Page:United States Reports, Volume 542.djvu/666

Rh " or "calculated." Ante, at 622 (opinion concurring in judgment). This approach untethers the analysis from facts knowable to, and therefore having any potential directly to affect, the suspect. Far from promoting "clarity," ibid., the approach will add a third step to the suppression inquiry. In virtually every two stage interrogation case, in addition to addressing the standard Miranda and voluntariness questions, courts will be forced to conduct the kind of difficult, state of mind inquiry that we normally take pains to avoid.

The plurality's adherence to Elstad, and mine to the plurality, end there. Our decision in Elstad rejected two lines of argument advanced in favor of suppression. The first was based on the "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine, discussed above. The second was the argument that the "lingering compulsion" inherent in a defendant's having let the "cat out of the bag" required suppression. 470 U.S., at 311. The Court of Appeals of Oregon, in accepting the latter argument, had endorsed a theory indistinguishable from the one today's plurality adopts: "[T]he coercive impact of the unconstitutionally obtained statement remains, because in a defendant's mind it has sealed his fate. It is this impact that must be dissipated in order to make a subsequent confession admissible." State v. Elstad, 61 Ore. App. 673, 677, 658 P. 2d 552, 554 (1983).

We rejected this theory outright. We did so not because we refused to recognize the "psychological impact of the suspect's conviction that he has let the cat out of the bag," but because we refused to "endo[w]" those "psychological effects" with "constitutional implications." 470 U.S., at 311. To do so, we said, would effectively immuniz[e] a suspect who responds to pre-Miranda warning questions from the consequences of his subsequent informed waiver," an immunity that "comes at a high cost to legitimate law enforcement activity, while adding little desirable protection to the