Wilkerson v. State

HARRELL, J. We granted a petition and conditional cross-petition for writ of certiorari to consider application of the Supreme Court’s 2004 decision in Missouri v. Seibert, 542 U.S. 600 , 124 S.Ct. 2601 , 159 L.Ed.2d 643 (2004), which dealt with “two-step” or “question-first” interrogation tactics, to the circumstances of this case. See generally Eric English, You Ham the Right to Remain Silent. Now Please Repeat Your Confession: Missouri v. Seibert and the Court’s Attempt to Put an End to the Question-First Technique, 33 Pepp. L.Rev. 423 (2006).

Regrettably, we are unable on this record to confront head-on the merits of the questions presented in the petition and cross-petition; rather, we shall direct a limited remand to the Circuit Court for Howard County for further proceedings. Dedrick Tyrone Wilkerson (“Wilkerson”) challenges the Court of Special Appeals’s judgment, as explained in its unreported opinion, that the trial court did not err in denying his motion to suppress his statements made after a full Miranda, waiver. The intermediate appellate court reasoned that the interrogating officers did not engage in Seibert’s prohibited two-step or pre-advisement warning question-first tactics. The State, in its conditional cross-petition, challenges the holding of the panel of the intermediate appellate court that Wilkerson preserved his Seibert argument for appellate review.

For reasons to be explained more fully infra, because we believe that justice will be served best by permitting further proceedings, we hold that the appropriate disposition of this case is a limited remand to the Circuit Court so that the record may be developed more fully on the possible Seibert contention, and the trial court may make the appropriate findings. ⁵⁷⁶ FACTS AND LEGAL PROCEEDINGS On the evening of 18 October 2007, Lori Lefayt (“Lefayt”) sought medical treatment at the Howard County General Hospital, reporting that she had been raped earlier that night. Lefayt testified at trial 1 that earlier on the evening of 18 October, she was attempting to withdraw money from an ATM machine at the Wilde Lake Village Center in Columbia when two young men—one of whom she identified later to police as Wilkerson—approached her and asked for a cigarette. After obliging the request, she contended the other man—later identified as Wilkerson’s brother—left the area. Lefayt testified that she “told [Wilkerson] that [she] needed money because [she] was ailing, [she] was withdrawing from a [drug] habit [she] had during that time.” Lefayt continued that, unable to withdraw money from the Wilde Lake ATM, she walked with Wilkerson to find another ATM.

Apparently, the route the two took to get to that second ATM led them through a field area between the Wilde Lake High School and Middle School. According to Lefayt, Wilkerson asked to borrow her cell phone battery. She claims that, as she retrieved the battery, Wilkerson attacked her, throwing her to the ground, pushing her face into the ground, and putting his knee on her back. She claimed that she could not scream because Wilkerson choked and threatened her.

Lefayt recalled that she lost consciousness for a period of time, regaining consciousness as Wilkerson was withdrawing his penis from her vagina. 2 Lefayt testified that she remained on the ground for approximately twenty minutes before returning home and thence to the hospital. ⁵⁷⁷ Wilkerson testified at trial to a different rendition of his encounter with Lefayt on 18 October 2007. Specifically, Wilkerson testified that Lefayt asked him if he had any drugs, to which he responded in the negative. Wilkerson testified further that Lefayt agreed to have sexual intercourse with him in exchange for him arranging to acquire drugs for her. According to Wilkerson, the pair then went behind a nearby restaurant where they engaged in sexual intercourse, after which he told Lefayt to wait there while he attempted to acquire some drugs.

Unable to find drugs, Wilkerson claimed to have returned to the shopping center but, finding Lefayt gone, returned to his mother’s home around 10:00 p.m. that evening. 3 We now focus on the “facts” of particular relevance to the present posture of the case before us. At approximately 7:00 a.m. on 6 December 2007, Howard County Police officers executed search and seizure and arrest warrants at Wilkerson’s home. Two police detectives—Detectives Denise Francis and Aaron Miller—interviewed Wilkerson in his home, after placing him in flex cuffs, for approximately twenty five minutes. The following is the sum and substance of the questioning that took place before Miranda 4 warnings were given and waived: [DET.

