Steven George Morgan v. United States
1. Whether police deception that explicitly disavows the interrogative nature of
questioning—specifically, an officer's false promise that she is not trying to
interrogate the suspect or ask him any questions about the case—renders a suspect's
subsequent statements involuntary under the Fifth Amendment when made
immediately after the suspect invokes Miranda rights, thereby requiring suppression
of those statements and their fruits.
2. Whether courts conducting a totality-of-circumstances voluntariness analysis
must distinguish between permissible police misrepresentations of fact and
constitutionally impermissible misrepresentations that negate the legal
consequences of waiving Fifth Amendment rights, particularly when an officer
affirmatively contradicts warnings just given about a suspect's right to remain silent
and the use of statements against him.
Whether police deception that explicitly disavows the interrogative nature of an officer's false promise renders a suspect's subsequent statements involuntary under the Fifth Amendment when made immediately after the suspect invokes Miranda rights, thereby requiring suppression of those statements and their fruits