the prosecution’s case in chief is indeed a right secured by the Constitution.” 985 F. 3d, at 720. Therefore the panel concluded that Tekoh could establish a violation of his Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination simply by showing that Miranda had been violated. See 985 F. 3d, at 720. The panel thus remanded the case for a new trial. Vega’s petition for rehearing en banc was denied, but Judge Bumatay, joined by six other judges, filed a dissent 4 VEGA v. TEKOH

from the denial of rehearing. Tekoh v. County of Los Ange- les, 997 F. 3d 1260, 1261, 1264–1272 (CA9 2021). We then granted certiorari. 595 U. S. ___ (2022). II Section 1983 provides a cause of action against any per- son acting under color of state law who “subjects” a person or “causes [a person] to be subjected . . . to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Con- stitution and laws.” The question we must decide is whether a violation of the Miranda rules provides a basis for a claim under §1983. We hold that it does not. A If a Miranda violation were tantamount to a violation of the Fifth Amendment, our answer would of course be differ- ent. The Fifth Amendment, made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment, Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U. S. 1, 6 (1964), provides that “[n]o person . . . shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” This Clause “permits a person to refuse to testify against himself at a criminal trial in which he is a defendant” and “also ‘privileges him not to answer official questions put to him in any other proceeding, civil or criminal, formal or infor- mal, where the answers might incriminate him in future criminal proceedings.’ ” Minnesota v. Murphy, 465 U. S. 420, 426 (1984) (quoting Lefkowitz v. Turley, 414 U. S. 70, 77 (1973)). In addition, the right bars the introduction against a criminal defendant of out-of-court statements ob- tained by compulsion. See, e.g., Bram v. United States, 168 U. S. 532, 565 (1897); Miranda, 384 U. S., at 466; Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U. S. 433, 440–442 (1974). In Miranda, the Court concluded that additional proce- dural protections were necessary to prevent the violation of this important right when suspects who are in custody are interrogated by the police. To afford this protection, the Cite as: 597 U. S. ____ (2022) 5

Court required that custodial interrogation be preceded by the now-familiar warnings mentioned above, and it directed that statements obtained in violation of these new rules may not be used by the prosecution in its case-in-chief. 384 U. S., at 444, 479. In this case, the Ninth Circuit held—and Tekoh now ar- gues, Brief for Respondent 20—that a violation of Miranda constitutes a violation of the Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination, but that is wrong. Miranda itself and our subsequent cases make clear that Miranda imposed a set of prophylactic rules. Those rules, to be sure, are “constitutionally based,” Dickerson, 530 U. S., at 440, but they are prophylactic rules nonetheless. B Miranda itself was clear on this point. Miranda did not hold that a violation of the rules it established necessarily constitute a Fifth Amendment violation, and it is difficult to see how it could have held otherwise. For one thing, it is easy to imagine many situations in which an un- Mirandized suspect in custody may make self- incriminating statements without any hint of compulsion. In addition, the warnings that the Court required included components, such as notification of the right to have re- tained or appointed counsel present during questioning, that do not concern self-incrimination per se but are instead plainly designed to safeguard that right. And the same is true of Miranda’s detailed rules about the waiver of the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney. 384 U. S., at 474–479. At no point in the opinion did the Court state that a vio- lation of its new rules constituted a violation of the Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination. In- stead, it claimed only that those rules were needed to safe- guard that right during custodial interrogation. See id., at 439 (describing its rules as “procedures which assure that 6 VEGA v. TEKOH

