Corley v. United States

On the defendants’ motions to exclude the confessions from evidence, we saw no need to reach any constitutional issue. Instead we invoked the supervisory power to establish and maintain “civilized standards of procedure and evidence” in federal courts, id., at 340 , which we exercised for the sake of making good on the traditional obligation embodied in the federal presentment legislation. We saw both the statutes and the traditional rule as aimed not only at cheeking the likelihood of resort to the third degree but meant generally to “avoid all the evil implications of secret interrogation of persons accused of crime.” Id., at 344 . We acknowledged that “Congress ha[d] not explicitly forbidden the use of evidence . . . procured” in derogation of the presentment obligation, id., at 345 , but we realized that “permitting] such evidence to be made the basis of a conviction in the federal courts would stultify the policy which Congress ha[d] enacted into law,” ibid., and in the exercise of supervisory authority we held confessions inadmissible when obtained during unreasonable presentment delay.

Shortly after McNabb, the combined action of the Judicial Conference of the United States and Congress produced Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 5(a), which pulled the several statutory presentment provisions together in one place. See Mallory, supra, at 452 (describing Rule 5(a) as “a compendious restatement, without substantive change, of several prior specific federal statutory provisions”). As first enacted, the rule told “[a]n officer making an arrest under a

A case for applying McNabb and Rule 5(a) together soon arose in Upshaw v. United States, 335 U. S. 410 (1948). Despite the Government’s confession of error, the D. C. Circuit had thought McNabb’s exclusionary rule applied only to involuntary confessions obtained by coercion during the period of delay, 335 U. S., at 411-412 , and so held the defendant’s voluntary confession admissible into evidence. This was error, and we reiterated the reasoning of a few years earlier. “In the McNabb case we held that the plain purpose of the requirement that prisoners should promptly be taken before committing magistrates was to check resort by officers to ‘secret interrogation of persons accused of crime.’ ” Id., at 412 (quoting McNabb, supra, at 344 ). Upshaw consequently emphasized that even voluntary confessions are inadmissible if given after an unreasonable delay in presentment. 335 U. S., at 413 .

We applied Rule 5(a) again in Mallory v. United States, holding a confession given seven hours after arrest inadmissible for “unnecessary delay” in presenting the suspect to a magistrate, where the police questioned the suspect for hours “within the vicinity of numerous committing magistrates.” 354 U. S., at 455 . Again, we repeated the reasons for the rule and explained, as we had before and have since, that delay for the purpose of interrogation is the epitome of “unnecessary delay.” Id., at 455-456 ; see also McLaughlin, supra, at 61 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (“It was clear” at com

B

Petitioner Johnnie Corley was suspected of robbing a bank in Norristown, Pennsylvania. After federal agents learned that Corley was subject to arrest on an unrelated local matter, some federal and state officers went together to execute the state warrant on September 17,2003, and found him just as he was pulling out of a driveway in his ear. Corley nearly ran over one officer, then jumped out of the car, pushed the officer down, and ran. The agents gave chase and caught and arrested him for assaulting a federal officer. The arrest occurred about 8 a.m. 500 F. 3d 210 , 212 (CA3 2007).

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents first kept Corley at a local police station while they questioned residents near the place he was captured. Around 11:45 a.m. they took him to a Philadelphia hospital to treat a minor cut on his hand that he got during the chase. At 3:30 p.m. the agents took him from the hospital to the Philadelphia FBI office and told him that he was a suspect in the Norristown bank robbery. Though the office was in the same building as the chambers of the nearest magistrate judges, the agents did not bring Corley before a magistrate judge, but questioned him instead, in hopes of getting a confession. App. 68-69, 83, 138-139.

The agents' repeated arguments sold Corley on the benefits of cooperating with the Government, and he signed a form waiving his Miranda rights. At 5:27 p.m., some 9.5 hours after his arrest, Corley began an oral confession that he robbed the bank, App. 62, and spoke on in this vein until about 6:30, when agents asked him to put it all in writing. Corley said he was tired and wanted a break, so the agents

Corley was charged with armed bank robbery, 18 U. S. C. §§ 2113 (a), (d), conspiracy to commit armed bank robbery, §371, and using a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, § 924(c). When he moved to suppress his oral and written confessions under Rule 5(a) and McNabb-Mallory, the District Court denied the motion, with the explanation that the time Corley was receiving medical treatment should be excluded from the delay, and that the oral confession was thus given within the 6-hour window of § 3501(e). Crim. No. 03-775 (ED Pa., May 10, 2004), App. 97. The District Court also held Corley’s written confession admissible, reasoning that “a break from interrogation requested by an arrestee who has already begun his confession does not constitute unreasonable delay under Rule 5(a).” Id., at 97-98 . Corley was convicted of conspiracy and armed robbery but acquitted of using a firearm during a crime of violence. 500 F. 3d, at 212-213 .

