CORLEY v. UNITED STATES

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CORLEY v. UNITED STATES
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the third circuit
No. 07–10441. Argued January 21, 2009—Decided April 6, 2009
McNabb v. United States, 318 U. S. 332, and Mallory v. United States,
354 U. S. 449, “generally rende[r] inadmissible confessions made during
periods of detention that violat[e] the prompt presentment require
ment of [Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure] 5(a).” United States v.
Alvarez-Sanchez, 511 U. S. 350, 354. Rule 5(a), in turn, provides that a
“person making an arrest . . . must take the defendant without unnec
essary delay before a magistrate judge . . . .” Congress enacted 18
U. S. C. § 3501 in response to Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, and
some applications of the McNabb-Mallory rule. In an attempt to
eliminate Miranda, § 3501(a) provides that “a confession . . . shall be
admissible in evidence if it is voluntarily given,” and § 3501(b) lists sev
eral considerations for courts to address in assessing voluntariness.
Subsection (c), which focuses on McNabb-Mallory, provides that “a
confession made . . . by . . . a defendant . . . , while . . . under
arrest . . . , shall not be inadmissible solely because of delay in bringing
such person before a magistrate judge . . . if such confession is found by
the trial judge to have been made voluntarily and . . . within six hours
[of arrest]”; it extends that time limit when further delay is “reasonable
considering the means of transportation and the distance to . . . the
nearest available [magistrate judge].”
Petitioner Corley was arrested for assaulting a federal officer at about
8 a.m. Around 11:45 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents took
him to a Philadelphia hospital to treat a minor injury. At 3:30 p.m. he
was taken from the hospital to the local FBI office and told that he was
a suspect in a bank robbery. Though the office was in the same building
as the nearest magistrate judges, the agents did not bring him before a
magistrate judge, but questioned him, hoping for a confession. At 5:27
p.m., some 9.5 hours after his arrest, Corley began an oral confession
that he robbed the bank. He asked for a break at 6:30 and was held
overnight. The interrogation resumed the next morning, ending with
his signed written confession. He was finally presented to a Magistrate
Judge at 1:30 p.m., 29.5 hours after his arrest, and charged with armed
bank robbery and related charges. The District Court denied his mo
tion to suppress his confessions under Rule 5(a) and McNabb-Mallory.
It reasoned that the oral confession occurred within § 3501(c)’s 6-hour

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window because the time of Corley’s medical treatment should be ex
cluded from the delay. It also found the written confession admissible,
explaining there was no unreasonable delay under Rule 5(a) because
Corley had requested the break. He was convicted of conspiracy and
bank robbery. The Third Circuit affirmed. Relying on Circuit prece
dent to the effect that § 3501 abrogated McNabb-Mallory and replaced
it with a pure voluntariness test, it concluded that if a district court
found a confession voluntary after considering the points listed in
§ 3501(b), it would be admissible, even if the presentment delay was
unreasonable.
Held: Section 3501 modified McNabb-Mallory but did not supplant it.
Pp. 313–323.
(a) The Government claims that because § 3501(a) makes a confession
“admissible” “if it is voluntarily given,” it entirely eliminates McNabb-
Mallory with its bar to admitting even a voluntary confession if given
during an unreasonable presentment delay. Corley argues that
§ 3501(a) was only meant to overrule Miranda, and notes that only
§ 3501(c) touches on McNabb-Mallory, making the rule inapplicable to
confessions given within six hours of an arrest. He has the better argu
ment. Pp. 313–321.
(1) The Government’s reading renders § 3501(c) nonsensical and su
perfluous. If subsection (a) really meant that any voluntary confession
was admissible, then subsection (c) would add nothing; if a confession
was “made voluntarily” it would be admissible, period, and never “inad
missible solely because of delay,” even a delay beyond six hours. The
Government’s reading is thus at odds with the basic interpretive canon
that “ ‘[a] statute should be construed [to give effect] to all its provisions,
so that no part will be inoperative or superfluous, void or insignificant.’ ”
Hibbs v. Winn, 542 U. S. 88, 101. The Government claims that in pro
viding that a confession “shall not be admissible,” Congress meant that
a confession “shall not be [involuntary].” Thus read, (c) would specify
a bright-line rule applying (a) to cases of delay: it would tell courts that
delay alone does not make a confession involuntary unless the delay
exceeds six hours. But “ ‘Congress did not write the statute that
way.’ ” Russello v. United States, 464 U. S. 16, 23. The terms “inad
missible” and “involuntary” are not synonymous. Congress used both
in (c), and this Court “would not presume to ascribe this difference to a
simple mistake in draftsmanship.” Ibid. There is also every reason
to believe that Congress used the distinct terms deliberately, specifying
two criteria that must be satisfied to prevent a confession from being
“inadmissible solely because of delay”: the confession must be “[1] made
voluntarily and . . . [2] within six hours [of arrest].” Moreover, under