the individual is accorded his privilege under the Fifth Amendment”); id., at 444 (describing rules as “procedural safeguards”); id., at 457 (“appropriate safeguards”); id., at 458 (“adequate protective devices”); id., at 467 (“safe- guards”). In accordance with this understanding of the nature of the rules it imposed, the Miranda Court stated quite clearly that the Constitution did not itself require “adherence to any particular solution for the inherent compulsions of the interrogation process” and that its decision “in no way cre- ate[d] a constitutional straitjacket.” Ibid. The opinion added that its new rules might not be needed if Congress or the States adopted “other procedures which are at least as effective,” ibid., and the opinion suggested that there might not have been any actual Fifth Amendment violations in the four cases that were before the Court. See id., at 457 (“In these cases, we might not find the defendants’ state- ments to have been involuntary in traditional terms”). The Court could not have said any of these things if a violation of the Miranda rules necessarily constituted a violation of the Fifth Amendment. Since Miranda, the Court has repeatedly described the rules it adopted as “prophylactic.” See Howes v. Fields, 565 U. S. 499, 507 (2012); J. D. B. v. North Carolina, 564 U. S. 261, 269 (2011); Maryland v. Shatzer, 559 U. S. 98, 103 (2010); Montejo v. Louisiana, 556 U. S. 778, 794 (2009); Da- vis v. United States, 512 U. S. 452, 458 (1994); Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U. S. 619, 629 (1993); Withrow v. Wil- liams, 507 U. S. 680, 691 (1993); McNeil v. Wisconsin, 501 U. S. 171, 176 (1991); Michigan v. Harvey, 494 U. S. 344, 350 (1990); Duckworth v. Eagan, 492 U. S. 195, 203 (1989); Arizona v. Roberson, 486 U. S. 675, 681 (1988); Connecticut v. Barrett, 479 U. S. 523, 528 (1987); Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U. S. 298, 309 (1985); New York v. Quarles, 467 U. S. 649, 654 (1984); South Dakota v. Neville, 459 U. S. 553, 564, n. 15 (1983); United States v. Henry, 447 U. S. 264, 274 (1980); Cite as: 597 U. S. ____ (2022) 7

North Carolina v. Butler, 441 U. S. 369, 374 (1979); Brown v. Illinois, 422 U. S. 590, 600 (1975); Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U. S., at 439; and Michigan v. Payne, 412 U. S. 47, 53 (1973).2 C After Miranda was handed down, the Court engaged in the process of charting the dimensions of these new prophy- lactic rules. As we would later spell out, this process en- tailed a weighing of the benefits and costs of any clarifica- tion of the rules’ scope. See Shatzer, 559 U. S., at 106 (“A judicially crafted rule is ‘justified only by reference to its prophylactic purpose,’ . . . and applies only where its bene- fits outweigh its costs”). Some post-Miranda decisions found that the balance of interests justified restrictions that would not have been possible if Miranda represented an explanation of the meaning of the Fifth Amendment right as opposed to a set of rules designed to protect that right. For example, in Har- ris v. New York, 401 U. S. 222, 224–226 (1971), the Court held that a statement obtained in violation of Miranda could be used to impeach the testimony of a defendant, even though an involuntary statement obtained in violation of the Fifth Amendment could not have been employed in this way. See Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U. S. 385, 398 (1978)

—————— 2 Tekoh cites Orozco v. Texas, 394 U. S. 324 (1969), which characterized

the admission of an unwarned statement in the prosecutor’s case-in-chief as a “flat violation of the Self-Incrimination Clause of the Fifth Amend- ment as construed in Miranda.” Id., at 326 (emphasis added); Brief for Respondent 21, 29. But the Court made this assertion in a three-para- graph opinion without any additional analysis, and did not purport to go beyond Miranda, which, as we have explained, does not support the prop- osition that a Miranda violation equates to a Fifth Amendment violation. See Orozco, 394 U. S., at 327 (“We do not . . . expand or extend to the slightest extent our Miranda decision”). Likewise, the decision predates the subsequent case law defining the scope of the Miranda rules. See infra, this page and 8–11. 8 VEGA v. TEKOH