MILLER]: Detective Francis ha[s] a few questions for you, OK? [WILKERSON]: Uh-huh. [DET. FRANCIS]: Dedrick, I’m Detective Francis. [WILKERSON]: How you doing. [DET. FRANCIS]: Fine, how are you? [WILKERSON]: That window open? [DET. MILLER]: Naw, it’s closed. ⁵⁷⁸ [DET.

FRANCIS]: No, it’s closed. This is Detective Miller. [DET. MILLER]: How you doing? [DET. FRANCIS]: OK, um, today is, uh, [December] 6, 2007.

Um, we are here at the, um, Wilkerson residence. We are at um, 10528 Crossfox Lane, Apartment B-2. OK, um, Dedrick, do you know why we’re here? [WILKERSON]: Uh-uh. [DET. FRANCIS]: No?

No idea? [WILKERSON]: Uh-uh. [DET. FRANCIS]: No, OK, um, we’re here about something that happened um, a while back, up at the village center. [WILKERSON]: (Inaudible) [DET. FRANCIS]: Where you met somebody? [WILKERSON]: And what happened? [DET. FRANCIS]: Well, that’s what we[’]re here to talk about---- [DET.

FRANCIS]: Have you ever met somebody at the village center? A female. [WILKERSON]: Uh-uh. [DET. FRANCIS]: You don’t remember meeting anybody up at the village center? [WILKERSON]: Uh-uh. [DET. MILLER]: Was in beginning of November? [DET.

FRANCIS]: Yeah. [DET. MILLER]: Around the beginning of November? [WILKERSON]: No, I’ve been on the box and locked up around that time. [DET. FRANCIS]: OK. [DET. MILLER]: When you say “the box” you mean the ankle bracelet? [WILKERSON]: Yeah. [DET.

MILLER]: OK. ⁵⁷⁹ [DET. FRANCIS]: And that monitor’s [sic] you, you can’t, where can you go? Where are you allowed to go? [WILKERSON]: No where [sic] unless I have permission from my mother and that she’s going out with me. [DET. FRANCIS]: So your mother has to be with you? [WILKERSON]: Yeah. [DET.

FRANCIS]: OK, and where can, where can you go without your mother? [WILKERSON]: Only places where I couldn’t go with her, anywhere she, actually I go with her. [DET. FRANCIS]: OK so. [WILKERSON]: But the only time I went out with her is like for jobs, going out looking for job or whatever, putting job applications. Stuff like that. [DET. MILLER]: So when you say you can go out, like, does your mom say you have to go out or [do you] have to call anybody? [WILKERSON]: Yeah, I have to call. [DET.

MILLER]: OK, who do you call? What’s the? [WILKERSON]: My mother calls really. Ms. Lyles. [DET. MILLER]: OK, what’s the person’s name? [WILKERSON]: Ms. Lyles. [DET.

MILLER]: Ms. Lyles? [WILKERSON]: Yeah (inaudible). [DET. MILLER]: And then she’ll I guess do something on the computer that lets you leave the house? [WILKERSON]: Yeah, that’s right. [DET. FRANCIS]: Can I borrow your pen? [DET. MILLER]: So you’ve been, you beginning of November, even the end of September you didn’t go anywhere? [WILKERSON]: End of September, I was locked up, ‘cause it had been my birthday, after my birthday I got locked up, my birthday’s September 15th. [DET.

FRANCIS]: What about October? ⁵⁸⁰ [WILKERSON]: October, January, February, March (inaudible) [DET. FRANCIS]: You had that monitor on in October? When did you get the monitor? [WILKERSON]: August, September. [DET. FRANCIS]: In October? [WILKERSON]: Yeah, I had on the box then too. [DET.

FRANCIS]: OK, well, how about around the middle of October? [WILKERSON]: October. [DET. FRANCIS]: Did you meet a girl up at the village center? [WILKERSON]: Naw, I been on the box. [DET. MILLER]: OK. [WILKERSON]: ‘Cause I been on the box for three, four and a half, five months. [DET. FRANCIS]: OK, wha[t], what time do you have? [DET.

