5th Amendment Fruits of the Poisonous Tree

We've been covering the 5th Amendment and Miranda in my Criminal Investigation class, and this week the SC said it would re-examine some issues surrounding the Miranda warnings. In particular, the question is whether "Fruit of the Poisonous Tree" exclusion should extend not just to an unwarned statement, but to physical evidence and witness testimony that results from information learned in that statement.

A couple years ago, when Miranda itself was under attack in Dickerson, among the amicus briefs there was quite a bit of police support for Miranda; if you really look at the Miranda decision, you see a whole slew of psychological police procedures that the court was dismayed by (good cop-bad cop, etc.). However, instead of banning them outright, they set up the prophylactic Miranda warnings. Now, once the police have given those warnings (and they've been waived), the police are free to use all those psychological tactics.

Overturning Miranda without some new standard would leave us with the Due Process Clause voluntariness test, and that's going to raise a lot of questions about coercion and deception that police don't want to answer. What this new case does is suggest another reason that police might not be so keen on Miranda/

The court has sort of backed itself into a corner with its Dickerson ruling. They used to be able to exclude Miranda violations from normal "fruit of the poisonous tree" analysis, since Miranda warnings were only 'prophylactic' rules. Thus only the tainted statement/confession was thrown out, but any physical evidence and witness testimony was still valid. Now that Dickerson has constitutionalized the rules, violating them takes on a new meaning. I doubt the court will make the necessary step and throw out this physical evidence, but it'll be nice to see them squirm.