(“[A]ny criminal trial use against a defendant of his invol- untary statement is a denial of due process of law” (empha- sis deleted)). Engaging in the process we described in Shatzer, the Harris Court considered the benefits of forbid- ding impeachment but dismissed “the speculative possibil- ity” that this would discourage “impermissible police con- duct,” and on the other side of the scale, it feared that barring impeachment would turn Miranda into “a license to use perjury by way of a defense.” 401 U. S., at 225–226. A similar analysis was used in Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U. S. 443, 450–452, n. 26 (1974), where the Court held that the “fruits” of an un-Mirandized statement can be admit- ted. The Court noted that “the ‘fruits’ of police conduct which actually infringe[s]” a defendant’s constitutional rights must be suppressed. Id., at 445; see also Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U. S. 471 (1963) (applying the rule in the context of a Fourth Amendment violation). But the Court distinguished police conduct that “abridge[s] [a per- son’s] constitutional privilege against compulsory self- incrimination” from conduct that “depart[s] only from the prophylactic standards later laid down by this Court in Mi- randa to safeguard that privilege.” 417 U. S., at 445–446. Because there had been only a Miranda violation in that case, the Wong Sun rule of automatic exclusion was found to be inapplicable. See 417 U. S., at 445–446. Instead, the Court asked whether the Miranda rules’ prophylactic pur- poses justified the exclusion of the fruits of the violation, and after “balancing the interests involved,” it held that ex- clusion was not required. 417 U. S., at 447–452. In New York v. Quarles, 467 U. S. 649, 654–657 (1984), the Court held that statements obtained in violation of Mi- randa need not be suppressed when the questioning is con- ducted to address an ongoing “public safety” concern. The Court reasoned that Miranda warnings are “ ‘not them- selves rights protected by the Constitution’ ” and that “the need for answers to questions in a situation posing a threat Cite as: 597 U. S. ____ (2022) 9

to the public safety outweigh[ed] the need for the prophy- lactic rule.” 467 U. S., at 654, 657. Finally, in Elstad, 470 U. S. 298, the Court again distin- guished between a constitutional violation and a violation of Miranda. In that case, a suspect in custody was initially questioned without receiving a Miranda warning, and the statements made at that time were suppressed. 470 U. S., at 301–302. But the suspect was later given Miranda warn- ings, chose to waive his Miranda rights, and signed a writ- ten confession. 470 U. S., at 301. Asked to decide whether this confession was admissible, the Court followed the rea- soning in Tucker and again held that the fruit-of-the- poisonous-tree rule that applies to constitutional violations does not apply to violations of Miranda. 470 U. S., at 306– 309, 318. The Court refused to exclude the signed confes- sion and emphasized that an officer’s error “in administer- ing the prophylactic Miranda procedures . . . should not breed the same irremediable consequences as police in- fringement of the Fifth Amendment itself.” 3 Id., at 309.

—————— 3 Two other decisions fall into this same category, but in both there was

no opinion of the Court. In Chavez v. Martinez, 538 U. S. 760 (2003), the suspect gave an un-Mirandized statement while in custody but was never charged with a crime. The Court held that the suspect could not bring a 42 U. S. C. §1983 claim against the officer who questioned him, and Justice Souter, who cast the necessary fifth vote on the issue, reached that conclusion based on “a realistic assessment of costs and risks” of “expand[ing] protection of the privilege against compelled self- incrimination to the point of the civil liability” at issue. 538 U. S., at 778–779 (opinion concurring in judgment). In United States v. Patane, 542 U. S. 630 (2004), the Court once again held that Miranda does not require the suppression of the fruits of a un- Mirandized statement made during custodial questioning, and two of the five Justices in the majority engaged in the same type of balancing that was used in Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U. S. 433 (1974), and Elstad. See Patane, 542 U. S., at 644–645 (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment); see also id., at 641–644 (plurality opinion). 10 VEGA v. TEKOH

It is hard to see how these decisions could stand if a vio- lation of Miranda constituted a violation of the Fifth Amendment. D While these decisions imposed limits on Miranda’s prophylactic rules, other decisions found that the balance of interests called for expansion. In Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U. S. 610, 617–619 (1976), the Court held that silence following a Miranda warning cannot be used to impeach. The Court acknowledged that Miranda warnings are “prophylactic,” 426 U. S., at 617, and it recognized the prosecution’s need to test a defendant’s exculpatory story through cross- examination, id., at 616–618. But it found that allowing the use of post-warning silence would undermine the warn- ings’ implicit promise that silence would not be used to con- vict. Id., at 618. Similarly, in Roberson, 486 U. S., at 682, the Court held that a suspect’s post-warning request for counsel with re- spect to one offense barred later interrogation without counsel regarding a different offense. Describing the Mi- randa rules as “prophylactic protections,” 486 U. S., at 681, the Court concluded that both law enforcement and crimi- nal defendants would benefit from a bright-line, id., at 681– 682. Finally, in Withrow v. Williams, 507 U. S. 680, the Court rejected an attempt to restrict Miranda’s application in col- lateral proceedings based on the reasoning in Stone v. Pow- ell, 428 U. S. 465 (1976). In Stone, the Court had held that a defendant who has had a full and fair opportunity to seek suppression of evidence allegedly seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment may not obtain federal habeas relief on that ground, id., at 494–495, and in Withrow, a state prison warden argued that a similar rule should apply to a habeas petitioner who had been given an opportunity to litigate a Miranda claim at trial, see 507 U. S., at 688–690. Once Cite as: 597 U. S. ____ (2022) 11