MILLER]: Right now, it’s, uh, 7:06. [DET. FRANCIS]: OK, six. OK, I’m going to read you um, your rights OK? [WILKERSON]: Um-hum. In his post-advisement statements to the detectives, Wilkerson denied being in the area where the alleged crime took place on 18 October 2007, explaining that because of his electronic monitoring, he would not have been allowed at the Wilde Lake Village Center at that time of the night.

After being told that an ATM surveillance camera recorded him with Lefayt on the evening in question, Wilkerson denied consistently having any recollection of being at the Village Center that night. Further, Wilkerson told the detectives he was not familiar with anyone named Lori. Finally, Wilkerson denied having any recollection of engaging in sexual intercourse with Lafayt or any other female that night. Wilkerson was charged ultimately with first- and second-degree rape, first-degree assault, false-imprisonment, and reckless endangerment. ⁵⁸¹ On 28 April 2008, the Circuit Court held a hearing on Wilkerson’s motion to suppress Lafayt’s identification of Wilkerson from a photo array and his statements to the detectives, both pre-advisement and post-advisement.

Lefayt and Detectives Francis and Miller testified at the suppression hearing. Wilkerson did not call any witnesses or testify himself. During cross-examination of Detective Francis, defense counsel asked her whether she and her partner “went on for a few minutes before ... actually reading] him his Miranda rights,” whether she discussed Wilkerson’s electronic monitoring box, and “whether or not he had met up with a girl at the village center.” Detective Francis responded in the affirmative as to each of these queries. Defense counsel, as to the pre-advisement statements, argued generally to the trial judge that the interrogation constituted custodial interrogation within the contemplation of Miranda and, as such, the statements were not admissible without a voluntary waiver of his Miranda rights.

Turning to the post-advisement statements, defense counsel argued: [Tjhere are four or five pages in the very beginning that there were some questions asked about having been at the village center, did you know a female, things like that, and that goes up to about page five before they even broach the subject of the Miranda,. So, for those reasons, I think those are specifically interrogatory questions that certainly should be suppressed, but even beyond that, I think that because that groundwork was laid, it laid the framework to taint sort of the rest of that, even after there was some Miranda. (Emphasis added.) Defense counsel made no mention of Missouri v. Seibert, nor any more specific complaint about police two-step or question-first tactics. In response to these arguments, the State—although conceding that Wilkerson was in custody for purposes of Miranda, such that the preadvisement statements should be suppressed (as substantive evidence in the State’s case-in-chief, but not for impeachment purposes)—argued generally that the post-advisement questioning was “Miranda compliant” and voluntary, noting that ⁵⁸² Wilkerson “was certainly cognizant of what was happening; he was of an age, 17, where he can understand, and, as he indicated, he does understand the English language,” and that as a “youthful offender,” he is “certainly very savvy in terms of the criminal justice system ...” Ultimately, the trial judge suppressed the pre-advisement statements, explaining that because “there is no question this was a custodial interrogation ____ [, considering that] the Defendant was flex cuffed when he went in for the interview ■with the two detectives,” and that “there were questions asked for which he should have been Mirandized before giving those responses.” The trial judge denied the motion with respect to the post-advisement statements, “find[ing] that the warnings that were given were adequate, they did meet the dictates of Miranda ,” and explaining that “based upon the totality of the circumstances ... the statements made after the warnings were given were voluntary statements.” Like defense counsel and the prosecutor, the trial judge made no mention of Missouri v. Seibert, nor engaged in an analysis of whether a prohibited (deliberate or otherwise) two-step or question-first tactics occurred.

The jury acquitted Wilkerson of first-degree rape, first-degree assault, and reckless endangerment, but found him guilty of second-degree rape, second-degree assault, and false imprisonment. 5 The Circuit Court merged the assault and false imprisonment convictions and, on 5 March 2009, sentenced Wilkerson to twenty-years’ imprisonment, suspending all but eight years. The Court of Special Appeals, in an unreported opinion, affirmed Wilkerson’s convictions. Responding to the State’s claim—similar to the one it makes to this Court—that Wilkerson’s Missouri v. Seibert appellate argument was not preserved for appellate review, the Court of Special Appeals explained that, although defense “counsel did not present this ⁵⁸³ argument as robustly as he does on appeal, ... we think he sufficiently raised to the court’s attention that the questioning before Miranda tainted the post -Miranda statements.” Regarding the merits of Wilkerson’s appellate Seibert claim, our appellate brethren explained: In this case, there was unquestionably a custodial interrogation, however, there is no evidence to support the contention that Seibert was violated. First, whereas Buck, [v. State, 181 Md.App. 585 , 956 A.2d 884 (2008) ] stressed that, in Seibert and Cooper [v. State, 168 Md.App. 70 , 877 A.2d 1095 (2005) ], the police admitted that a two-step technique was deliberately used, there was no evidence presented at the suppression hearing that there was such an intent here.

