KAUPP v. TEXAS

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626 OCTOBER TERM, 2002
Syllabus
KAUPP v. TEXAS
on petition for writ of certiorari to the court of
appeals of texas, fourteenth district
No. 02–5636. Decided May 5, 2003
After petitioner Kaupp, then 17, was implicated in the murder of a 14-
year-old girl by the confession of the girl’s half brother, detectives tried,
but failed, to obtain a warrant to question Kaupp. They then went to
his house at 3 a.m.; awakened and handcuffed him; led him, shoeless and
dressed only in his underwear, to a patrol car; stopped at the crime
scene; and took him to the sheriff ’s headquarters, where they removed
the handcuffs and advised him of his rights under Miranda v. Arizona,
384 U. S. 436. Once presented with the brother’s confession, Kaupp ad-
mitted to having a part in the crime. He did not acknowledge causing
the fatal wound or confess to the murder, for which he was later in-
dicted. Kaupp moved unsuccessfully to suppress his confession as the
fruit of an illegal arrest, was convicted, and was sentenced to prison.
In affirming, the Texas Court of Appeals found that the arrest occurred
after Kaupp’s confession; that Kaupp consented to go with the officers
when he answered “Okay” to an officer’s statement that they needed to
talk; that a reasonable person would not have believed that putting on
handcuffs before being removed to a patrol car was a significant restric-
tion on his freedom of movement, since this was common practice of the
sheriff ’s office; and that Kaupp did not resist the use of handcuffs or act
in a manner consistent with anything but full cooperation. The State
Court of Criminal Appeals denied discretionary review.
Held: Kaupp was arrested within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment
before the detectives began to question him. A seizure of the person
within the meaning of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments occurs
when, “taking into account all of the circumstances surrounding the en-
counter, the police conduct would ‘have communicated to a reasonable
person that he was not at liberty to ignore the police presence and go
about his business.’ ” Florida v. Bostick, 501 U. S. 429, 437. This test
is derived from Justice Stewart’s opinion in United States v. Menden-
hall, 446 U. S. 544, 554, which includes, as examples of circumstances
that might indicate a seizure, the threatening presence of several police
officers, an officer’s display of a weapon, some physical touching of the
person, or the use of language or tone of voice indicating that compliance
with the officer’s request might be compelled. This Court has never
sustained the involuntary removal of a suspect from his home to a police

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station and his detention there for investigative purposes absent proba-
ble cause or judicial authorization. The State does not claim to have
had probable cause here, and an application of the test just mentioned
shows that Kaupp was arrested, there being evidence of every one of
Mendenhall’s probative circumstances. A 17-year-old boy was awak-
ened at 3 a.m. by at least three police officers, placed in handcuffs, and
taken in his underwear and without shoes in a patrol car to the crime
scene and then to the sheriff ’s offices, where he was taken into an inter-
rogation room and questioned. The contrary reasons mentioned by the
state courts—his “Okay” response, that the sheriff ’s office routinely
handcuffed individuals when transporting them, and that Kaupp did not
resist the handcuffs or act uncooperatively—are no answer to the facts
here. Because Kaupp was arrested before he was questioned, and be-
cause the State does not claim that the sheriff ’s department had proba-
ble cause to detain him at that point, his confession must be suppressed
unless the State can show that it was an act of free will sufficient to
purge the primary taint of the unlawful invasion. The only relevant
consideration supporting the State is the observance of Miranda, but
such warnings alone cannot always break the causal connection between
the illegality and the confession, Brown v. Illinois, 422 U. S. 590, 603.
All other relevant considerations—the temporal proximity of the arrest
and the confession, the presence of intervening circumstances, and the
official misconduct’s purpose and flagrancy—point the opposite way.
Unless, on remand, the State can point to testimony undisclosed on this
record, and weighty enough to carry its burden despite the clear force
of the evidence here, the confession must be suppressed.
Certiorari granted; vacated and remanded.
Per Curiam.
This case turns on the Fourth Amendment rule that a con-
fession “obtained by exploitation of an illegal arrest” may
not be used against a criminal defendant. Brown v. Illinois,
422 U. S. 590, 603 (1975). After a 14-year-old girl disap-
peared in January 1999, the Harris County Sheriff ’s Depart-
ment learned she had had a sexual relationship with her 19-
year-old half brother, who had been in the company of
petitioner Robert Kaupp, then 17 years old, on the day of
the girl’s disappearance. On January 26th, deputy sheriffs
questioned the brother and Kaupp at headquarters; Kaupp
was cooperative and was permitted to leave, but the brother

