Moran v. Burbine , 106 S. Ct. 1135 ( 1986 )

Justice O’Connor

delivered the opinion of the Court.

After being informed of his rights pursuant to Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966), and after executing a series of written waivers, respondent confessed to the murder of a young woman. At no point during the course of the interrogation, which occurred prior to arraignment, did he request an attorney. While he was in police custody, his sister attempted to retain a lawyer to represent him. The attorney telephoned the police station and received assurances that respondent would not be questioned further until the next day. In fact, the interrogation session that yielded the inculpatory statements began later that evening. The question presented is whether either the conduct of the police or respondent’s ignorance of the attorney’s efforts to reach him taints the validity of the waivers and therefore requires exclusion of the confessions.

I

On the morning of March 3, 1977, Mary Jo Hickey was found unconscious in a factory parking lot in Providence, Rhode Island. Suffering from injuries to her skull apparently inflicted by a metal pipe found at the scene, she was rushed to a nearby hospital. Three weeks later she died from her wounds.

Several months after her death, the Cranston, Rhode Island, police arrested respondent and two others in connection with a local burglary. Shortly before the arrest, Detective Ferranti of the Cranston police force had learned from a confidential informant that the man responsible for Ms. Hickey’s death lived at a certain address and went by the name of “Butch. ” Upon discovering that respondent lived at that address and was known by that name, Detective Ferranti informed respondent of his Miranda rights. When respondent refused to execute a written waiver, Detective Ferranti spoke separately with the two other suspects arrested on the breaking and entering charge and obtained statements further implicating respondent in Ms. Hickey’s murder. At approximately 6 p.m., Detective Ferranti telephoned the police in Providence to convey the information he had uncovered. An hour later, three officers from that department arrived at the Cranston headquarters for the purpose of questioning respondent about the murder.

That same evening, at about 7:45 p.m., respondent’s sister telephoned the Public Defender’s Office to obtain legal assistance for her brother. Her sole concern was the breaking and entering charge, as she was unaware that respondent was then under suspicion for murder. She asked for Richard Casparian who had been scheduled to meet with respondent earlier that afternoon to discuss another charge unrelated to either the break-in or the murder. As soon as the conversation ended, the attorney who took the call attempted to reach Mr. Casparian. When those efforts were unsuccessful, she telephoned Allegra Munson, another Assistant Public Defender, and told her about respondent’s arrest and his sister’s subsequent request that the office represent him.

At 8:15 p.m., Ms. Munson telephoned the Cranston police station and asked that her call be transferred to the detective division. In the words of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island, whose factual findings we treat as presumptively correct, 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d), the conversation proceeded as follows:

“A male voice responded with the word ‘Detectives.’ Ms. Munson identified herself and asked if Brian Burbine was being held; the person responded affirmatively. Ms. Munson explained to the person that Burbine was represented by attorney Casparian who was not available; she further stated that she would act as Burbine’s legal counsel in the event that the police intended to place him in a lineup or question him. The unidentified person told Ms. Munson that the police would not be questioning Burbine or putting him in a lineup and that they were through with him for the night. Ms. Munson was not informed that the Providence Police were at the Cranston police station or that Burbine was a suspect in Mary’s murder.” State v. Burbine, 451 A. 2d 22, 23-24 (1982).

At all relevant times, respondent was unaware of his sister’s efforts to retain counsel and of the fact and contents of Ms. Munson’s telephone conversation.

Less than an hour later, the police brought respondent to an interrogation room and conducted the first of a series of interviews concerning the murder. Prior to each session, respondent was informed of his Miranda rights, and on three separate occasions he signed a written form acknowledging that he understood his right to the presence of an attorney and explicitly indicating that he “[did] not want an attorney called or appointed for [him]” before he gave a statement. App. to Pet. for Cert. 94, 103, 107. Uncontradicted evidence at the suppression hearing indicated that at least twice during the course of the evening, respondent was left in a room where he had access to a telephone, which he apparently declined to use. Tr. of Suppression Hearing 23, 85. Eventually, respondent signed three written statements fully admitting to the murder.