Second, whereas Seibert was questioned for thirty to forty minutes before being Mirandized, and Cooper’s pre-Miranda interview lasted ninety minutes, defense counsel here asked the detective whether she questioned Wilkerson for a “few minutes” before being advised of his rights, to which the detective answered in the affirmative, and Miranda advisements appear on page four of the transcript of the recorded interview, which in total encompassed thirty transcript pages and lasted twenty-six minutes. Finally, and quite significantly, although Wilkerson was questioned for a short period of time before being advised of his rights, he neither made any incriminating statements before Miranda advisements nor afterwards. In fact, at trial, Wilkerson admitted that he met Lefayt that evening and testified that he engaged in consensual sex with her. However, when being questioned by the police, he denied not only raping Lefayt, but also having ever met her.

For these reasons, we believe that no Seibert violation occurred. Finally, addressing Wilkerson’s argument that “his post- Miranda, statements to the police should have been suppressed because he neither knowingly nor voluntarily waived his Miranda rights,” the intermediate appellate court explained: We agree with the circuit court that Wilkerson failed to prove that he did not understand his rights or was coerced ⁵⁸⁴ to talk to the police. He responded in the affirmative each time the detectives informed him of a right and asked him whether he understood. Although he never signed a waiver, this was because he was in flex-cuffs, and, as the judge noted, “there is no requirement that the advice of rights form or waiver be actually signed by the Defendant or read by the Defendant.” The interview was brief, lasting approximately twenty-six minutes, and Wilkerson told the detectives that he was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

As the judge noted, although Wilkerson was only seventeen, he had numerous prior encounters with the juvenile justice system. Although the room in which the interrogation was conducted was small, it was in Wilkerson’s own home, with only two police officers present. Although Wilkerson was in flex-cuffs during the interview, there was no evidence of physical or psychological coercion. Likewise, there was no evidence that promises were made to induce Wilkerson to talk, or that weapons were displayed or force was used to intimidate him.

We agree with the circuit court that the detective’s remark before advising Wilkerson of his rights that “these are really stupid questions” was a “poor choice of words.” But based on the totality of the circumstances, we agree with the court’s conclusion that Wilkerson talked to police knowingly and voluntarily. Wilkerson filed a timely petition for writ of certiorari, which we granted, Wilkerson v. State, 417 Md. 384 , 10 A.3d 199 (2010), to consider potentially: I. Whether the trial court erred by not suppressing all of Mr. Wilkerson’s statements because the police used a prohibited form of the “two-step” technique to circumvent Miranda, thereby tainting the entire interrogation.

II

Whether the deliberateness inquiry under Missouri v. Seibert ... requires only that police admit their deliberate use of the prohibited “two-step” interrogation technique.

III

Whether Missouri v. Seibert ... applies to both exculpatory and inculpatory statements. ⁵⁸⁵ IV. Whether the trial court erred by failing to suppress all of Mr. Wilkerson’s statements to the police because he neither knowingly nor voluntarily waived his Miranda rights. The State filed a conditional cross-petition for writ of certiorari, which we granted, to consider potentially whether, “Wilkerson fail[ed] to preserve his claim that police officers deliberately used the two-step “question first” interrogation method prohibited by Missouri v. Seibert? ” For reasons to be explained more fully infra, we remand the case to the Court of Special Appeals and direct ultimately that this case be remanded, pursuant to Maryland Rule 8-604(a)(5) and (d), to the Circuit Court for Howard County for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. STANDARD OF REVIEW When this Court reviews a trial court’s denial of a motion to suppress, “we ordinarily consider only the information contained in the record of the suppression hearing, and not the trial record.” Lewis v. State, 398 Md. 349, 358 , 920 A.2d 1080, 1085 (2007); see Byndloss v. State, 391 Md. 462, 477 , 893 A.2d 1119, 1128 (2006). “We view the evidence and all reasonable inferences drawn from that evidence in the light most favorable to the prevailing party on the motion.” State v. Nieves, 383 Md. 573, 581 , 861 A.2d 62, 67 (2004).