again acknowledging that Miranda adopted prophylactic rules, the Court balanced the competing interests and found that the costs of adopting the warden’s argument out- weighed any benefits. On the cost side, the Court noted that enforcing Miranda “safeguards ‘a fundamental trial right” and furthers “the correct ascertainment of guilt” at trial. 507 U. S., at 691–692. And on the other side, the Court found that the adoption of a Stone-like rule “would not significantly benefit the federal courts in their exercise of habeas jurisdiction, or advance the cause of federalism in any substantial way.” 507 U. S., at 693. Thus, all the post-Miranda cases we have discussed acknowledged the prophylactic nature of the Miranda rules and engaged in cost-benefit analysis to define the scope of these prophylactic rules. E Contrary to the decision below and Tekoh’s argument here, see Brief for Respondent 24, our decision in Dickerson, 530 U. S. 428, did not upset the firmly established prior un- derstanding of Miranda as a prophylactic decision. Dicker- son involved a federal statute, 18 U. S. C. §3501, that effec- tively overruled Miranda by making the admissibility of a statement given during custodial interrogation turn solely on whether it was made voluntarily. 530 U. S., at 431–432. The Court held that Congress could not abrogate Miranda by statute because Miranda was a “constitutional decision” that adopted a “constitutional rule,” 530 U. S., at 438–439, and the Court noted that these rules could not have been made applicable to the States if it did not have that status, see ibid. At the same time, however, the Court made it clear that it was not equating a violation of the Miranda rules with an outright Fifth Amendment violation. For one thing, it reiterated Miranda’s observation that “the Constitution would not preclude legislative solutions that differed from 12 VEGA v. TEKOH

the prescribed Miranda warnings but which were ‘at least as effective in apprising accused persons’ ” of their rights. 530 U. S., at 440 (quoting Miranda, 384 U. S., at 467). Even more to the point, the Court rejected the dissent’s argument that §3501 could not be held unconstitutional un- less “Miranda warnings are required by the Constitution, in the sense that nothing else will suffice to satisfy consti- tutional requirements.” 530 U. S., at 442. The Court’s an- swer, in substance, was that the Miranda rules, though not an explication of the meaning of the Fifth Amendment right, are rules that are necessary to protect that right (at least until a better alternative is found and adopted). See 530 U. S., at 441–443. Thus, in the words of the Dickerson Court, the Miranda rules are “constitutionally based” and have “constitutional underpinnings.” 530 U. S., at 440, and n. 5. But the obvious point of these formulations was to avoid saying that a Miranda violation is the same as a vio- lation of the Fifth Amendment right. What all this boils down to is basically as follows. The Miranda rules are prophylactic rules that the Court found to be necessary to protect the Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination. In that sense, Mi- randa was a “constitutional decision” and it adopted a “con- stitutional rule” because the decision was based on the Court’s judgment about what is required to safeguard that constitutional right. And when the Court adopts a consti- tutional prophylactic rule of this nature, Dickerson con- cluded, the rule has the status of a “La[w] of the United States” that is binding on the States under the Supremacy Clause 4 (as Miranda implicitly held, since three of the four decisions it reversed came from state court, 384 U. S., at 491–494, 497–499), and the rule cannot be altered by ordi- nary legislation.