Prior to trial, respondent moved to suppress the statements. The court denied the motion, finding that respondent had received the Miranda warnings and had “knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily waived his privilege against self-incrimination [and] his right to counsel.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 116. Rejecting the contrary testimony of the police, the court found that Ms. Munson did telephone the detective bureau on the evening in question, but concluded that “there was no . . . conspiracy or collusion on the part of the Cranston Police Department to secrete this defendant from his attorney.” Id., at 114. In any event, the court held, the constitutional right to request the presence of an attorney belongs solely to the defendant and may not be asserted by his lawyer. Because the evidence was clear that respondent never asked for the services of an attorney, the telephone call had no relevance to the validity of the waiver or the admissibility of the statements.

The jury found respondent guilty of murder in the first degree, and he appealed to the Supreme Court of Rhode Island. A divided court rejected his contention that the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution required , the suppression of the inculpatory statements and affirmed the conviction. Failure to inform respondent of Ms. Munson’s efforts to represent him, the court held, did not undermine the validity of the waivers. “It hardly seems conceivable that the additional information that an attorney whom he did not know had called the police station would have added significantly to the quantum of information necessary for the accused to make an informed decision as to waiver. ” State v. Burbine 451 A. 2d 22, 29 (1982). Nor, the court concluded, did Miranda v. Arizona, or any other decision of this Court independently require the police to honor Ms. Munson’s request that interrogation not proceed in her absence. In reaching that conclusion, the court noted that because two different police departments were operating in the Cranston station house on the evening in question, the record supported the trial court’s finding that there was no “conspiracy or collusion” to prevent Ms. Munson from seeing respondent. 451 A. 2d, at 30, n. 5. In any case, the court held, the right to the presence of counsel belongs solely to the accused and may not be asserted by “benign third parties, whether or not they happen to be attorneys.” Id., at 28.

After unsuccessfully petitioning the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island for a writ of habeas corpus, 589 F. Supp. 1245 (1984), respondent appealed to the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. That court reversed. 753 F. 2d 178 (1985). Finding it unnecessary to reach any arguments under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments, the court held that the police’s conduct had fatally tainted respondent’s “otherwise valid” waiver of his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and right to counsel. Id., at 184. The court reasoned that by failing to inform respondent that an attorney had called and that she had been assured that no questioning would take place until the next day, the police had deprived respondent of information crucial to his ability to waive his rights knowingly and intelligently. The court also found that the record would support “no other explanation for the refusal to tell Burbine of Attorney Munson’s call than . . . deliberate or reckless irresponsibility.” Id., at 185. This kind of “blameworthy action by the police,” the court concluded, together with respondent’s ignorance of the telephone call, “vitiate[d] any claim that [the] waiver of counsel was knowing and voluntary.” Id., at 185, 187.

We granted certiorari to decide whether a prearraignment confession preceded by an otherwise valid waiver must be suppressed either because the police misinformed an inquiring attorney about their plans concerning the suspect or because they failed to inform the suspect of the attorney’s efforts to reach him. 471 U. S. 1098 (1985). We now reverse.

r — I ⅜ — I

In Miranda v. Arizona, the Court recognized that custodial interrogations, by their very nature, generate “compelling pressures which work to undermine the individual’s will to resist and to compel him to speak where he would not otherwise do so freely.” 384 U. S., at 467. To combat this inherent compulsion, and thereby protect the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, Miranda imposed on the police an obligation to follow certain procedures in their dealings with the accused. In particular, prior to the initiation of questioning, they must fully apprise the suspect of the State’s intention to use his statements to secure a conviction, and must inform him of his rights to remain silent and to “have counsel present ... if [he] so desires.” Id., at 468-470. Beyond this duty to inform, Miranda requires that the police respect the accused’s decision to exercise the rights outlined in the warnings. “If the individual indicates in any manner, at any time prior to or during questioning, that he wishes to remain silent, [or if he] states that he wants an attorney, the interrogation must cease.” Id., at 473-474. See also Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U. S. 477 (1981).