A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed the conviction, though its rationale for rejecting Corley’s Rule 5(a) argument was different from the District Court’s. The panel majority considered itself bound by Circuit precedent to the effect that § 3501 entirely abrogated the McNabb-Mallory rule and replaced it with a pure voluntariness test. See 500 F. 3d, at 212 (citing Government of Virgin Islands v. Gereau, 502 F. 2d 914 (CA3 1974)). As the majority saw it, if a district court found a confession voluntary after considering the points listed in § 3501(b), it would be admissible, regardless of whether delay in presentment was unnecessary or unreasonable. 500 F. 3d, at 217 . Judge

To this proposal, “ ‘[t]he short answer is that Congress did not write the statute that way.’ ” Russello v. United States, 464 U. S. 16 , 23 (1983) (quoting United States v. Naftalin, 441 U. S. 768 , 773 (1979)). The Government may say that we can sensibly read “inadmissible” as “involuntary” because the words are “virtually synonymous ... in this statutory context,” Brief for United States 23, but this is simply not so. To begin with, Congress used both terms in (c) itself, and “[w]e would not presume to ascribe this difference to a simple mistake in draftsmanship.” Russello, supra, at 23. And there is, in fact, every reason to believe that Congress used the distinct terms very deliberately. Subsection (c) specifies two criteria that must be satisfied to prevent a confession from being “inadmissible solely because of delay”: the confession must be “[1] made voluntarily and ... [2] within six hours [of arrest].” Because voluntariness is thus only one of several criteria for admissibility under (c), “involuntary” and “inadmissible” plainly cannot be synonymous.

Corley’s position, in contrast, gives effect to both (c) and (a), by reading (a) as overruling Miranda and (c) as qualifying McNabb-Mallory. The Government answers, however, that accepting Corley’s argument would result in a different problem: it would create a conflict between (c) and (a), since (a) provides that all voluntary confessions are admissible while Corley’s reading of (c) leaves some voluntary confessions inadmissible. But the Government’s counterargument falls short for two reasons. First, even if (a) is read to be at odds with (c), the conflict is resolved by recognizing that (a) is a broad directive while (c) aims only at McNabbMallory, and “a more specific statute will be given precedence over a more general one....” Busic v. United States, 446 U. S. 398 , 406 (1980). Second, and more fundamentally, (a) cannot prudently be read to create a conflict with (c), not only because it would make (c) superfluous, as explained, but simply because reading (a) that way would create conflicts with so many other rules that the subsection cannot possibly be given its literal scope. Subsection (a) provides that “[i]n any criminal prosecution brought by the United States ..., a confession ... shall be admissible in evidence if it is voluntarily given,” and § 3501(e) defines “confession” as “any con

Further legislative history not only drives that point home, but conclusively shows an intent that subsection (c) limit McNabb-Mallory, not replace it. In its original draft, subsection (e) would indeed have done away with McNabb-Mallory completely, for the bill as first written would have provided that “[i]n any criminal prosecution by the United States . . . , a confession made or given by a person who is a defendant therein ... shall not be inadmissible solely because of delay in bringing such person before a [magistrate judge] if such confession is ... made voluntarily.” S. 917, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 44-45 (1968) (as reported by Senate Committee on the Judiciary); 114 Cong. Rec. 14172. The provision so conceived was resisted, however, by a num

In sum, the legislative history strongly favors Corley’s reading. The Government points to nothing in this history supporting its view that (c) created a bright-line rule for applying (a) in cases with a presentment issue.

C

It also counts heavily against the position of the United States that it would leave the Rule 5 presentment requirement without any teeth, for as the Government again is forced to admit, if there is no McNabb-Mallory there is no apparent remedy for delay in presentment. Tr. of Oral Arg. 25. One might not care if the prompt presentment requirement were just some administrative nicety, but in fact the rule has always mattered in very practical ways and still does. As we said, it stretches back to the common law, when it was “one of the most important” protections “against unlawful arrest.” McLaughlin, 500 U. S., at 60-61 (Scalia, J., dissenting). Today presentment is the point at which the judge is required to take several key steps to foreclose Government overreaching: informing the defendant of the charges against him, his right to remain silent, his right to counsel, the availability of bail, and any right to a preliminary hearing; giving the defendant a chance to consult with counsel; and deciding between detention or release. Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 5(d); see also Rule 58(b)(2).