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the McNabb-Mallory rule, “inadmissible” and “involuntary” mean dif
ferent things. Corley’s position, in contrast, gives effect to both (c) and
(a), by reading (a) as overruling Miranda and (c) as qualifying McNabb-
Mallory. The Government’s counterargument—that Corley’s reading
would also create a conflict, since (a) makes all voluntary confessions
admissible while (c) would leave some voluntary confessions inadmissi
ble—falls short. First, (a) is a broad directive while (c) aims only at
McNabb-Mallory, and “a more specific statute [is] given precedence
over a more general one.” Busic v. United States, 446 U. S. 398, 406.
Second, reading (a) to create a conflict with (c) not only would make
(c) superfluous, but would also create conflicts with so many other Rules
of Evidence that the subsection cannot possibly be given its literal
scope. Pp. 313–317.
(2) The legislative history strongly favors Corley’s reading. The
Government points to nothing in this history supporting its contrary
view. Pp. 317–320.
(3) The Government’s position would leave the Rule 5 presentment
requirement without teeth, for if there is no McNabb-Mallory there is
no apparent remedy for a presentment delay. The prompt presentment
requirement is not just an administrative nicety. It dates back to the
common law. Under Rule 5, presentment is the point at which the
judge must take several key steps to foreclose Government overreach
ing: e. g., informing the defendant of the charges against him and giving
the defendant a chance to consult with counsel. Without McNabb-
Mallory, federal agents would be free to question suspects for extended
periods before bringing them out in the open, even though “custodial
police interrogation, by its very nature, isolates and pressures the indi
vidual,” Dickerson v. United States, 530 U. S. 428, 435, inducing people
to confess to crimes they never committed. Pp. 320–321.
(b) There is no merit to the Government’s fallback claim that even if
§ 3501 preserved a limited version of McNabb-Mallory, Congress cut it
out by enacting Federal Rule of Evidence 402, which provides that “[a]ll
relevant evidence is admissible, except as otherwise provided by the
Constitution of the United States, by Act of Congress, by these rules,
or by other rules prescribed by the Supreme Court . . . .” The Advisory
Committee’s Notes expressly identified McNabb-Mallory as a statuto
rily authorized rule that would survive Rule 402, and the Government
has previously conceded before this Court that Rule 402 preserved
McNabb-Mallory. Pp. 321–322.
500 F. 3d 210, vacated and remanded.
Souter, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Stevens, Ken
nedy, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Alito, J., filed a dissenting

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opinion, in which Roberts, C. J., and Scalia and Thomas, JJ., joined,
post, p. 323.
David L. McColgin argued the cause for petitioner. With
him on the briefs were Leigh M. Skipper, Maureen K.
Rowley, Joseph M. Miller, and Brett G. Sweitzer.
Deputy Solicitor General Dreeben argued the cause for
the United States. With him on the brief were former So
licitor General Garre, Acting Assistant Attorney General
Friedrich, Toby J. Heytens, and Thomas E. Booth.*
Justice Souter delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question here is whether Congress intended 18
U. S. C. § 3501 to discard, or merely to narrow, the rule in
McNabb v. United States, 318 U. S. 332 (1943), and Mallory v.
United States, 354 U. S. 449 (1957), under which an arrested
person’s confession is inadmissible if given after an unreason
able delay in bringing him before a judge. We hold that
Congress meant to limit, not eliminate, McNabb-Mallory.
I
A
The common law obliged an arresting officer to bring his
prisoner before a magistrate as soon as he reasonably could.
See County of Riverside v. McLaughlin, 500 U. S. 44, 61–62
(1991) (Scalia, J., dissenting). This “presentment” require
ment tended to prevent secret detention and served to in
form a suspect of the charges against him, and it was the
law in nearly every American State and the National Gov
ernment. See id., at 60–61; McNabb, supra, at 342, and n. 7.
McNabb v. United States raised the question of how to
enforce a number of federal statutes codifying the present
*A brief of amici curiae urging reversal was filed for the National Asso
ciation of Criminal Defense Lawyers et al. by Jeffrey T. Green, Quin M.
Sorenson, Sarah O’Rourke Schrup, Paul M. Rashkind, Frances H. Pratt,
Peter Goldberger, Henry J. Bemporad, and Philip J. Lynch.

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ment rule. 318 U. S., at 342 (citing, among others, 18 U. S. C.
§ 595 (1940 ed.), which provided that “ ‘[i]t shall be the duty
of the marshal . . . who may arrest a person . . . to take the
defendant before the nearest . . . judicial officer . . . for a
hearing’ ”). There, federal agents flouted the requirement
by interrogating several murder suspects for days before
bringing them before a magistrate, and then only after they
had given the confessions that convicted them. 318 U. S., at
334–338, 344–345.
On the defendants’ motions to exclude the confessions from
evidence, we saw no need to reach any constitutional issue.
Instead we invoked the supervisory power to establish and
maintain “civilized standards of procedure and evidence” in
federal courts, id., at 340, which we exercised for the sake of
making good on the traditional obligation embodied in the
federal presentment legislation. We saw both the statutes
and the traditional rule as aimed not only at checking the
likelihood of resort to the third degree but meant generally
to “avoid all the evil implications of secret interrogation of
persons accused of crime.” Id., at 344. We acknowledged
that “Congress ha[d] not explicitly forbidden the use of evi
dence . . . procured” in derogation of the presentment obli
gation, id., at 345, but we realized that “permit[ting] such
evidence to be made the basis of a conviction in the fed
eral courts would stultify the policy which Congress ha[d]
enacted into law,” ibid., and in the exercise of supervisory
authority we held confessions inadmissible when obtained
during unreasonable presentment delay.
Shortly after McNabb, the combined action of the Judi
cial Conference of the United States and Congress produced
Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 5(a), which pulled the
several statutory presentment provisions together in one
place. See Mallory, supra, at 452 (describing Rule 5(a) as
“a compendious restatement, without substantive change, of
several prior specific federal statutory provisions”). As first
enacted, the rule told “[a]n officer making an arrest under a