Respondent does not dispute that the Providence police followed these procedures with precision. The record amply supports the state-court findings that the police administered the required warnings, sought to assure that respondent understood his rights, and obtained an express written waiver prior to eliciting each of the three statements. Nor does respondent contest the Rhode Island courts’ determination that he at no point requested the presence of a lawyer. He contends instead that the confessions must be suppressed because the police’s failure to inform him of the attorney’s telephone call deprived him of information essential to his ability to knowingly waive his Fifth Amendment rights. In the alternative, he suggests that to fully protect the Fifth Amendment values served by Miranda, we should extend that decision to condemn the conduct of the Providence police. We address each contention in turn.

A

Echoing the standard first articulated in Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458, 464 (1938), Miranda holds that “[t]he defendant may waive effectuation” of the rights conveyed in the warnings “provided the waiver is made voluntarily, knowingly and intelligently.” 384 U. S., at 444, 475. The inquiry has two distinct dimensions. Edwards v. Arizona, supra, at 482; Brewer v. Williams, 430 U. S. 387, 404 (1977). First, the relinquishment of the right must have been voluntary in the sense that it was the product of a free and deliberate choice rather than intimidation, coercion, or deception. Second, the waiver must have been made with a full awareness of both the nature of the right being abandoned and the consequences of the decision to abandon it. Only if the “totality of the circumstances surrounding the interrogation” reveals both an uncoerced choice and the requisite level of comprehension may a court properly conclude that the Miranda rights have been waived. Fare v. Michael C., 442 U. S. 707, 725 (1979). See also North Carolina v. Butler, 441 U. S. 369, 374-375 (1979).

Under this standard, we have no doubt that respondent validly waived his right to remain silent and to the presence of counsel. The voluntariness of the waiver is not at issue. As the Court of Appeals correctly acknowledged, the record is devoid of any suggestion that police resorted to physical or psychological pressure to elicit the statements. 753 F. 2d, at 184. Indeed it appears that it was respondent, and not the police, who spontaneously initiated the conversation that led to the first and most damaging confession. Id., at 180. Cf. Edwards v. Arizona, supra. Nor is there any question about respondent’s comprehension of the full panoply of rights set out in the Miranda warnings and of the potential consequences of a decision to relinquish them. Nonetheless, the Court of Appeals believed that the “[deliberate or reckless” conduct of the police, in particular their failure to inform respondent of the telephone call, fatally undermined the validity of the otherwise proper waiver. 753 F. 2d, at 187. We find this conclusion untenable as a matter of both logic and precedent.

Events occurring outside of the presence of the suspect and entirely unknown to him surely can have no bearing on the capacity to comprehend and knowingly relinquish a constitutional right. Under the analysis of the Court of Appeals, the same defendant, armed with the same information and confronted with precisely the same police conduct, would have knowingly waived his Miranda rights had a lawyer not telephoned the police station to inquire about his status. Nothing in any of our waiver decisions or in our understanding of the essential components of a valid waiver requires so incongruous a result. No doubt the additional information would have been useful to respondent; perhaps even it might have affected his decision to confess. But we have never read the Constitution to require that the police supply a suspect with a flow of information to help him calibrate his self-interest in deciding whether to speak or stand by his rights. See, e. g., Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U. S. 298, 316-317 (1985); United States v. Washington, 431 U. S. 181, 188 (1977). Cf. Hill v. Lockhart, 474 U. S. 52, 56 (1985); McMann v. Richardson, 397 U. S. 759, 769 (1970). Once it is determined that a suspect’s decision not to rely on his rights was uncoerced, that he at all times knew he could stand mute and request a lawyer, and that he was aware of the State’s intention to use his statements to secure a conviction, the analysis is complete and the waiver is valid as a matter of law.¹ The Court of Appeals’ conclusion to the contrary was in error.