In a world without McNabb-Mallory, federal agents would be free to question suspects for extended periods before bringing them out in the open, and we have always known what custodial secrecy leads to. See McNabb, 318 U. S. 332 . No one with any smattering of the history of 20th-century dictatorships needs a lecture on the subject, and we understand the need even within our own system to take care against going too far. “[Cjustodial police interrogation, by its very nature, isolates and pressures the individual,” Dick

Justice Frankfurter’s point in McNabb is as fresh as ever: “The history of liberty has largely been the history of observance of procedural safeguards.” 318 U. S., at 347 . McNabb-Mallory is one of them, and neither the text nor the history of § 3501 makes out a case that Congress meant to do away with it.

Ill

The Government’s fallback claim is that even if § 3501 preserved a limited version of McNabb-Mallory, Congress cut out the rule altogether by enacting Federal Rule of Evidence 402 in 1975. Act of Jan. 2, Pub. L. 93-595, 88 Stat. 1926 . So far as it might matter here, that rule provides that “[a]ll relevant evidence is admissible, except as otherwise provided by the Constitution of the United States, by Act of Congress, by these rules, or by other rules prescribed by the Supreme Court pursuant to statutory authority.” Id., at 1931 . The Government says that McNabb-Mallory excludes relevant evidence in a way not “otherwise provided by” any of these four authorities, and so has fallen to the scythe.

The Government never raised this argument in the Third Circuit or the District Court, which would justify refusing to consider it here, but in any event it has no merit. The Advisory Committee’s Notes on Rule 402, which were before Congress when it enacted the Rules of Evidence and which we have relied on in the past to interpret the rules, Tome v. United States, 513 U. S. 150 , 160 (1995) (plurality opinion), expressly identified McNabb-Mallory as a statutorily authorized rule that would survive Rule 402: “The Rules of Civil and Criminal Procedure in some instances require the

We hold that §3501 modified McNabb-Mallory without supplanting it. Under the rule as revised by § 3501(c), a district court with a suppression claim must find whether the defendant confessed within six hours of arrest (unless a longer delay was “reasonable considering the means of transportation and the distance to be traveled to the nearest available [magistrate judge]”). If the confession came within that period, it is admissible, subject to the other Rules of Evidence, so long as it was “made voluntarily and . . . the weight to be given [it] is left to the jury.” Ibid. If the confession occurred before presentment and beyond six hours, however, the court must decide whether delaying that long was unreasonable or unnecessary under the McNabb-Mallory cases, and if it was, the confession is to be suppressed.

Canons of interpretation “are quite often useful in close cases, or when statutory language is ambiguous. But we have observed before that such ‘interpretative canon[s are] not a license for the judiciary to rewrite language enacted by the legislature.’” United States v. Monsanto, 491 U. S. 600 , 611 (1989) (quoting United States v. Albertini, 472 U. S. 675 , 680 (1985)). Like other canons, the antisuperfluousness canon is merely an interpretive aid, not an absolute rule. See Connecticut Nat. Bank, 503 U. S., at 254 (“When the words of a statute are unambiguous, then, this first canon is also the last: ‘judicial inquiry is complete’”). There are times when Congress enacts provisions that are superfluous, and this may be such an instance. Cf. id., at 253 (noting that “[Redundancies across statutes are not unusual events in drafting”); Gutierrez de Martinez v. Lamagno, 515 U. S. 417 , 445-446 (1995) (Souter, J., dissenting) (noting that, although Congress “indulged in a little redundancy,” the “inelegance may be forgiven” because “Congress could sensibly have seen some practical value in the redundancy”).

Moreover, any superfluity created by giving subsection (a) its plain meaning may be minimized by interpreting subsection (c) to apply to confessions that are otherwise voluntary. The Government contends that § 3501(c), though inartfully drafted, is not superfluous because what the provision means is that a confession is admissible if it is given within six hours of arrest and it is otherwise voluntary — that is, if there is no basis other than prepresentment delay for concluding that the confession was coerced. Read in this way, § 3501(c) is not superfluous.

The Court rejects this argument on the ground that “ ‘Congress did not write the statute that way,’ ” ante, at 315, and thus, in order to adhere to a narrow reading of § 3501(c),

As is true with most of the statutory interpretation questions that come before this Court, the question in this case is not like a jigsaw puzzle. There is simply no perfect solution to the problem before us.

Instead, we must choose between two imperfect solutions. The first (the one adopted by the Court) entirely disregards the clear and simple language of § 3501(a), rests on the proposition that Congress did not understand the plain import of the language it used in subsection (a), but adheres to a strictly literal interpretation of § 3501(c). The second option respects the clear language of subsection (a), but either accepts some statutory surplusage or interprets §3501(c)’s reference to a voluntary confession to mean an otherwise voluntary confession. To my mind, the latter choice is far preferable.