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failed a polygraph examination (his third such failure).
Eventually he confessed that he had fatally stabbed his half
sister and placed her body in a drainage ditch. He impli-
cated Kaupp in the crime.
Detectives immediately tried but failed to obtain a war-
rant to question Kaupp.1 Detective Gregory Pinkins never-
theless decided (in his words) to “get [Kaupp] in and confront
him with what [the brother] had said.” App. A to Pet. for
Cert. 2. In the company of two other plainclothes detec-
tives and three uniformed officers, Pinkins went to Kaupp’s
house at approximately 3 a.m. on January 27th. After
Kaupp’s father let them in, Pinkins, with at least two
other officers, went to Kaupp’s bedroom, awakened him
with a flashlight, identified himself, and said, “ ‘we need to
go and talk.’ ” Ibid. Kaupp said “ ‘Okay.’ ” Ibid. The
two officers then handcuffed Kaupp and led him, shoeless and
dressed only in boxer shorts and a T-shirt, out of his house
and into a patrol car. The State points to nothing in the
record indicating Kaupp was told that he was free to decline
to go with the officers.
They stopped for 5 or 10 minutes where the victim’s body
had just been found, in anticipation of confronting Kaupp
with the brother’s confession, and then went on to the sher-
iff ’s headquarters. There, they took Kaupp to an interview
room, removed his handcuffs, and advised him of his rights
under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966). Kaupp first
denied any involvement in the victim’s disappearance, but 10
1 The detectives applied to the district attorney’s office for a “pocket
warrant,” which they described as authority to take Kaupp into custody
for questioning. App. 3 to App. D to Pet. for Cert. 6 (trial transcript).
The detectives did not seek a conventional arrest warrant, as they did not
believe they had probable cause for Kaupp’s arrest. See ibid. As the
trial court later explained, the detectives had no evidence or motive to
corroborate the brother’s allegations of Kaupp’s involvement, see App. C
to Pet. for Cert. 2; the brother had previously failed three polygraph exam-
inations, while, only two days earlier, Kaupp had voluntarily taken and
passed one, in which he denied his involvement, see id., at 1–2.

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or 15 minutes into the interrogation, told of the brother’s
confession, he admitted having some part in the crime. He
did not, however, acknowledge causing the fatal wound or
confess to murder, for which he was later indicted.
After moving unsuccessfully to suppress his confession
as the fruit of an illegal arrest, Kaupp was convicted and
sentenced to 55 years’ imprisonment. The State Court of
Appeals affirmed the conviction by unpublished opinion,
concluding that no arrest had occurred until after the confes-
sion. The state court said that Kaupp consented to go with
the officers when he answered “ ‘Okay’ ” to Pinkins’s state-
ment that “ ‘we need to go and talk.’ ” App. A to Pet. for
Cert. 2, 6. The court saw no contrary significance in the
subsequent handcuffing and removal to the patrol car, given
the practice of the sheriff ’s department in “routinely” using
handcuffs for safety purposes when transporting individuals,
as officers had done with Kaupp only the day before. Id.,
at 6. The court observed that “a reasonable person in
[Kaupp’s] position would not believe that being put in hand-
cuffs was a significant restriction on his freedom of move-
ment.” Ibid. Finally, the state court noted that Kaupp
“did not resist the use of handcuffs or act in a manner con-
sistent with anything other than full cooperation.” Id., at
6–7. Kaupp appealed, but the Court of Criminal Appeals of
Texas denied discretionary review. App. B to Pet. for Cert.
We grant the motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis,
grant the petition for certiorari, and vacate the judgment
below.
A seizure of the person within the meaning of the Fourth
and Fourteenth Amendments occurs when, “taking into ac-
count all of the circumstances surrounding the encounter, the
police conduct would ‘have communicated to a reasonable
person that he was not at liberty to ignore the police pres-
ence and go about his business.’ ” Florida v. Bostick, 501
U. S. 429, 437 (1991) (quoting Michigan v. Chesternut, 486
U. S. 567, 569 (1988)). This test is derived from Justice