—————— 4 U. S. Const., Art. VI, §2. Cite as: 597 U. S. ____ (2022) 13

This was a bold and controversial claim of authority,5 but we do not think that Dickerson can be understood any other way without (1) taking the insupportable position that a Miranda violation is tantamount to a violation of the Fifth Amendment, (2) calling into question the prior decisions that were predicated on the proposition that a Miranda vi- olation is not the same as a constitutional violation, and (3) excising from the United States Reports a mountain of statements describing the Miranda rules as prophylactic. Subsequent cases confirm that Dickerson did not upend the Court’s understanding of the Miranda rules as prophy- lactic. See, e.g., supra, at 6–7 (collecting post-Dickerson cases). In sum, a violation of Miranda does not necessarily con- stitute a violation of the Constitution, and therefore such a violation does not constitute “the deprivation of [a] right . . . secured by the Constitution.” 42 U. S. C. §1983. III This conclusion does not necessarily dictate reversal be- cause a §1983 claim may also be based on “the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the . . . laws.” (Emphasis added.) It may thus be argued that the Miranda rules constitute federal “law” and that an abridg- ment of those rules can therefore provide the ground for a

—————— 5 Whether this Court has the authority to create constitutionally based

prophylactic rules that bind both federal and state courts has been the subject of debate among jurists and commentators. See, e.g., Dickerson, 530 U. S., at 445–446, 457–461 (Scalia, J., joined by THOMAS, J., dissent- ing); D. Strauss, The Ubiquity of Prophylactic Rules, 55 U. Chi. L. Rev. 190 (1988); J. Grano, Prophylactic Rules in Criminal Procedure: A Ques- tion of Article III Legitimacy, 80 Nw. U. L. Rev. 100 (1985); H. Mona- ghan, Foreword: Constitutional Common Law, 89 Harv. L. Rev. 1 (1975). But that is what the Court did in Miranda, and we do not disturb that decision in any way. Rather, we accept it on its own terms, and for the purpose of deciding this case, we follow its rationale. 14 VEGA v. TEKOH

§1983 claim. But whatever else may be said about this ar- gument,6 it cannot succeed unless Tekoh can persuade us that this “law” should be expanded to include the right to sue for damages under §1983. As we have noted, “[a] judicially crafted” prophylactic rule should apply “only where its benefits outweigh its costs,” Shatzer, 559 U. S., at 106, and here, while the bene- fits of permitting the assertion of Miranda claims under §1983 would be slight, the costs would be substantial. Miranda rests on a pragmatic judgment about what is needed to stop the violation at trial of the Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination. That prophy- lactic purpose is served by the suppression at trial of state-

—————— 6 “[Section] 1983 does not provide an avenue for relief every time a state

actor violates a federal law.” Rancho Palos Verdes v. Abrams, 544 U. S. 113, 119 (2005). If a §1983 plaintiff demonstrates that the federal stat- ute “creates an individually enforceable right in the class of beneficiaries to which he belongs,” this gives rise to “ ‘a rebuttable presumption that the right is enforceable under §1983,’ ” and “[t]he defendant may defeat this presumption by demonstrating that Congress did not intend that remedy for a newly created right.” Id., at 120 (quoting Blessing v. Free- stone, 520 U. S. 329, 341 (1997)). In this case, the “law” that could confer the right in question is not a statute but judicially created prophylactic rules. It could be argued that a judicially created prophylactic rule can- not be the basis for a §1983 suit, but we need not decide that question because, assuming that such rules can provide the basis for a §1983 claim, we would be led back to a question that is very much like the one discussed supra, at 7–11, namely, whether the benefits of allowing such a claim outweigh the costs. The dissent, by contrast, would apparently hold that a prophylactic rule crafted by the Judiciary to protect a constitutional right, unlike a statute that confers a personal right, is always cognizable under §1983. There is no sound reason to give this preferred status to such prophylac- tic rules. The dissent contends that the Miranda rules merit this special treatment because they are “secured by” the Constitution, see post, at 5– 6, but in fact, as we have shown, those rules differ from the right secured by the Fifth Amendment and are instead secured for prophylactic rea- sons by decisions of this Court. Cite as: 597 U. S. ____ (2022) 15