Nor do we believe that the level of the police’s culpability in failing to inform respondent of the telephone call has any bearing on the validity of the waivers. In light of the state-court findings that there was no “conspiracy or collusion” on the part of the police, 451 A. 2d, at 30, n. 5, we have serious doubts about whether the Court of Appeals was free to conclude that their conduct constituted “deliberate or reckless irresponsibility.” 753 F. 2d, at 185; see 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d). But whether intentional or inadvertent, the state of mind of the police is irrelevant to the question of the intelligence and voluntariness of respondent’s election to abandon his rights. Although highly inappropriate, even deliberate deception of an attorney could not possibly affect a suspect’s decision to waive his Miranda rights unless he were at least aware of the incident. Compare Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U. S. 478, 481 (1964) (excluding confession where police incorrectly told the suspect that his lawyer “ ‘didn’t want to see’ him”). Nor was the failure to inform respondent of the telephone call the kind of “trick[ery]” that can vitiate the validity of a waiver. Miranda, 384 U. S., at 476. Granting that the “deliberate or reckless” withholding of information is objectionable as a matter of ethics, such conduct is only relevant to the constitutional validity of a waiver if it deprives a defendant of knowledge essential to his ability to understand the nature of his rights and the consequences of abandoning them. Because respondent’s voluntary decision to speak was made with full awareness and comprehension of all the information Miranda requires the police to convey, the waivers were valid.

B

At oral argument respondent acknowledged that a constitutional rule requiring the police to inform a suspect of an attorney’s efforts to reach him would represent a significant extension of our precedents. Tr. of Oral Arg. 32-33. He contends, however, that the conduct of the Providence police was so inimical to the Fifth Amendment values Miranda seeks to protect that we should read that decision to condemn their behavior. Regardless of any issue of waiver, he urges, the Fifth Amendment requires the reversal of a conviction if the police are less than forthright in their dealings with an attorney or if they fail to tell a suspect of a lawyer’s unilateral efforts to contact him. Because the proposed modification ignores the underlying purposes of the Miranda rules and because we think that the decision as written strikes the proper balance between society’s legitimate law enforcement interests and the protection of the defendant’s Fifth Amendment rights, we decline the invitation to further extend Miranda’s reach.

At the outset, while we share respondent’s distaste for the deliberate misleading of an officer of the court, reading Miranda to forbid police deception of an attorney “would cut [the decision] completely loose from its own explicitly stated rationale.” Beckwith v. United States, 425 U. S. 341, 345 (1976). As is now well established, “[t]he . . . Miranda warnings are ‘not themselves rights protected by the Constitution but [are] instead measures to insure that the [suspect’s] right against compulsory self-incrimination [is] protected.’” New York v. Quarles, 467 U. S. 649, 654 (1984), quoting Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U. S. 433, 444 (1974). Their objective is not to mold police conduct for its own sake. Nothing in the Constitution vests in us the authority to mandate a code of behavior for state officials wholly unconnected to any federal right or privilege. The purpose of the Miranda warnings instead is to dissipate the compulsion inherent in custodial interrogation and, in so doing, guard against abridgment of the suspect’s Fifth Amendment rights. Clearly, a rule that focuses on how the police treat an attorney-conduct that has no relevance at all to the degree of compulsion experienced by the defendant during interrogation — would ignore both Miranda’s mission and its only source of legitimacy.

Nor are we prepared to adopt a rule requiring that the police inform a suspect of an attorney’s efforts to reach him. While such a rule might add marginally to Miranda’s goal of dispelling the compulsion inherent in custodial interrogation, overriding practical considerations counsel against its adoption. As we have stressed on numerous occasions, “[o]ne of the principal advantages” of Miranda is the ease and clarity of its application. Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U. S. 420, 430 (1984); see also New York v. Quarles, supra, at 662-664 (concurring opinion); Fare v. Michael C., 442 U. S., at 718. We have little doubt that the approach urged by respondent and endorsed by the Court of Appeals would have the inevitable consequence of muddying Miranda’s otherwise relatively clear waters. The legal questions it would spawn are legion: To what extent should the police be held accountable for knowing that the accused has counsel? Is it enough that someone in the station house knows, or must the interrogating officer himself know of counsel’s efforts to contact the suspect? Do counsel’s efforts to talk to the suspect concerning one criminal investigation trigger the obligation to inform the defendant before interrogation may proceed on a wholly separate matter? We are unwilling to modify Miranda in a manner that would so clearly undermine the decision’s central “virtue of informing police and prosecutors with specificity .. . what they may do in conducting [a] custodial interrogation, and of informing courts under what circumstances statements obtained during such interrogation are not admissible.” Fare v. Michael C., supra, at 718.