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warrant issued upon a complaint or any person making an
arrest without a warrant [to] take the arrested person with
out unnecessary delay before the nearest available commis
sioner or before any other nearby officer empowered to com
mit persons charged with offenses against the laws of the
United States.” Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 5(a) (1946). The
rule remains much the same today: “A person making an
arrest within the United States must take the defendant
without unnecessary delay before a magistrate judge . . . .”
Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 5(a)(1)(A) (2007).
A case for applying McNabb and Rule 5(a) together soon
arose in Upshaw v. United States, 335 U. S. 410 (1948). De
spite the Government’s confession of error, the D. C. Circuit
had thought McNabb’s exclusionary rule applied only to in
voluntary confessions obtained by coercion during the period
of delay, 335 U. S., at 411–412, and so held the defendant’s
voluntary confession admissible into evidence. This was
error, and we reiterated the reasoning of a few years earlier.
“In the McNabb case we held that the plain purpose of the
requirement that prisoners should promptly be taken before
committing magistrates was to check resort by officers to
‘secret interrogation of persons accused of crime.’ ” Id., at
412 (quoting McNabb, supra, at 344). Upshaw consequently
emphasized that even voluntary confessions are inadmissible
if given after an unreasonable delay in presentment. 335
U. S., at 413.
We applied Rule 5(a) again in Mallory v. United States,
holding a confession given seven hours after arrest inadmis
sible for “unnecessary delay” in presenting the suspect to a
magistrate, where the police questioned the suspect for
hours “within the vicinity of numerous committing magis
trates.” 354 U. S., at 455. Again, we repeated the reasons
for the rule and explained, as we had before and have since,
that delay for the purpose of interrogation is the epitome of
“unnecessary delay.” Id., at 455–456; see also McLaughlin,
supra, at 61 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (“It was clear” at com

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mon law “that the only element bearing upon the reasonable
ness of delay was not such circumstances as the pressing
need to conduct further investigation, but the arresting offi
cer’s ability, once the prisoner had been secured, to reach a
magistrate”); Upshaw, supra, at 414. Thus, the rule known
simply as McNabb-Mallory “generally render[s] inadmissible
confessions made during periods of detention that violat[e]
the prompt presentment requirement of Rule 5(a).” United
States v. Alvarez-Sanchez, 511 U. S. 350, 354 (1994).
There the law remained until 1968, when Congress enacted
18 U. S. C. § 3501 in response to Miranda v. Arizona, 384
U. S. 436 (1966), and to the application of McNabb-Mallory
in some federal courts. Subsections (a) and (b) of § 3501
were meant to eliminate Miranda.1 See D ickerson v.
United States, 530 U. S. 428, 435–437 (2000); infra, at 318.
Subsection (a) provides that “[i]n any criminal prosecution
brought by the United States . . . , a confession . . . shall
be admissible in evidence if it is voluntarily given,” while
subsection (b) lists several considerations for courts to ad
dress in assessing voluntariness.2 Subsection (c), which fo
1 We rejected this attempt to overrule Miranda in Dickerson v. United
States, 530 U. S. 428 (2000).
2 In full, subsections (a) and (b) provide:
“(a) In any criminal prosecution brought by the United States or by the
District of Columbia, a confession, as defined in subsection (e) hereof, shall
be admissible in evidence if it is voluntarily given. Before such confession
is received in evidence, the trial judge shall, out of the presence of the
jury, determine any issue as to voluntariness. If the trial judge deter
mines that the confession was voluntarily made it shall be admitted in
evidence and the trial judge shall permit the jury to hear relevant evi
dence on the issue of voluntariness and shall instruct the jury to give such
weight to the confession as the jury feels it deserves under all the
circumstances.
“(b) The trial judge in determining the issue of voluntariness shall take
into consideration all the circumstances surrounding the giving of the con
fession, including (1) the time elapsing between arrest and arraignment of
the defendant making the confession, if it was made after arrest and be
fore arraignment, (2) whether such defendant knew the nature of the of

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cused on McNabb-Mallory, see infra, at 318, provides that
in any federal prosecution, “a confession made . . . by . . . a
defendant therein, while such person was under arrest . . . ,
shall not be inadmissible solely because of delay in bringing
such person before a magistrate judge . . . if such confession
is found by the trial judge to have been made voluntarily . . .
and if such confession was made . . . within six hours [of
arrest]”; the 6-hour time limit is extended when further
delay is “reasonable considering the means of transportation
and the distance to be traveled to the nearest available [mag
istrate judge].” 3
fense with which he was charged or of which he was suspected at the time
of making the confession, (3) whether or not such defendant was advised
or knew that he was not required to make any statement and that any
such statement could be used against him, (4) whether or not such defend
ant had been advised prior to questioning of his right to the assistance of
counsel; and (5) whether or not such defendant was without the assistance
of counsel when questioned and when giving such confession.
“The presence or absence of any of the above-mentioned factors to be
taken into consideration by the judge need not be conclusive on the issue
of voluntariness of the confession.”
3 In full, subsection (c) provides:
“In any criminal prosecution by the United States or by the District of
Columbia, a confession made or given by a person who is a defendant
therein, while such person was under arrest or other detention in the
custody of any law-enforcement officer or law-enforcement agency, shall
not be inadmissible solely because of delay in bringing such person before
a magistrate judge or other officer empowered to commit persons charged
with offenses against the laws of the United States or of the District of
Columbia if such confession is found by the trial judge to have been made
voluntarily and if the weight to be given the confession is left to the jury
and if such confession was made or given by such person within six hours
immediately following his arrest or other detention: Provided, That the
time limitation contained in this subsection shall not apply in any case in
which the delay in bringing such person before such magistrate judge or
other officer beyond such six-hour period is found by the trial judge to be
reasonable considering the means of transportation and the distance to be
traveled to the nearest available such magistrate judge or other officer.”

