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Criminal Procedure Keyed to Dressler
Missouri v. Seibert
Citation:
542 U.S. 600, 124 S.Ct. 1601, 159 L.Ed.2d 643.Facts
The defendant’s 12-year-old son had cerebral palsy and died in his sleep. The defendant feared charges of neglect because of bedsores on his body. In her presence, her teenage sons and their friends devised a plan to set the family’s mobile home on fire in order to conceal the facts surrounding his death. The defendant’s teenage son set the fire and a mentally ill teenager living with the family died in the fire.
Five days later, the police arrested the defendant at 3am at a hospital where her teenage son was being treated for burns. She was questioned without Miranda warnings for 30 to 40 minutes. She confessed and then she was given a 20-minute coffee and cigarette break. After the break, the officer turned on a tape recorder, gave the defendant her Miranda warnings, and obtained a signed waiver of rights from her. He resumed the questioning and confronted her with her previous statements until she confessed again.
The defendant sought to exclude both her prewarning and post-warning statements. At the suppression hearing, the officer testified that he made a “conscious decision” to withhold Miranda warnings. He was using an interrogation technique he had been taught: question first, then give the warnings, and then repeat the question “until I get the answer that she’s already provided once.”
The trial court admitted the post-warning statements. The defendant was convicted after a trial. The Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court of Missouri reversed.
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