Moreover, problems of clarity to one side, reading Miranda to require the police in each instance to inform a suspect of an attorney’s efforts to reach him would work a substantial and, we think, inappropriate shift in the subtle balance struck in that decision. Custodial interrogations implicate two competing concerns. On the one hand, “the need for police questioning as a tool for effective enforcement of criminal laws” cannot be doubted. Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U. S. 218, 225 (1973). Admissions of guilt are more than merely “desirable,” United States v. Washington, 431 U. S., at 186; they are essential to society’s compelling interest in finding, convicting, and punishing those who violate the law. On the other hand, the Court has recognized that the interrogation process is “inherently coercive” and that, as a consequence, there exists a substantial risk that the police will inadvertently traverse the fine line between legitimate efforts to elicit admissions and constitutionally impermissible compulsion. New York v. Quarles, supra, at 656. Miranda attempted to reconcile these opposing concerns by giving the defendant the power to exert some control over the course of the interrogation. Declining to adopt the more extreme position that the actual presence of a lawyer was necessary to dispel the coercion inherent in custodial interrogation, see Brief for American Civil Liberties Union as Amicus Curiae in Miranda v. Arizona, O. T. 1965, No. 759, pp. 22-31, the Court found that the suspect’s Fifth Amendment rights could be adequately protected by less intrusive means. Police questioning, often an essential part of the investigatory process, could continue in its traditional form, the Court held, but only if the suspect clearly understood that, at any time, he could bring the proceeding to a halt or, short of that, call in an attorney to give advice and monitor the conduct of his interrogators.

The position urged by respondent would upset this carefully drawn approach in a manner that is both unnecessary for the protection of the Fifth Amendent privilege and injurious to legitimate law enforcement. Because, as Miranda holds, full comprehension of the rights to remain silent and request an attorney are sufficient to dispel whatever coercion is inherent in the interrogation process, a rule requiring the police to inform the suspect of an attorney’s efforts to contact him would contribute to the protection of the Fifth Amendment privilege only incidentally, if at all. XhisJxdnimal benefit, however, would come at a substantial cost to society’s legitimate and substantial interest in securing admissions of guilt. Indeed, the very premise of the Court of Appeals was not that awareness of Ms. Munson’s phone call would have dissipated the coercion of the interrogation room, but that it might have convinced respondent not to speak at all. 753 F. 2d, at 185. Because neither the letter nor purposes of Miranda require this additional handicap on otherwise permissible investigatory efforts, we are unwilling to expand the Miranda rules to require the police to keep the suspect abreast of the status of his legal representation.

We acknowledge that a number of state courts have reached a contrary conclusion. Compare State v. Jones, 19 Wash. App. 850, 578 P. 2d 71 (1978), with State v. Beck, 687 S. W. 2d 155 (Mo. 1985) (en banc). We recognize also that our interpretation of the Federal Constitution, if given the dissent’s expansive gloss, is at odds with the policy recommendations embodied in the American Bar Association Standards of Criminal Justice. Cf. ABA Standards for Criminal Justice 5-7.1 (2d ed. 1980). Notwithstanding the dissent’s protestations, however, our interpretive duties go well beyond deferring to the numerical preponderance of lower court decisions or to the subconstitutional recommendations of even so esteemed a body as the American Bar Association. See Nix v. Whiteside, ante, at 189 (Blackmun, J., concurring in judgment). Nothing we say today disables the States from adopting different requirements for the conduct of its employees and officials as a matter of state law. We hold only that the Court of Appeals erred in construing the Fifth Amendment to the Federal Constitution to require the exclusion of respondent’s three confessions.