ments obtained in violation of Miranda and by the applica- tion of that decision in other recognized contexts. Allowing the victim of a Miranda violation to sue a police officer for damages under §1983 would have little additional deter- rent value, and permitting such claims would cause many problems. Allowing a claim like Tekoh’s would disserve “judicial economy,” Parklane Hosiery Co. v. Shore, 439 U. S. 322, 326 (1979), by requiring a federal judge or jury to adjudicate a factual question (whether Tekoh was in custody when ques- tioned) that had already been decided by a state court. This re-adjudication would not only be wasteful; it would under- cut the “ ‘strong judicial policy against the creation of two conflicting resolutions’ ” based on the same set of facts. Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U. S. 477, 484 (1994). And it could produce “unnecessary friction” between the federal and state court systems by requiring the federal court enter- taining the §1983 claim to pass judgment on legal and fac- tual issues already settled in state court. See Preiser v. Ro- driguez, 411 U. S. 475, 490–491 (1973). Allowing §1983 suits based on Miranda claims could also present many procedural issues, such as whether a federal court considering a §1983 claim would owe any deference to a trial court’s factual findings; whether forfeiture and plain error rules carry over from the criminal trial; whether harmless-error rules apply; and whether civil damages are available in instances where the unwarned statement had no impact on the outcome of the criminal case. We therefore refuse to extend Miranda in the way Tekoh requests. Miranda, Dickerson, and the other cases in that line provide sufficient protection for the Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination. “The identifica- tion of a Miranda violation and its consequences . . . ought to be determined at trial.” Chavez v. Martinez, 538 U. S. 760, 790 (2003) (Kennedy, J., concurring in part and dis- senting in part). And except in unusual circumstances, the 16 VEGA v. TEKOH

“exclusion of unwarned statements” should be “a complete and sufficient remedy.” Ibid. * * * Because a violation of Miranda is not itself a violation of the Fifth Amendment, and because we see no justification for expanding Miranda to confer a right to sue under §1983, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. Cite as: 597 U. S. ____ (2022) 1

KAGAN, J., dissenting

CARLOS VEGA, PETITIONER v. TERENCE B. TEKOH ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT [June 23, 2022]

JUSTICE KAGAN, with whom JUSTICE BREYER and JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR join, dissenting. The Court’s decision in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966), affords well-known protections to suspects who are interrogated by police while in custody. Those protections derive from the Constitution: Dickerson v. United States tells us in no uncertain terms that Miranda is a “constitu- tional rule.” 530 U. S. 428, 444 (2000). And that rule grants a corresponding right: If police fail to provide the Miranda warnings to a suspect before interrogating him, then he is generally entitled to have any resulting confession excluded from his trial. See 384 U. S., at 478–479. From those facts, only one conclusion can follow—that Miranda’s protections are a “right[ ]” “secured by the Constitution” under the fed- eral civil rights statute. Rev. Stat. §1979, 42 U. S. C. §1983. Yet the Court today says otherwise. It holds that Miranda is not a constitutional right enforceable through a §1983 suit. And so it prevents individuals from obtaining any re- dress when police violate their rights under Miranda. I re- spectfully dissent. Miranda responded to problems stemming from the in- terrogation of suspects “incommunicado” and “in a police- dominated atmosphere.” Miranda, 384 U. S., at 445. In such an environment, Miranda said, there are “pressures” which may “compel [a suspect] to speak where he would not otherwise do so freely.” Id., at 467. And so Miranda found 2 VEGA v. TEKOH