Despite extending great deference to the hearing judge’s findings of fact, “we review independently the application of the law to those facts to determine if the evidence at issue was obtained in violation of the law and, accordingly, should be suppressed.” Byndloss, 391 Md. at 477 , 893 A.2d at 1128 . ANALYSIS Albeit for different reasons and reaching different conclusions, both Wilkerson and the State ask us to consider and apply the Supreme Court’s 2004 decision in Missouri v. Seibert. Any consideration of Seibert , however, begins with the Supreme Court’s 1985 decision in Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. ⁵⁸⁶ 298, 105 S.Ct. 1285 , 84 L.Ed.2d 222 (1985). See United States v. Green, 388 Fed.Appx. 375, 380 (5th Cir.2010) (“When juxtaposed, the Supreme Court’s decisions in Elstad and Seibert provide the applicable analytic framework.”); Commonwealth v. Charleston, 16 A.3d 505, 520 (Pa.Super.Ct.2011) (“In order to provide a cogent discussion of the Seibert decision, we must first address the seminal case of Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298 , 105 S.Ct. 1285 , 84 L.Ed.2d 222 (1985).”).

In Elstad , Michael Elstad was implicated in the burglary of a neighbor’s home. Elstad, 470 U.S. at 300 , 105 S.Ct. at 1288 , 84 L.Ed.2d at 226 . After obtaining a warrant for Elstad’s arrest, two police officers went to his house and began questioning him. See Elstad, 470 U.S. at 300-01 , 105 S.Ct. at 1288 , 84 L.Ed.2d at 226-27 .

One of the officers testified: “I sat down with Mr. Elstad and I asked him if he was aware of why Detective McAllister and myself were there to talk with him. He stated no, he had no idea why we were there. I then asked him if he knew a person by the name of Gross, and he said yes, he did, and also added that he heard that there was a robbery at the Gross house. And at that point I told Mr. Elstad that I felt he was involved in that, and he looked at me and stated, ‘Yes, I was there.’ ” Elstad, 470 U.S. at 301 , 105 S.Ct. at 1288-89 , 84 L.Ed.2d at 227 .

After being transported to the police station, Elstad was read his Miranda rights for the first time, and informed officers that he understood his rights and wanted to make a statement. Elstad, 470 U.S. at 301 , 105 S.Ct. at 1289 , 84 L.Ed.2d at 227 . Elstad “gave a full statement, explaining that he had known that the Gross family was out of town and had been paid to lead several acquaintances to the Gross residence and show them how to gain entry [to the house]----” Id. After his motion to suppress his statement was denied and he was found guilty of first-degree burglary, the Supreme Court granted certiorari eventually “to consider the question of whether the Self-Incrimination Clause of the Fifth Amendment requires the suppression of a confession, made after proper Miranda warnings and a valid waiver of rights, solely because the police had obtained an earlier voluntary but ⁵⁸⁷ unwarned admission from the defendant.” Elstad, 470 U.S. at 308 , 105 S.Ct. at 1290 , 84 L.Ed.2d at 228 .

The Supreme Court rejected the argument that the failure of the police to provide Miranda warnings prior to the earlier confession (i.e., “Yes, I was there.”) must be excluded as “fruit of the poisonous tree”—drawing from Fourth Amendment jurisprudence—explaining: The Miranda exclusionary rule ... serves the Fifth Amendment and sweeps more broadly than the Fifth Amendment itself. It may be triggered even in the absence of a Fifth Amendment violation. The Fifth Amendment prohibits use by the prosecution in its case in chief only of compelled testimony. Failure to administer Miranda warnings creates a presumption of compulsion.