I — I I — I I — I

Respondent also contends that the Sixth Amendment requires exclusion of his three confessions.² It is clear, of course, that, absent a valid waiver, the defendant has the right to the presence of an attorney during any interrogation occurring after the first formal charging proceeding, the point at which the Sixth Amendment right to counsel initially attaches. United States v. Gouveia, 467 U. S. 180, 187 (1984); Kirby v. Illinois, 406 U. S. 682, 689 (1972) (opinion of Stewart, J.). See Brewer v. Williams, 430 U. S., at 400-401. And we readily agree that once the right has attached, it follows that the police may not interfere with the efforts of a defendant’s attorney to act as a “‘medium’ between [the suspect] and the State” during the interrogation. Maine v. Moulton, 474 U. S. 159, 176 (1985); see Brewer v. Williams, supra, at 401, n. 8. The difficulty for respondent is that the interrogation sessions that yielded the inculpatory statements took place before the initiation of “adversary judicial proceedings.” United States v. Gouveia, supra, at 192. He contends, however, that this circumstance is not fatal to his Sixth Amendment claim. At least in some situations, he argues, the Sixth Amendment protects the integrity of the attorney-client relationship³ regardless of whether the prosecution has in fact commenced “by way of formal charge, preliminary hearing, indictment, information or arraignment.” 467 U. S., at 188. Placing principal reliance on a footnote in Miranda, 384 U. S., at 465, n. 35, and on Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U. S. 478 (1964), he maintains that Gouveia, Kirby, and our other “critical stage” cases, concern only the narrow question of when the right to counsel — that is, to the appointment or presence of counsel — attaches. The right to noninterference with an attorney’s dealings with a criminal suspect, he asserts, arises the moment that the relationship is formed, or, at the very least, once the defendant is placed in custodial interrogation.

We are not persuaded. At the outset, subsequent decisions foreclose any reliance on Escobedo and Miranda for the proposition that the Sixth Amendment right, in any of its manifestations, applies prior to the initiation of adversary judicial proceedings. Although Escobedo was originally decided as a Sixth Amendment case, “the Court in retrospect perceived that the ‘prime purpose’ of Escobedo was not to vindicate the constitutional right to counsel as such, but, like Miranda, ‘to guarantee full effectuation of the privilege against self-incrimination . . . .’” Kirby v. Illinois, supra, at 689, quoting Johnson v. New Jersey, 384 U. S. 719, 729 (1966), Clearly then, Escobedo provides no support for respondent’s argument. Nor, of course, does Miranda, the holding of which rested exclusively on the Fifth Amendment. Thus, the decision’s brief observation about the reach of Escobedo’s Sixth Amendment analysis is not only dictum, but reflects an understanding of the case that the Court has expressly disavowed. See also, United States v. Gouveia, supra, at 188, n. 5; Y. Kamisar, Police Interrogation and Confessions 217-218, n. 94 (1980).

Questions of precedent to one side, we find respondent’s understanding of the Sixth Amendment both practically and theoretically unsound. As a practical matter, it makes little sense to say that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel attaches at different times depending on the fortuity of whether the suspect or his family happens to have retained counsel prior to interrogation. Cf. id., at 220-221. More importantly, the suggestion that the existence of an attorney-client relationship itself triggers the protections of the Sixth Amendment misconceives the underlying purposes of the right to counsel. The Sixth Amendment’s intended function is not to wrap a protective cloak around the attorney-client relationship for its own sake any more than it is to protect a suspect from the consequences of his own candor. Its purpose, rather, is to assure that in any “criminal prosecutio[n],” U. S. Const., Amdt. 6, the accused shall not be left to his own devices in facing the “ ‘prosecutorial forces of organized society.’” Maine v. Moulton, supra, at 170 (quoting Kirby v. Illinois, 406 U. S., at 689). By its very terms, it becomes applicable only when the government’s role shifts from investigation to accusation. For it is only then that the assistance of one versed in the “intricacies ... of law,” ibid., is needed to assure that the prosecution’s case encounters “the crucible of meaningful adversarial testing.” United States v. Cronic, 466 U. S. 648, 656 (1984).