a “necessity for procedures which assure that the individual is accorded his” Fifth Amendment privilege “not to be com- pelled to incriminate himself.” Id., at 439. Miranda set out protocols (including the now-familiar warnings) that would safeguard the constitutional privilege against self-incrimi- nation. See id., at 478–479. And Miranda held that if po- lice failed to follow those requirements (without substitut- ing equally effective ones), the prosecution could not use at trial a statement obtained from the interrogation. See id., at 479. The question in this case is whether Miranda’s protec- tions are a “right[ ]” that is “secured by the Constitution” within the meaning of §1983. If the answer is yes, then a person may sue a state actor who deprives him of the right. In past cases, the Court has given a broad construction to §1983’s broad language. See, e.g., Dennis v. Higgins, 498 U. S. 439, 443 (1991). Under §1983 (as elsewhere), a “right[ ]” is anything that creates specific “obligations bind- ing on [a] governmental unit” that an individual may ask the judiciary to enforce. Id., at 449; see id., at 447, and n. 7. And the phrase “secured by the Constitution” also has a ca- pacious meaning. It refers to any right that is “protect[ed] or ma[de] certain” by the country’s foundational charter. Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization, 307 U. S. 496, 527 (1939) (opinion of Stone, J.) (internal quotation marks omitted). Begin with whether Miranda is “secured by the Constitu- tion.” We know that it is, because the Court’s decision in Dickerson says so. Dickerson tells us again and again that Miranda is a “constitutional rule.” 530 U. S., at 444. It is a “constitutional decision” that sets forth “ ‘concrete consti- tutional guidelines.’ ” Id., at 432, 435 (quoting Miranda, 384 U. S., at 442). Miranda “is constitutionally based”; or again, it has a “constitutional basis.” 530 U. S., at 439, n. 3, 440. It is “of constitutional origin”; it has “constitutional underpinnings.” Id., at 439, n. 3, 440, n. 5. And—one Cite as: 597 U. S. ____ (2022) 3

more—Miranda sets a “constitutional minimum.” 530 U. S., at 442. Over and over, Dickerson labels Miranda a rule stemming from the Constitution. Dickerson also makes plain that Miranda has all the sub- stance of a constitutional rule—including that it cannot be “abrogate[d]” by any “legislation.” Miranda, 384 U. S., at 491; see Dickerson, 530 U. S., at 437. In Dickerson, the Court considered a federal statute whose obvious purpose was to override Miranda. Dickerson held that Miranda is a “constitutional decision” that cannot be “overruled by” any “Act of Congress.” 530 U. S., at 432. To be sure, Con- gress may devise “legislative solutions that differ[ ] from the prescribed Miranda warnings,” but only if those solutions are “ ‘at least as effective.’ ” Id., at 440 (quoting Miranda, 384 U. S., at 467). Dickerson therefore instructs (as noted above) that Miranda sets a “constitutional minimum.” 530 U. S., at 442. No statute may provide lesser protection than that baseline.* And Dickerson makes clear that the constitutional sub- stance of Miranda does not end there. Rules arising from “the United States Constitution” are applicable in state- court proceedings, but non-constitutional rules are not. See 530 U. S., at 438 (explaining that the Court “do[es] not hold a supervisory power over the courts of the several States”). Too, constitutional rules are enforceable in federal-court habeas proceedings, where a prisoner is entitled to claim he “is in custody in violation of the Constitution.” 28 U. S. C. —————— *Other constitutional rules, like Miranda, leave room for States to ex- periment with procedures, so long as the procedures satisfy the constitu- tionally mandated baseline. See County of Riverside v. McLaughlin, 500 U. S. 44, 58 (1991) (States may adopt different procedures for providing probable-cause determinations for persons arrested without a warrant, so long as those determinations are made promptly); Smith v. Robbins, 528 U. S. 259, 276–277 (2000) (States may adopt different procedures to ensure effective appellate review for indigent defendants’ claims, “so long as [the State] reasonably ensures that an indigent’s appeal will be re- solved in a way that is related to the merit of that appeal”). 4 VEGA v. TEKOH

§2254(a). Miranda checks both boxes. The Court has “con- sistently applied Miranda’s rule to prosecutions arising in state courts.” Dickerson, 530 U. S., at 438. And prisoners may claim Miranda violations in federal-court habeas pro- ceedings. See 530 U. S., at 439, n. 3; Thompson v. Keohane, 516 U. S. 99, 107, n. 5 (1995). So Dickerson is unequivocal: Miranda is set in constitutional stone. Miranda’s constitutional rule gives suspects a correlative “right[ ].” §1983. Under Miranda, a suspect typically has a right to be tried without the prosecutor using his un- Mirandized statement. And we know how that right oper- ates in the real world. Suppose a defendant standing trial was able to show the court that he gave an un-Mirandized confession during a custodial interrogation. The court would have no choice but to exclude it from the prosecutor’s case. As one judge below put it: “Miranda indisputably cre- ates individual legal rights that are judicially enforceable. (Any prosecutor who doubts this can try to introduce an un- Mirandized confession and then watch what happens.)” Tekoh v. County of Los Angeles, 997 F. 3d 1260, 1263 (CA9 2021) (Miller, J., concurring in denial of rehearing en banc). The majority basically agrees with everything I’ve just explained. It concurs that, per Dickerson, Miranda “adopted a ‘constitutional rule.’ ” Ante, at 11 (quoting Dick- erson, 530 U. S., at 439); see ante, at 12. How could it not? That Miranda is a constitutional rule is what Dickerson said (and said and said). The majority also agrees that Mi- randa “directed that statements obtained in violation of [its] rules may not be used by the prosecution in its case-in- chief ”—which is simply another way of saying that Mi- randa grants suspects a right to the exclusion of those statements from the prosecutor’s case. Ante, at 5. So how does the majority hold that a violation of Miranda is not a “deprivation of [a] right[ ]” “secured by the Consti- tution”? §1983. How does it agree with my premises, but Cite as: 597 U. S. ____ (2022) 5