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The issue in this case is whether Congress intended
§ 3501(a) to sweep McNabb-Mallory’s exclusionary rule aside
entirely, or merely meant § 3501(c) to provide immunization
to voluntary confessions given within six hours of a sus
pect’s arrest.
B
Petitioner Johnnie Corley was suspected of robbing a bank
in Norristown, Pennsylvania. After federal agents learned
that Corley was subject to arrest on an unrelated local mat
ter, some federal and state officers went together to execute
the state warrant on September 17, 2003, and found him just
as he was pulling out of a driveway in his car. Corley nearly
ran over one officer, then jumped out of the car, pushed the
officer down, and ran. The agents gave chase and caught
and arrested him for assaulting a federal officer. The arrest
occurred about 8 a.m. 500 F. 3d 210, 212 (CA3 2007).
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents first kept
Corley at a local police station while they questioned resi
dents near the place he was captured. Around 11:45 a.m.
they took him to a Philadelphia hospital to treat a minor cut
on his hand that he got during the chase. At 3:30 p.m. the
agents took him from the hospital to the Philadelphia FBI
office and told him that he was a suspect in the Norristown
bank robbery. Though the office was in the same building
as the chambers of the nearest magistrate judges, the agents
did not bring Corley before a magistrate judge, but ques
tioned him instead, in hopes of getting a confession. App.
68–69, 83, 138–139.
The agents’ repeated arguments sold Corley on the bene
fits of cooperating with the Government, and he signed a
form waiving his Miranda rights. At 5:27 p.m., some 9.5
hours after his arrest, Corley began an oral confession that
he robbed the bank, App. 62, and spoke on in this vein until
about 6:30, when agents asked him to put it all in writing.
Corley said he was tired and wanted a break, so the agents

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decided to hold him overnight and take the written state
ment the next morning. At 10:30 a.m. on September 18 they
began the interrogation again, which ended when Corley
signed a written confession. He was finally presented to a
Magistrate Judge at 1:30 p.m. that day, 29.5 hours after his
arrest. 500 F. 3d, at 212.
Corley was charged with armed bank robbery, 18 U. S. C.
§§ 2113(a), (d), conspiracy to commit armed bank robbery,
§ 371, and using a firearm in furtherance of a crime of vio
lence, § 924(c). When he moved to suppress his oral and
written confessions under Rule 5(a) and McNabb-Mallory,
the District Court denied the motion, with the explanation
that the time Corley was receiving medical treatment should
be excluded from the delay, and that the oral confession was
thus given within the 6-hour window of § 3501(c). Crim.
No. 03–775 (ED Pa., May 10, 2004), App. 97. The District
Court also held Corley’s written confession admissible, rea
soning that “a break from interrogation requested by an ar
restee who has already begun his confession does not consti
tute unreasonable delay under Rule 5(a).” Id., at 97–98.
Corley was convicted of conspiracy and armed robbery but
acquitted of using a firearm during a crime of violence. 500
F. 3d, at 212–213.
A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Third Cir
cuit affirmed the conviction, though its rationale for reject
ing Corley’s Rule 5(a) argument was different from the Dis
trict Court’s. The panel majority considered itself bound by
Circuit precedent to the effect that § 3501 entirely abrogated
the McNabb-Mallory rule and replaced it with a pure volun
tariness test. See 500 F. 3d, at 212 (citing Government of
Virgin Islands v. Gereau, 502 F. 2d 914 (CA3 1974)). As the
majority saw it, if a district court found a confession volun
tary after considering the points listed in § 3501(b), it would
be admissible, regardless of whether delay in presentment
was unnecessary or unreasonable. 500 F. 3d, at 217. Judge

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Sloviter read Gereau differently and dissented with an opin
ion that “§ 3501 does not displace Rule 5(a)” or abrogate
McNabb-Mallory for presentment delays beyond six hours.
500 F. 3d, at 236.
We granted certiorari to resolve a division in the Courts
of Appeals on the reach of § 3501. 554 U. S. 945 (2008).
Compare United States v. Glover, 104 F. 3d 1570, 1583 (CA10
1997) (§ 3501 entirely supplanted McNabb-Mallory); United
States v. Christopher, 956 F. 2d 536, 538–539 (CA6 1991) (per
curiam) (same), with United States v. Mansoori, 304 F. 3d
635, 660 (CA7 2002) (§ 3501 limited the McNabb-Mallory rule
to periods more than six hours after arrest); United States
v. Perez, 733 F. 2d 1026, 1031–1032 (CA2 1984) (same).4 We
now vacate and remand.
II
The Government’s argument focuses on § 3501(a), which
provides that any confession “shall be admissible in evi
dence” in federal court “if it is voluntarily given.” To the
Government, subsection (a) means that once a district court
looks to the considerations in § 3501(b) and finds a confession
voluntary, in it comes; (a) entirely eliminates McNabb-
Mallory with its bar to admitting even a voluntary confes
sion if given during an unreasonable delay in presentment.
Corley argues that § 3501(a) was meant to overrule Mi
randa and nothing more, with no effect on McNabb-Mallory,
which § 3501 touches only in subsection (c). By providing
that a confession “shall not be inadmissible solely because of
delay” in presentment if “made voluntarily and . . . within
six hours [of arrest],” subsection (c) leaves McNabb-Mallory
inapplicable to confessions given within the six hours, but
when a confession comes even later, the exclusionary rule
4 We granted certiorari to resolve this question once before, in United
States v. Alvarez-Sanchez, 511 U. S. 350 (1994), but ultimately resolved
that case on a different ground, id., at 355–360.