Consequently, unwarned statements that are otherwise voluntary within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment must nevertheless be excluded from evidence under Miranda. Thus, in the individual case, Miranda’s preventive medicine provides a remedy even to the defendant who has suffered no identifiable constitutional harm. If errors are made by law enforcement officers in administering the prophylactic Miranda, procedures, they should not breed the same irremediable consequences as police infringement of the Fifth Amendment itself. It is an unwarranted extension of Miranda to hold that a simple failure to administer the warnings, unaccompanied by any actual coercion or other circumstances calculated to undermine the suspect’s ability to exercise his free will, so taints the investigatory process that a subsequent voluntary and informed waiver is ineffective for some indeterminate period.

Though Miranda requires that the unwarned admission must be suppressed, the admissibility of any subsequent statement should turn in these circumstances solely on whether it is knowingly and voluntarily made. Elstad, 470 U.S. at 306-07, 309 , 105 S.Ct. at 1291-92, 1293 , 84 L.Ed.2d at 230-31, 232 . ⁵⁸⁸ Addressing whether the unwarned statement could render the post-advisement statements involuntary, the Supreme Court elaborated: When a prior statement is actually coerced, the time that passes between confessions, the change in place of interrogations, and the change in identity of the interrogators all bear on whether that coercion has carried over into the second confession. There is a vast difference between the direct consequences flowing from coercion of a confession by physical violence or other deliberate means calculated to break the suspect’s will and the uncertain consequences of disclosure of a “guilty secret” freely given in response to an unwarned but noncoercive question, as in this case.... We must conclude that, absent deliberately coercive or improper tactics in obtaining the initial statement, the mere fact that a suspect has made an unwarned admission does not warrant a presumption of compulsion.

A subsequent administration of Miranda warnings to a suspect who has given a voluntary but unwarned statement ordinarily should suffice to remove the conditions that precluded admission of the earlier statement. In such circumstances, the finder of fact may reasonably conclude that the suspect made a rational and intelligent choice whether to waive or invoke his rights. Far from establishing a rigid rule, we direct courts to avoid one; there is no warrant for presuming coercive effect where the suspect’s initial inculpatory statement, though technically in violation of Miranda^ was voluntary. The relevant inquiry is whether, in fact, the second statement was also voluntarily made.

As in any such inquiry, the finder of fact must examine the surrounding circumstances and the entire course of police conduct with respect to the suspect in evaluating the voluntariness of his state ⁵⁸⁹ ments.... We hold today that a suspect who has once responded to unwarned yet uncoercive questioning is not thereby disabled from waiving his rights and confessing after he has been given the requisite Miranda warnings. Elstad, 470 U.S. at 310, 312-14, 318 , 105 S.Ct. at 1293, 1295-96, 1207-98 , 84 L.Ed.2d at 232-33, 235, 238 . Thus, Elstad—si least until Seibert—“clearly stands for the proposition that the mere inadvertent failure of the police to advise the defendant of his Miranda rights does not forever contaminate defendant’s statements after he has been given the appropriate warnings.” People v. Green, 179 Ill.App.3d 1 , 128 Ill.Dec. 902 , 535 N.E.2d 413, 469 (1988) (emphasis added); see United States v. Conley, 156 F.3d 78, 84 (1st Cir.1998). 6 Although the Court in Elstad held that unwarned statements do not “forever contaminate” any and all post-advisement statements, the Court left open the possibility that, in some circumstances, such pre-warning statements may taint post-advisement questioning.

Enter Missouri v. Seibert. In Seibert , Seibert feared charges of child neglect following the death of her 12-year old son who was suffering from cerebral palsy. She devised a plan in which another of her sons and his friends would incinerate his body by setting the family’s mobile home on fire. So as not to create an appearance that her afflicted son was left unattended, they planned to leave in the house a mentally-ill teenager who was living with the family.

Seibert’s son and a friend set the fire ultimately, and the mentally-ill boy died. Police interrogation of Seibert about that night’s events revealed the following: [T]he police awakened Seibert at 3 a.m. at a hospital where [her son] was being treated for burns. In arresting her, Officer Kevin Clinton followed instructions from Rolla, Mis ⁵⁹⁰ souri, Officer Richard Hanrahan that he refrain from giving Miranda warnings. After Seibert had been taken to the police station and left alone in an interview room for 15 to 20 minutes, Hanrahan questioned her without Miranda warnings for 30 to 40 minutes, squeezing her arm and repeating “Donald was also to die in his sleep.” After Seibert finally admitted she knew Donald was meant to die in the fire, she was given a 20-minute coffee and cigarette break.