Indeed, in Maine v. Moulton, decided this Term, the Court again confirmed that looking to the initiation of adversary judicial proceedings, far from being mere formalism, is fundamental to the proper application of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. There, we considered the constitutional implications of a surreptitious investigation that yielded evidence pertaining to two crimes. For one, the defendant had been indicted; for the other, he had not. Concerning the former, the Court reaffirmed that after the first charging proceeding the government may not deliberately elicit incriminating statements from an accused out of the presence of counsel. See also Massiah v. United States, 377 U. S. 201 (1964). The Court made clear, however, that the evidence concerning the crime for which the defendant had not been indicted — evidence obtained in precisely the same manner from the identical suspect — would be admissible at a trial limited to those charges. Maine v. Moulton, 474 U. S., at 180, and n. 16. The clear implication of the holding, and one that confirms the teaching of Gouveia, is that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel does not attach until after the initiation of formal charges. Moreover, because Moulton already had legal representation, the decision all but forecloses respondent’s argument that the attorney-client relationship itself triggers the Sixth Amendment right.

Respondent contends, however, that custodial interrogations require a different rule. Because confessions elicited during the course of police questioning often seal a suspect’s fate, he argues, the need for an advocate — and the concomitant right to noninterference with the attorney-client relationship — is at its zenith, regardless of whether the State has initiated the first adversary judicial proceeding. We do not doubt that a lawyer’s presence could be of value to the suspect; and we readily agree that if a suspect confesses, his attorney’s case at trial will be that much more difficult. But these concerns are no more decisive in this context than they were for the equally damaging preindictment lineup at issue in Kirby, or the statements pertaining to the unindicted crime elicted from the defendant in Maine v. Moulton. Compare United States v. Wade, 388 U. S. 218, 226-227 (1967) (Sixth Amendment attaches at postindictment lineup); Massiah v. United States, supra (after indictment, police may not elicit statements from suspect out of the presence of counsel). For an interrogation, no more or less than for any other “critical” pretrial event, the possibility that the encounter may have important consequences at trial, standing alone, is insufficient to trigger the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. As Gouveia made clear, until such time as the “ ‘government has committed itself to prosecute, and . . . the adverse positions of government and defendant have solidified’” the Sixth Amendment right to counsel does not attach. 467 U. S., at 189 (quoting Kirby v. Illinois, supra, at 689).

Because, as respondent acknowledges, the events that led to the inculpatory statements preceded the formal initiation of adversary judicial proceedings, we reject the contention that the conduct of the police violated his rights under the Sixth Amendment.

IV

Finally, respondent contends that the conduct of the police was so offensive as to deprive him of the fundamental fairness guaranteed by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Focusing primarily on the impropriety of conveying false information to an attorney, he invites us to declare that such behavior should be condemned as violative of canons fundamental to the “‘traditions and conscience of our people.’” Rochin v. California, 342 U. S. 165, 169 (1952), quoting Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U. S. 97, 105 (1934). We do not question that on facts more egregious than those presented here police deception might rise to a level of a due process violation. Accordingly, Justice Ste-VENS’ apocalyptic suggestion that we have approved any and all forms of police misconduct is demonstrably incorrect.⁴ We hold only that, on these facts, the challenged conduct falls short of the kind of misbehavior that so shocks the sensibilities of civilized society as to warrant a federal intrusion into the criminal processes of the States.

We hold therefore that the Court of Appeals erred in finding that the Federal Constitution required the exclusion of the three inculpatory statements. Accordingly, we reverse and remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

So ordered.