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applies and courts have to see whether the delay was unnec
essary or unreasonable.
Corley has the better argument.
A
The fundamental problem with the Government’s reading
of § 3501 is that it renders § 3501(c) nonsensical and superflu
ous. Subsection (c) provides that a confession “shall not be
inadmissible solely because of delay” in presentment if the
confession is “made voluntarily and . . . within six hours [of
arrest].” If (a) really meant that any voluntary confession
was admissible, as the Government contends, then (c) would
add nothing; if a confession was “made voluntarily” it would
be admissible, period, and never “inadmissible solely because
of delay,” no matter whether the delay went beyond six
hours. There is no way out of this, and the Government
concedes it. Tr. of Oral Arg. 33 (“Congress never needed
(c); (c) in the [G]overnment’s view was always superfluous”).
The Government’s reading is thus at odds with one of the
most basic interpretive canons, that “ ‘[a] statute should
be construed so that effect is given to all its provisions, so
that no part will be inoperative or superfluous, void or
insignificant . . . .’ ” Hibbs v. Winn, 542 U. S. 88, 101 (2004)
(quoting 2A N. Singer, Statutes and Statutory Construction
§ 46.06, pp. 181–186 (rev. 6th ed. 2000); footnote omitted).5
5 The dissent says that the antisuperfluousness canon has no place here
because “there is nothing ambiguous about the language of § 3501(a).”
Post, at 324 (opinion of Alito, J.). But this response violates “the cardinal
rule that a statute is to be read as a whole,” King v. St. Vincent’s Hospital,
502 U. S. 215, 221 (1991). Section 3501(a) seems clear only if one ignores
the absurd results of a literal reading, infra, at 316–317, and only until
one reads § 3501(c) and recognizes that if (a) means what it literally says,
(c) serves no purpose. Even the dissent concedes that when (a) and (c) are
read together, “[t]here is simply no perfect solution to the problem before
us.” Post, at 326. Thus, the dissent’s point that subsection (a) seems
clear when read in isolation proves nothing, for “[t]he meaning—or ambi
guity—of certain words or phrases may only become evident when placed

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The Government attempts to mitigate its problem by rewrit
ing (c) into a clarifying, if not strictly necessary, provision:
although Congress wrote that a confession “shall not be inad
missible solely because of delay” if the confession is “made
voluntarily and . . . within six hours [of arrest],” the Govern
ment tells us that Congress actually meant that a confession
“shall not be [involuntary] solely because of delay” if the con
fession is “[otherwise voluntary] and . . . [made] within six
hours [of arrest].” Thus rewritten, (c) would coexist peace
fully (albeit inelegantly) with (a), with (c) simply specifying
a bright-line rule applying (a) to cases of delay: it would tell
courts that delay alone does not make a confession involun
tary unless the delay exceeds six hours.
To this proposal, “ ‘[t]he short answer is that Congress did
not write the statute that way.’ ” Russello v. United States,
464 U. S. 16, 23 (1983) (quoting United States v. Naftalin, 441
U. S. 768, 773 (1979)). The Government may say that we
can sensibly read “inadmissible” as “involuntary” because
the words are “virtually synonymous . . . in this statutory
context,” Brief for United States 23, but this is simply not
so. To begin with, Congress used both terms in (c) itself,
and “[w]e would not presume to ascribe this difference to a
simple mistake in draftsmanship.” Russello, supra, at 23.
And there is, in fact, every reason to believe that Congress
used the distinct terms very deliberately. Subsection (c)
specifies two criteria that must be satisfied to prevent a
confession from being “inadmissible solely because of delay”:
the confession must be “[1] made voluntarily and . . . [2]
within six hours [of arrest].” Because voluntariness is thus
only one of several criteria for admissibility under (c), “invol
untary” and “inadmissible” plainly cannot be synonymous.
in context.” FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 529 U. S. 120,
132 (2000). When subsection (a) is read in context, there is no avoiding
the question, “What could Congress have been getting at with both (a) and
(c)?” The better answer is that Congress meant to do just what Members
explicitly said in the legislative record. See infra, at 318–320.

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316 CORLEY v. UNITED STATES
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What is more, the Government’s argument ignores the fact
that under the McNabb-Mallory rule, which we presume
Congress was aware of, Cannon v. University of Chicago,
441 U. S. 677, 699 (1979), “inadmissible” and “involuntary”
mean different things. As we explained before and as the
Government concedes, McNabb-Mallory makes even volun
tary confessions inadmissible if given after an unreasonable
delay in presentment, Upshaw, 335 U. S., at 413; Tr. of Oral
Arg. 33 (“[I]t was well understood that McNabb-Mallory
. . . excluded totally voluntary confessions”). So we cannot
accept the Government’s attempt to confuse the critically
distinct terms “involuntary” and “inadmissible” by rewrit
ing (c) into a bright-line rule doing nothing more than
applying (a).
Corley’s position, in contrast, gives effect to both (c) and
(a), by reading (a) as overruling Miranda and (c) as qualify
ing McNabb-Mallory. The Government answers, however,
that accepting Corley’s argument would result in a different
problem: it would create a conflict between (c) and (a), since
(a) provides that all voluntary confessions are admissible
while Corley’s reading of (c) leaves some voluntary confes
sions inadmissible. But the Government’s counterargument
falls short for two reasons. First, even if (a) is read to be
at odds with (c), the conflict is resolved by recognizing that
(a) is a broad directive while (c) aims only at McNabb-
Mallory, and “a more specific statute will be given prece
dence over a more general one . . . .” Busic v. United States,
446 U. S. 398, 406 (1980). Second, and more fundamentally,
(a) cannot prudently be read to create a conflict with (c), not
only because it would make (c) superfluous, as explained, but
simply because reading (a) that way would create conflicts
with so many other rules that the subsection cannot possibly
be given its literal scope. Subsection (a) provides that “[i]n
any criminal prosecution brought by the United States . . . ,
a confession . . . shall be admissible in evidence if it is volun
tarily given,” and § 3501(e) defines “confession” as “any con