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Stewart’s opinion in United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U. S.
544 (1980), see California v. Hodari D., 499 U. S. 621, 627–
628 (1991), which gave several “[e]xamples of circumstances
that might indicate a seizure, even where the person did not
attempt to leave,” including “the threatening presence of
several officers, the display of a weapon by an officer, some
physical touching of the person of the citizen, or the use of
language or tone of voice indicating that compliance with the
officer’s request might be compelled.” Mendenhall, supra,
at 554.
Although certain seizures may be justified on something
less than probable cause, see, e. g., Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1
(1968), we have never “sustained against Fourth Amendment
challenge the involuntary removal of a suspect from his home
to a police station and his detention there for investigative
purposes . . . absent probable cause or judicial authorization.”
Hayes v. Florida, 470 U. S. 811, 815 (1985); 2 cf. Payton v.
New York, 445 U. S. 573, 589–590 (1980); compare Florida
v. Royer, 460 U. S. 491, 499 (1983) (plurality opinion) (“[The
police] may [not] seek to verify [mere] suspicions by means
that approach the conditions of arrest”), with United States
v. Sokolow, 490 U. S. 1, 7 (1989) (“[T]he police can stop and
briefly detain a person for investigative purposes if the offi-
cer has a reasonable suspicion supported by articulable facts
that criminal activity ‘may be afoot,’ even if the officer lacks
probable cause” (quoting Terry, supra, at 30)). Such in-
voluntary transport to a police station for questioning is
“sufficiently like arres[t] to invoke the traditional rule that
arrests may constitutionally be made only on probable
cause.” Hayes, supra, at 816.
The State does not claim to have had probable cause here,
and a straightforward application of the test just mentioned
shows beyond cavil that Kaupp was arrested within the
2 We have, however, left open the possibility that, “under circumscribed
procedures,” a court might validly authorize a seizure on less than proba-
ble cause when the object is fingerprinting. Hayes, 470 U. S., at 817.

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meaning of the Fourth Amendment, there being evidence of
every one of the probative circumstances mentioned by Jus-
tice Stewart in Mendenhall.3 A 17-year-old boy was awak-
ened in his bedroom at three in the morning by at least three
police officers, one of whom stated “ ‘we need to go and
talk.’ ” He was taken out in handcuffs, without shoes,
dressed only in his underwear in January, placed in a patrol
car, driven to the scene of a crime and then to the sher-
iff ’s offices, where he was taken into an interrogation room
and questioned. This evidence points to arrest even more
starkly than the facts in Dunaway v. New York, 442 U. S.
200, 212 (1979), where the petitioner “was taken from a
neighbor’s home to a police car, transported to a police sta-
tion, and placed in an interrogation room.” There we held
it clear that the detention was “in important respects indis-
tinguishable from a traditional arrest” and therefore re-
quired probable cause or judicial authorization to be legal.
Ibid. The same is, if anything, even clearer here.
Contrary reasons mentioned by the state courts are no
answer to the facts. Kaupp’s “ ‘Okay’ ” in response to Pin-
kins’s statement is no showing of consent under the circum-
stances. Pinkins offered Kaupp no choice, and a group of
police officers rousing an adolescent out of bed in the middle
of the night with the words “ ‘we need to go and talk’ ” pre-
sents no option but “to go.” There is no reason to think
Kaupp’s answer was anything more than “a mere submission
to a claim of lawful authority.” Royer, supra, at 497 (plural-
ity opinion); see also Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U. S.
218, 226, 233–234 (1973). If reasonable doubt were possible
3 On the record before us, it is possible to debate whether the law en-
forcement officers were armed. The State Court of Appeals not only de-
scribed them as armed but said specifically that Pinkins’s weapon was
visible, though not drawn, when he confronted Kaupp in the bedroom.
See App. A to Pet. for Cert. 6. But at least one officer testified before
the trial court that they went to Kaupp’s house unarmed. See App. 3 to
App. D to Pet. for Cert. 8 (trial transcript).