B

In addition to the antisuperfluousness canon, the Court relies on the canon that favors a specific statutory provision over a conflicting provision cast in more general terms, ante, at 316, but that canon is inapplicable here. For one thing, § 3501(a) is quite specific; it specifically provides that if a confession is voluntary, it is admissible. More importantly, there is no other provision, specific or general, that conflicts with § 3501(a). See National Cable & Telecommunications Assn., Inc. v. Gulf Power Co., 534 U. S. 327 , 335-336 (2002) (“It is true that specific statutory language should control more general language when there is a conflict between the two. Here, however, there is no conflict” (emphasis added)). Subsection (c) is not conflicting because it does not authorize

C

The Court contends that a literal interpretation of § 3501(a) would leave the prompt presentment requirement set out in Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 5(a)(1) “without any teeth, for... if there is no McNabb-Mallory there is no apparent remedy for delay in presentment. ” Ante, at 320. There is nothing strange, however, about a prompt presentment requirement that is not enforced by a rule excluding voluntary confessions made during a period of excessive prepresentment delay. As the Court notes, “[t]he common law obliged an arresting officer to bring his prisoner before a magistrate as soon as he reasonably could,” ante, at 306, but the McNabb-Mallory supervisory rule was not adopted until the middle of the 20th century. To this day, while the States are required by the Fourth Amendment to bring an arrestee promptly before a judicial officer, see, e. g., County of Riverside v. McLaughlin, 500 U. S. 44 , 56 (1991), we have never held that this constitutional requirement is backed by an automatic exclusionary sanction, see, e. g., Hudson v. Michigan, 547 U. S. 586 , 592 (2006). And although the prompt presentment requirement serves interests in addition to the prevention of coerced confessions, the McNabb-Mallory rule pro

Moreover, the need for the McNabb-Mallory exclusionary rule is no longer clear. That rule, which was adopted long before Miranda, originally served a purpose that is now addressed by the giving of Miranda warnings upon arrest. As Miranda recognized, McNabb and Mallory were “responsive to the same considerations of Fifth Amendment policy” that the Miranda rule was devised to address. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 , 463 (1966).

In the pre-Miranda era, the requirement of prompt presentment ensured that persons taken into custody would, within a relatively short period, receive advice about their rights. See McNabb v. United States, 318 U. S. 332 , 344 (1943). Now, however, Miranda ensures that arrestees receive such advice at an even earlier point, within moments of being taken into custody. Of course, arrestees, after receiving Miranda warnings, may waive their rights and submit to questioning by law enforcement officers, see, e.g., Davis v. United States, 512 U. S. 452 , 458 (1994), and arrestees may likewise waive the prompt presentment requirement, see, e. g., New York v. Hill, 528 U. S. 110 , 114 (2000) (“We have ... ‘in the context of a broad array of constitutional and statutory provisions,’ articulated a general rule that presumes the availability of waiver, . . . and we have recognized that ‘the most basic rights of criminal defendants are . . . subject to waiver’ ”). It seems unlikely that many arrestees who are willing to waive the right to remain silent and the right to the assistance of counsel during questioning would balk at waiving the right to prompt presentment. More than a few Courts of Appeals have gone as far as. to hold that a waiver of Miranda rights also constitutes a waiver under McNabb-Mallory. See, e. g., United States v. Salamanca, 990 F. 2d 629 , 634 (CADC), cert. denied, 510 U. S. 928 (1993); United States v. Barlow, 693 F. 2d 954 , 959 (CA6 1982), cert. denied, 461 U. S. 945 (1983); United States

The legislative history relating to § 3501(c) suggests nothing more than that some Members of Congress may mistakenly have thought that the version of § 3501 that was finally adopted would not displace the McNabb-Mallory rule. As the Court relates, the version of § 3501(c) that emerged from the Senate Judiciary Committee would have completely eliminated that rule. See ante, at 318. Some Senators opposed this, and the version of this provision that was eventually passed simply trimmed the rule. It is possible to identify a few Senators who spoke out in opposition to the earlier version of subsection (c) and then voted in favor of the version that eventually passed, and it is fair to infer that these Senators likely thought that the amendment of subsection (c) had saved the rule. See 114 Cong. Rec. 14172-14175, 14798 (1968). But there is no evidence that a majority of the House and Senate shared that view, and any Member who took a few moments to read subsections (a) and (c) must readily have understood that subsection (a) would wipe away all nonconstitutionally based rules barring the admission of voluntary confessions, not just Miranda, and that subsection (c) did not authorize the suppression of any voluntary confessions. The Court unjustifiably attributes to a majority of the House and Senate a mistake that, the legislative history suggests, may have been made by only a few.

E

Finally, the Court argues that under a literal reading of § 3501(a), “many a Rule of Evidence [would] be overridden in case after case.” Ante, at 317. In order to avoid this absurd result, the Court says, it is necessary to read § 3501(a)