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fession of guilt of any criminal offense or any self
incriminating statement made or given orally or in writing.”
Thus, if the Government seriously urged a literal reading,
(a) would mean that “[i]n any criminal prosecution brought
by the United States . . . , [‘any self-incriminating statement’
with respect to ‘any criminal offense’] . . . shall be admissible
in evidence if it is voluntarily given.” Thus would many a
Rule of Evidence be overridden in case after case: a defend
ant’s self-incriminating statement to his lawyer would be ad
missible despite his insistence on attorney-client privilege; a
fourth-hand hearsay statement the defendant allegedly made
would come in; and a defendant’s confession to an entirely
unrelated crime committed years earlier would be admissible
without more. These are some of the absurdities of literal
ism that show that Congress could not have been writing in
a literalistic frame of mind.6
B
As it turns out, there is more than reductio ad absurdum
and the antisuperfluousness canon to confirm that subsection
(a) leaves McNabb-Mallory alone, for that is what legislative
history says. In fact, the Government concedes that subsec
tions (a) and (b) were aimed at Miranda, while subsection
(c) was meant to modify the presentment exclusionary rule.
6 The dissent seeks to avoid these absurd results by claiming that
“§ 3501(a) does not supersede ordinary evidence Rules,” post, at 331, but
its only argument for this conclusion is that “there is no reason to suppose
that Congress meant any such thing,” ibid. The dissent is certainly cor
rect that there is no reason to suppose that Congress meant any such
thing; that is what our reductio ad absurdum shows. But that leaves
the dissent saying, “§ 3501(a) must be read literally” (rendering § 3501(c)
superfluous), “but not too literally” (so that it would override other Rules
of Evidence). The dissent cannot have it both ways. If it means to pro
fess literalism it will have to take the absurdity that literalism brings with
it; “credo quia absurdum” (as Tertullian may have said). If it will not
take the absurd, then its literalism is no alternative to our reading of
the statute.

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318 CORLEY v. UNITED STATES
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Tr. of Oral Arg. 38 (“I will concede to you . . . that section
(a) was considered to overrule Miranda[,] and subsection
(c) was addressed to McNabb-Mallory”). The concession is
unavoidable. The Senate, where § 3501 originated, split the
provision into two parts: division 1 contained subsections
(a) and (b), and division 2 contained subsection (c). 114
Cong. Rec. 14171 (1968). In the debate on the Senate floor
immediately before voting on these proposals, several Sena
tors, including the section’s prime sponsor, Senator McClel
lan, explained that division 1 “has to do with the Miranda
decision,” while division 2 related to Mallory. 114 Cong.
Rec. 14171–14172. This distinct intent was confirmed by the
separate Senate votes adopting the two measures, division 1
by 55 to 29 and division 2 by 58 to 26, id., at 14171–14172,
14174–14175; if (a) did abrogate McNabb-Mallory, as the
Government claims, then voting for division 2 would have
been entirely superfluous, for the division 1 vote would al
ready have done the job. That aside, a sponsor’s statement
to the full Senate carries considerable weight, and Senator
McClellan’s explanation that division 1 was specifically ad
dressed to Miranda confirms that (a) and (b) were never
meant to reach far enough to abrogate other background evi
dentiary rules including McNabb-Mallory.
Further legislative history not only drives that point
home, but conclusively shows an intent that subsection
(c) limit McNabb-Mallory, not replace it. In its original
draft, subsection (c) would indeed have done away with
McNabb-Mallory completely, for the bill as first written
would have provided that “[i]n any criminal prosecution by
the United States . . . , a confession made or given by a
person who is a defendant therein . . . shall not be inadmissi
ble solely because of delay in bringing such person before a
[magistrate judge] if such confession is . . . made voluntarily.”
S. 917, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 44–45 (1968) (as reported by
Senate Committee on the Judiciary); 114 Cong. Rec. 14172.
The provision so conceived was resisted, however, by a num

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ber of Senators worried about allowing indefinite present
ment delays. See, e. g., id., at 11740, 13990 (Sen. Tydings)
(the provision would “permit Federal criminal suspects to be
questioned indefinitely before they are presented to a com
mitting magistrate”); id., at 12290 (Sen. Fong) (the provision
“would open the doors to such practices as holding suspects
incommunicado for an indefinite period”). After Senator
Tydings proposed striking (c) from the bill altogether, id., at
13651 (Amendment No. 788), Senator Scott introduced the
compromise of qualifying (c) with the words: “ ‘and if such
confession was made or given by such person within six
hours following his arrest or other detention,’ ” id., at
14184–14185 (Amendment No. 805).7 The amendment was
intended to confine McNabb-Mallory to excluding only con
fessions given after more than six hours of delay, see 114
Cong. Rec. 14184 (remarks of Sen. Scott) (“My amendment
provides that the period during which confessions may be
received . . . shall in no case exceed 6 hours”), and it was
explicitly modeled on the provision Congress had passed just
months earlier to govern presentment practice in the Dis
trict of Columbia, Title III of An Act Relating to Crime and
Criminal Procedure in the District of Columbia (D. C. Crime
Act), § 301(b), 81 Stat. 735–736, see, e. g., 114 Cong. Rec.
14184 (remarks of Sen. Scott) (“My amendment is an attempt
to conform, as nearly as practicable, to title III of [the D. C.
Crime Act]”). By the terms of that Act, “[a]ny statement,
admission, or confession made by an arrested person within
three hours immediately following his arrest shall not be ex
cluded from evidence in the courts of the District of Colum
bia solely because of delay in presentment.” § 301(b), 81
Stat. 735–736. Given the clear intent that Title III modify
but not eliminate McNabb-Mallory in the District of Colum
bia, see, e. g., S. Rep. No. 912, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 17–18
7 The proviso at the end of (c) relating to reasonable delays caused by
the means of transportation and distance to be traveled came later by
separate amendment. 114 Cong. Rec. 14787.