Officer Hanrahan then turned on a tape recorder, gave Seibert the Miranda warnings, and obtained a signed waiver of rights from her. He resumed the questioning with “Ok, ‘trice, we’ve been talking for a little while about what happened on Wednesday the twelfth, haven’t we?” Seibert, 542 U.S. at 604-05 , 124 S.Ct. at 2606 , 159 L.Ed.2d at 650 (internal citations omitted). Following a waiver of her Miranda rights, Seibert admitted that the boy “was supposed to die in his sleep.” Seibert, 542 U.S. at 604-05 , 124 S.Ct. at 2606 , 159 L.Ed.2d at 650 . The trial court admitted the post-advisement statements, and Seibert was found guilty of second-degree murder.

The Supreme Court granted certiorari to determine whether pre-advisement statements made in conjunction with a deliberate withholding of Miranda warnings taint all statements given post-advisement, such that the later statements are inadmissible as violative of the principles of Miranda. Such interrogation tactics have been referred to as either “two-step” or “question first” interrogations. See generally Eric English, You Have the Right to Remain Silent, supra. In explaining the ills of two-step interrogations, Justice Souter, writing for the four-Justice plurality, explained: Just as “no talismanic incantation [is] required to satisfy [Miranda’s ] strictures,” California v. Prysock, 453 U.S. 355, 359 , 101 S.Ct. 2806 , 69 L.Ed.2d 696 (1981) (per curiam), it would be absurd to think that mere recitation of the litany suffices to satisfy Miranda in every conceivable circumstance ....

The threshold issue when interrogators question first and warn later is thus whether it would be reasonable to find that in these circumstances the warnings could ⁵⁹¹ function “effectively” as Miranda requires. Could the warnings effectively advise the suspect that he had a real choice about giving an admissible statement at that juncture? Could they reasonably convey that he could choose to stop talking even if he had talked earlier? For unless the warnings could place a suspect who has just been interrogated in a position to make such an informed choice, there is no practical justification for accepting the formal warnings as compliance with Miranda, or for treating the second stage of interrogation as distinct from the first, unwarned and inadmissible segment.

There is no doubt about the answer that proponents of question-first give to this question about the effectiveness of warnings given only after successful interrogation, and we think their answer is correct. By any objective measure, applied to circumstances exemplified here, it is likely that if the interrogators employ the technique of withholding warnings until after interrogation succeeds in eliciting a confession, the warnings will be ineffective in preparing the suspect for successive interrogation, close in time and similar in content. After all, the reason that question-first is catching on is as obvious as its manifest purpose, which is to get a confession the suspect would not make if he understood his rights at the outset; the sensible underlying assumption is that with one confession in hand before the warnings/ 7 1 the interrogator can count on getting its duplicate, with trifling additional trouble. Upon hearing warnings only in the aftermath of interrogation and just after making a confession, a suspect would hardly think he had a genuine right to remain silent, let alone persist in so believing once the police began to lead him over the same ground again....

Thus, when Miranda warnings are inserted in the midst of coordinated and continuing interrogation, they are likely to mislead and “depriv[e] a defendant of knowledge essential to ⁵⁹² his ability to understand the nature of his rights and the consequences of abandoning them.” Moran v. Burbine, 475 U.S. 412, 424 , 106 S.Ct. 1135 , 89 L.Ed.2d 410 (1986). Seibert, 542 U.S. at 611-14 , 124 S.Ct. at 2610-11 , 159 L.Ed.2d at 654-56 . In distinguishing the facts before it from those with which the Court was confronted in Elstad , the plurality enumerated a list of factors to apply in the evaluation of such question-first interrogation cases, and held ultimately that Seibert’s post-advisement statements were inadmissible: The contrast between Elstad and this case reveals a series of relevant facts that bear on whether Miranda warnings delivered midstream could be effective enough to accomplish their object: the completeness and detail of the questions and answers in the first round of interrogation, the overlapping content of the two statements, the timing and setting of the first and the second, the continuity of police personnel, and the degree to which the interrogator’s questions treated the second round as continuous with the first. In Elstad , it was not unreasonable to see the occasion for questioning at the station house as