not my conclusion? The majority’s argument is that “a vio- lation of Miranda does not necessarily constitute a violation of the Constitution,” because Miranda’s rules are “prophy- lactic.” Ante, at 13. The idea is that the Fifth Amendment prohibits the use only of statements obtained by compul- sion, whereas Miranda excludes non-compelled statements too. See ante, at 4–5. That is why, the majority says, the Court has been able to recognize exceptions permitting cer- tain uses of un-Mirandized statements at trial (when it could not do so for compelled statements). See ante, at 7–9. But none of that helps the majority’s case. Let’s assume, as the majority says, that Miranda extends beyond—in or- der to safeguard—the Fifth Amendment’s core guarantee. Still, Miranda is enforceable through §1983. It remains a constitutional rule, as Dickerson held (and the majority agrees). And it grants the defendant a legally enforceable entitlement—in a word, a right—to have his confession ex- cluded. So, to refer back to the language of §1983, Miranda grants a “right[ ]” “secured by the Constitution.” Whether that right to have evidence excluded safeguards a yet deeper constitutional commitment makes no difference to §1983. The majority has no response to that point—except to repeat what our argument assumes already. See ante, at 14, n. 6 (describing Miranda as prophylactic). Compare the majority’s holding today to a prior decision, in which the Court “rejected [an] attempt[ ] to limit the types of constitutional rights that are encompassed within ” §1983. Dennis, 498 U. S., at 445. There, the Court held that a plaintiff could sue under §1983 for a violation of the so-called dormant Commerce Clause, which safeguards in- terstate commerce. To the Court, it did not matter that the Commerce Clause might be viewed as “merely allocat[ing] power between the Federal and State Governments” over interstate commerce, rather than as “confer[ring] ‘rights.’ ” Id., at 447. Nor did it matter that the dormant Commerce Clause’s protection is only “implied” by the constitutional 6 VEGA v. TEKOH

text. Ibid., n. 7. The dormant Commerce Clause, the Court said, still provides a “right”—in the “ordinary” sense of be- ing “ ‘[a] legally enforceable claim of one person against an- other.’ ” Ibid. (quoting Black’s Law Dictionary 1324 (6th ed. 1990)). That describes Miranda to a tee. And if a right im- plied from Congress’s constitutional authority over inter- state commerce is enforceable under §1983, how could it be that Miranda—which the Court has found necessary to safeguard the personal protections of the Fifth Amend- ment—is not also enforceable? The majority again has no answer. * * * Today, the Court strips individuals of the ability to seek a remedy for violations of the right recognized in Miranda. The majority observes that defendants may still seek “the suppression at trial of statements obtained” in violation of Miranda’s procedures. Ante, at 14–15. But sometimes, such a statement will not be suppressed. And sometimes, as a result, a defendant will be wrongly convicted and spend years in prison. He may succeed, on appeal or in habeas, in getting the conviction reversed. But then, what remedy does he have for all the harm he has suffered? The point of §1983 is to provide such redress—because a remedy “is a vital component of any scheme for vindicating cherished constitutional guarantees.” Gomez v. Toledo, 446 U. S. 635, 639 (1980). The majority here, as elsewhere, injures the right by denying the remedy. See, e.g., Egbert v. Boule, 596 U. S. ___ (2022). I respectfully dissent.