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on this point, the ensuing events would resolve it: removal
from one’s house in handcuffs on a January night with noth-
ing on but underwear for a trip to a crime scene on the way
to an interview room at law enforcement headquarters.
Even “an initially consensual encounter . . . can be trans-
formed into a seizure or detention within the meaning of the
Fourth Amendment.” INS v. Delgado, 466 U. S. 210, 215
(1984); see Hayes, supra, at 815–816 (“[A]t some point in the
investigative process, police procedures can qualitatively and
quantitatively be so intrusive with respect to a suspect’s
freedom of movement and privacy interests as to trigger the
full protection of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments”).
It cannot seriously be suggested that when the detectives
began to question Kaupp, a reasonable person in his situation
would have thought he was sitting in the interview room
as a matter of choice, free to change his mind and go home
to bed.
Nor is it significant, as the state court thought, that the
sheriff ’s department “routinely” transported individuals, in-
cluding Kaupp on one prior occasion, while handcuffed for
safety of the officers, or that Kaupp “did not resist the use
of handcuffs or act in a manner consistent with anything
other than full cooperation.” App. A to Pet. for Cert. 6.
The test is an objective one, see, e. g., Chesternut, 486
U. S., at 574, and stressing the officers’ motivation of self-
protection does not speak to how their actions would rea-
sonably be understood. As for the lack of resistance, failure
to struggle with a cohort of deputy sheriffs is not a waiver
of Fourth Amendment protection, which does not require the
perversity of resisting arrest or assaulting a police officer.
Since Kaupp was arrested before he was questioned, and
because the State does not even claim that the sheriff ’s de-
partment had probable cause to detain him at that point,
well-established precedent requires suppression of the con-
fession unless that confession was “an act of free will [suffi-
cient] to purge the primary taint of the unlawful invasion.”

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Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U. S. 471, 486 (1963). Dem-
onstrating such purgation is, of course, a function of circum-
stantial evidence, with the burden of persuasion on the State.
See Brown, 422 U. S., at 604. Relevant considerations in-
clude observance of Miranda, “[t]he temporal proximity of
the arrest and the confession, the presence of intervening
circumstances, and, particularly, the purpose and flagrancy
of the official misconduct.” 422 U. S., at 603–604 (footnotes
and citation omitted).
The record before us shows that only one of these consid-
erations, the giving of Miranda warnings, supports the
State, and we held in Brown that “Miranda warnings, alone
and per se, cannot always . . . break, for Fourth Amendment
purposes, the causal connection between the illegality and
the confession.” 422 U. S., at 603 (emphasis in original); see
also Taylor v. Alabama, 457 U. S. 687, 699 (1982) (O’Connor,
J., dissenting) (noting that, although Miranda warnings are
an important factor, “they are, standing alone, insufficient”).
All other factors point the opposite way. There is no indica-
tion from the record that any substantial time passed be-
tween Kaupp’s removal from his home in handcuffs and his
confession after only 10 or 15 minutes of interrogation. In
the interim, he remained in his partially clothed state in the
physical custody of a number of officers, some of whom, at
least, were conscious that they lacked probable cause to ar-
rest. See Brown, supra, at 604–605. In fact, the State has
not even alleged “any meaningful intervening event” be-
tween the illegal arrest and Kaupp’s confession. Taylor,
supra, at 691. Unless, on remand, the State can point to
testimony undisclosed on the record before us, and weighty
enough to carry the State’s burden despite the clear force of
the evidence shown here, the confession must be suppressed.
The judgment of the State Court of Appeals is vacated,
and the case is remanded for further proceedings not incon-
sistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.