496 U.S. 292 (1990)
In November 1984, Richard Stephenson was murdered in a suburb of East St. Louis, Illinois, and the murder remained unsolved for over a year.1
In March 1986, Donald Charlton, an inmate at the Graham Correctional Facility serving a sentence for burglary, told police he had learned about a homicide from fellow inmate Lloyd Perkins, and Charlton provided details that police recognized as matching the Stephenson murder.2
Perkins had been released from Graham by that time.3 Police traced him to the Montgomery County jail, where he was being held pending trial on a charge of aggravated battery unrelated to the Stephenson murder. The police wanted to investigate Perkins' connection to the murder further, but they decided to place an undercover agent in the cellblock with Perkins and Charlton rather than use an eavesdropping device.4
Undercover agent John Parisi, using the alias Vito Bianco, and Charlton were placed in the cellblock with Perkins.5 Both were clothed in jail garb and posed as escapees from a work release program who had been arrested during a burglary.6 The cellblock consisted of 12 separate cells opening onto a common room.7 Parisi suggested the three of them escape, and respondent replied that the jail was rinky-dink and they could break out.8
Later that evening the trio met in Perkins' cell to refine their plan.9 Perkins said his girlfriend could smuggle in a pistol.10 After Charlton said he was a burglar and not a murderer, Parisi asked Perkins if he had ever done anybody, and Perkins proceeded to describe at length the events of the Stephenson murder.11 Parisi did not give Perkins Miranda warnings before the conversations.12
Perkins was charged with the Stephenson murder.13 Before trial he moved to suppress the statements made to Parisi.14 The trial court granted the motion to suppress, and the Appellate Court of Illinois affirmed.15 The Supreme Court granted certiorari to decide the Miranda issue.16
Whether an undercover law enforcement officer must give Miranda warnings to an incarcerated suspect before asking him questions that may elicit an incriminating response?17
The Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination prohibits admitting statements given by a suspect during custodial interrogation without a prior warning.18 Custodial interrogation means questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody.19 The warning mandated by Miranda was meant to preserve the privilege during incommunicado interrogation of individuals in a police-dominated atmosphere that generates inherently compelling pressures which work to undermine the individual's will to resist.
No. Perkins was held in the Montgomery County jail on an unrelated aggravated battery charge when undercover agent Parisi and Charlton were placed in the cellblock posing as fellow inmates.20 Parisi engaged Perkins in conversation about escaping and then asked if he had ever done anybody, prompting Perkins to describe the Stephenson murder in detail.21 Because Perkins was unaware that he was speaking to a law enforcement officer and viewed the agent as a cellmate, the essential ingredients of a police-dominated atmosphere and compulsion were not present.22 The statements were voluntary and motivated by the desire to impress fellow inmates rather than any coercive pressure from official interrogation.23
The statements Perkins made are admissible because Miranda warnings are not required when the suspect is unaware that he is speaking to a law enforcement officer and gives a voluntary statement.24
Related opinions on this issue
Justice Brennan concurred in the judgment.25 He agreed that when a suspect does not know that his questioner is a police agent, such questioning does not amount to interrogation in an inherently coercive environment so as to require application of Miranda.26 Nevertheless, Brennan observed that the deception and manipulation practiced on respondent raise a substantial claim that the confession was obtained in violation of the Due Process Clause.27
The police devised a ruse to lure respondent into incriminating himself when he was in jail on an unrelated charge by posing as fellow inmates proposing a sham escape plot.28 Brennan pointed out that the pressures of custody make a suspect more likely to confide in others and engage in jailhouse bravado, and the State is in a unique position to exploit this vulnerability.29 He concluded that it is open to the lower court on remand to determine whether, under the totality of the circumstances, respondent's confession was elicited in a manner that violated the Due Process Clause.30
Justice Marshall dissented.31 He argued that the conditions requiring Miranda warnings—custodial interrogation conducted by an agent of the police—were present in this case because Perkins was incarcerated and subjected to express questioning by an undercover officer.32 Marshall maintained that the pressures unique to custody allow the police to use deceptive interrogation tactics to compel a suspect to make an incriminating statement, and the compulsion is not eliminated by the suspect's ignorance of his interrogator's true identity.33
He further contended that the Court's adoption of an exception to the Miranda doctrine is incompatible with the principle that the doctrine should remain simple and clear, and that the exception creates a substantial loophole in the jurisprudence protecting suspects' Fifth Amendment rights.34 Marshall therefore dissented from the majority's holding.35