1 The dissent incorrectly reads our analysis of the components of a valid waiver to be inconsistent with the Court’s holding in Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U. S. 477 (1981). Post, at 452. When a suspect has requested counsel, the interrogation must cease, regardless of any question of waiver, unless the suspect himself initiates the conversation. In the course of its lengthy exposition, however, the dissent never comes to grips with the crucial distinguishing feature of this case — that Burbine at no point requested the presence of counsel, as was his right under Miranda to do. We do not quarrel with the dissent’s characterization of police interrogation as a “privilege terminable at the will of the suspect.” Post, at 458. We reject, however, the dissent’s entirely undefended suggestion that the Fifth Amendment “right to counsel” requires anything more than that the police inform the suspect of his right to representation and honor his request that the interrogation cease until his attorney is present. See, e. g., Michigan v. Mosley, 423 U. S. 96, 104, n. 10 (1975).

2 Petitioner does not argue that respondent’s valid waiver of his Fifth Amendment right to counsel necessarily served to waive his parallel rights under the Sixth Amendment. Accordingly, we have no occasion to consider whether a waiver for one purpose necessarily operates as a general waiver of the right to counsel for all purposes.

3 Notwithstanding the Rhode Island Supreme Court’s finding that, as a matter of state law, no attorney-client relationship existed between respondent and Ms. Munson, the Sixth Amendment issue is properly before us. State v. Burbine, 451 A. 2d 22, 29 (1982). Petitioner now concedes that such a relationship existed and invites us to decide the Sixth Amendment question based on that concession. Of course, a litigant’s concession cannot be used to circumvent the rule that this Court may not disregard a state court’s interpretation of state law. Respondent’s argument, however, does not focus on whether an attorney-client relationship actually existed as a formal matter of state law. He argues instead that, on the particular facts of this case, the Sixth Amendment right to counsel has been violated. In any event, even if the existence of an attorney-client relationship could somehow independently trigger the Sixth Amendment right to counsel, a position we reject, the type of circumstances that would give rise to the right would certainly have a federal definition.

4 Among its other failings, the dissent declines to follow Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U. S. 298 (1985), a decision that categorically forecloses Justice Stevens’ major premise — that Miranda requires the police to inform a suspect of any and all information that would be useful to a decision whether to remain silent or speak with the police. See also United States v. Washington, 431 U. S. 181, 188 (1977). The dissent also launches a novel “agency” theory of the Fifth Amendment under which any perceived deception of a lawyer is automatically treated as deception of his or her client. This argument entirely disregards the elemental and established proposition that the privilege against compulsory self-incrimination is, by hypothesis, a personal one that can only be invoked by the individual whose testimony is being compelled.

Most importantly, the dissent’s misreading of Miranda itself is breathtaking in its scope. For example, it reads Miranda as creating an undifferentiated right to the presence of an attorney that is triggered automatically by the initiation of the interrogation itself. Post, at 463. Yet, as both Miranda and subsequent decisions construing Miranda make clear beyond refute, “ ‘the interrogation must cease until an attorney is present’ only ‘[i]f the individual states that he wants an attorney.’” Michigan v. Mosley, 423 U. S. 96, 104, n. 10 (1975) (emphasis added), quoting Miranda, 384 U. S., at 474. The dissent condemns us for embracing “incommunicado questioning ... as a societal goal of the highest order that justifies police deception of the shabbiest kind.” Post, at 439. We, of course, do nothing of the kind. As any reading of Miranda reveals, the decision, rather than proceeding from the premise that the rights and needs of the defendant are paramount to all others, embodies a carefully crafted balance designed to fully protect both the defendant’s and society’s interests. The dissent may not share our view that the Fifth Amendment rights of the defendant are amply protected by application of Miranda as written. But the dissent is “simply wrong,” post, at 452, in suggesting that exclusion of Burbine’s three confessions follows perfunctorily from Miranda’s mandate. Y. Kamisar, Police Interrogation and Confessions 217-218, n. 94 (1980).

Quite understandably, the dissent is outraged by the very idea of police deception of a lawyer. Significantly less understandable is its willingness to misconstrue this Court’s constitutional holdings in order to implement its subjective notions of sound policy.