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320 CORLEY v. UNITED STATES
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(1967), using it as a model plainly shows how Congress meant
as much but no more in § 3501(c).
In sum, the legislative history strongly favors Corley’s
reading. The Government points to nothing in this history
supporting its view that (c) created a bright-line rule for
applying (a) in cases with a presentment issue.
C
It also counts heavily against the position of the United
States that it would leave the Rule 5 presentment require
ment without any teeth, for as the Government again is
forced to admit, if there is no McNabb-Mallory there is no
apparent remedy for delay in presentment. Tr. of Oral Arg.
25. One might not care if the prompt presentment require
ment were just some administrative nicety, but in fact the
rule has always mattered in very practical ways and still
does. As we said, it stretches back to the common law, when
it was “one of the most important” protections “against un
lawful arrest.” McLaughlin, 500 U. S., at 60–61 (Scalia, J.,
dissenting). Today presentment is the point at which the
judge is required to take several key steps to foreclose
Government overreaching: informing the defendant of the
charges against him, his right to remain silent, his right to
counsel, the availability of bail, and any right to a prelimi
nary hearing; giving the defendant a chance to consult with
counsel; and deciding between detention or release. Fed.
Rule Crim. Proc. 5(d); see also Rule 58(b)(2).
In a world without McNabb-Mallory, federal agents would
be free to question suspects for extended periods before
bringing them out in the open, and we have always known
what custodial secrecy leads to. See McNabb, 318 U. S. 332.
No one with any smattering of the history of 20th-century
dictatorships needs a lecture on the subject, and we under
stand the need even within our own system to take care
against going too far. “[C]ustodial police interrogation, by
its very nature, isolates and pressures the individual,” Dick

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erson, 530 U. S., at 435, and there is mounting empirical evi
dence that these pressures can induce a frighteningly high
percentage of people to confess to crimes they never com
mitted, see, e. g., Drizin & Leo, The Problem of False Confes
sions in the Post-DNA World, 82 N. C. L. Rev. 891, 906–907
(2004).
Justice Frankfurter’s point in McNabb is as fresh as ever:
“The history of liberty has largely been the history of ob
servance of procedural safeguards.” 318 U. S., at 347.
McNabb-Mallory is one of them, and neither the text nor
the history of § 3501 makes out a case that Congress meant
to do away with it.
III
The Government’s fallback claim is that even if § 3501 pre
served a limited version of McNabb-Mallory, Congress cut
out the rule altogether by enacting Federal Rule of Evidence
402 in 1975. Act of Jan. 2, Pub. L. 93–595, 88 Stat. 1926.
So far as it might matter here, that rule provides that “[a]ll
relevant evidence is admissible, except as otherwise pro
vided by the Constitution of the United States, by Act of
Congress, by these rules, or by other rules prescribed by
the Supreme Court pursuant to statutory authority.” Id.,
at 1931. The Government says that McNabb-Mallory ex
cludes relevant evidence in a way not “otherwise provided
by” any of these four authorities, and so has fallen to the
scythe.
The Government never raised this argument in the Third
Circuit or the District Court, which would justify refusing
to consider it here, but in any event it has no merit. The
Advisory Committee’s Notes on Rule 402, which were before
Congress when it enacted the Rules of Evidence and which
we have relied on in the past to interpret the rules, Tome v.
United States, 513 U. S. 150, 160 (1995) (plurality opinion),
expressly identified McNabb-Mallory as a statutorily au
thorized rule that would survive Rule 402: “The Rules of
Civil and Criminal Procedure in some instances require the

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322 CORLEY v. UNITED STATES
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exclusion of relevant evidence. For example, . . . the effec
tive enforcement of . . . Rule 5(a) . . . is held to require the
exclusion of statements elicited during detention in violation
thereof.” 28 U. S. C. App., pp. 325–326 (citing Mallory, 354
U. S. 449, and 18 U. S. C. § 3501(c)); see also Mallory, supra,
at 451 (“Th[is] case calls for the proper application of Rule
5(a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure . . . ”). In
deed, the Government has previously conceded before this
Court that Rule 402 preserved McNabb-Mallory. Brief
for United States in United States v. Payner, O. T. 1979,
No. 78–1729, p. 32, and n. 13 (saying that Rule 402 “left to
the courts . . . questions concerning the propriety of exclud
ing relevant evidence as a method of implementing the Con
stitution, a federal statute, or a statutorily authorized rule,”
and citing McNabb-Mallory as an example). The Govern
ment was right the first time, and it would be bizarre to
hold that Congress adopted Rule 402 with a purpose exactly
opposite to what the Advisory Committee Notes said the
rule would do.
IV
We hold that § 3501 modified McNabb-Mallory without
supplanting it. Under the rule as revised by § 3501(c), a dis
trict court with a suppression claim must find whether
the defendant confessed within six hours of arrest (unless
a longer delay was “reasonable considering the means of
transportation and the distance to be traveled to the near
est available [magistrate judge]”). If the confession came
within that period, it is admissible, subject to the other Rules
of Evidence, so long as it was “made voluntarily and . . .
the weight to be given [it] is left to the jury.” Ibid. If
the confession occurred before presentment and beyond
six hours, however, the court must decide whether delaying
that long was unreasonable or unnecessary under the
McNabb-Mallory cases, and if it was, the confession is to
be suppressed.

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Alito, J., dissenting
In this case, the Third Circuit did not apply this rule and
in consequence never conclusively determined whether Cor
ley’s oral confession “should be treated as having been made
within six hours of arrest,” as the District Court held. 500
F. 3d, at 220, n. 7. Nor did the Circuit consider the justifi
ability of any delay beyond six hours if the oral confession
should be treated as given outside the 6-hour window; and it
did not make this enquiry with respect to Corley’s written
confession. We therefore vacate the judgment of the Court
of Appeals and remand the case for consideration of those
issues in the first instance, consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Alito, with whom The Chief Justice, Justice
Scalia, and Justice Thomas join, dissenting.
Section 3501(a) of Title 18, United States Code, directly
and unequivocally answers the question presented in this
case. After petitioner was arrested by federal agents, he
twice waived his Miranda 1 rights and voluntarily confessed,
first orally and later in writing, that he had participated in
an armed bank robbery. He was then taken before a Magis
trate Judge for an initial appearance. The question that we
must decide is whether this voluntary confession may be sup
pressed on the ground that there was unnecessary delay in
bringing petitioner before the Magistrate Judge. Unless
the unambiguous language of § 3501(a) is ignored, petition
er’s confession may not be suppressed.
I
Section 3501(a) states: “In any criminal prosecution
brought by the United States . . . , a confession . . . shall be
admissible in evidence if it is voluntarily given.”
Applying “settled principles of statutory construction,”
“we must first determine whether the statutory text is plain
1 See Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966).

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324 CORLEY v. UNITED STATES
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and unambiguous,” and “[i]f it is, we must apply the statute
according to its terms.” Carcieri v. Salazar, 555 U. S. 379,
387 (2009). Here, there is nothing ambiguous about the lan
guage of § 3501(a), and the Court does not claim otherwise.
Although we normally presume that Congress “means in a
statute what it says there,” Connecticut Nat. Bank v. Ger
main, 503 U. S. 249, 253–254 (1992), the Court today con
cludes that § 3501(a) does not mean what it says and that a
voluntary confession may be suppressed under the McNabb-
Mallory rule.2 This supervisory rule, which requires the
suppression of a confession where there was unnecessary
delay in bringing a federal criminal defendant before a judi
cial officer after arrest, was announced long before 18 U. S. C.
§ 3501(a) was adopted. According to the Court, this rule
survived the enactment of § 3501(a) because Congress
adopted that provision for the sole purpose of abrogating Mi
randa and apparently never realized that the provision’s
broad language would also do away with the McNabb-
Mallory rule. I disagree with the Court’s analysis and
therefore respectfully dissent.
II
A
The Court’s first and most substantial argument invokes
“the antisuperfluousness canon,” ante, at 317, under which a
statute should be read, if possible, so that all of its provisions
are given effect and none is superfluous. Ante, at 314–317.
Section 3501(c) provides that a voluntary confession “shall
not be inadmissible solely because of [the] delay” in bringing
the defendant before a judicial officer if the defendant is
brought before a judicial officer within six hours of arrest.
If § 3501(a) means that a voluntary confession may never be
excluded due to delay in bringing the defendant before a
2 See McNabb v. United States, 318 U. S. 332 (1943), and Mallory v.
United States, 354 U. S. 449 (1957).

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judicial officer, the Court reasons, then § 3501(c), which pro
vides a safe harbor for a subset of voluntary confessions
(those made in cases in which the initial appearance occurs
within six hours of arrest), is superfluous.
Canons of interpretation “are quite often useful in close
cases, or when statutory language is ambiguous. But we
have observed before that such ‘interpretative canon[s are]
not a license for the judiciary to rewrite language enacted
by the legislature.’ ” United States v. Monsanto, 491 U. S.
600, 611 (1989) (quoting United States v. Albertini, 472 U. S.
675, 680 (1985)). Like other canons, the antisuperfluousness
canon is merely an interpretive aid, not an absolute rule.
See Connecticut Nat. Bank, 503 U. S., at 254 (“When the
words of a statute are unambiguous, then, this first canon is
also the last: ‘judicial inquiry is complete’ ”). There are
times when Congress enacts provisions that are superfluous,
and this may be such an instance. Cf. id., at 253 (noting that
“[r]edundancies across statutes are not unusual events in
drafting”); Gutierrez de Martinez v. Lamagno, 515 U. S. 417,
445–446 (1995) (Souter, J., dissenting) (noting that, although
Congress “indulged in a little redundancy,” the “inelegance
may be forgiven” because “Congress could sensibly have
seen some practical value in the redundancy”).
Moreover, any superfluity created by giving subsection
(a) its plain meaning may be minimized by interpreting sub
section (c) to apply to confessions that are otherwise volun
tary. The Government contends that § 3501(c), though inart
fully drafted, is not superfluous because what the provision
means is that a confession is admissible if it is given within
six hours of arrest and it is otherwise voluntary—that is, if
there is no basis other than prepresentment delay for con
cluding that the confession was coerced. Read in this way,
§ 3501(c) is not superfluous.
The Court rejects this argument on the ground that
“ ‘Congress did not write the statute that way,’ ” ante, at 315,
and thus, in order to adhere to a narrow reading of § 3501(c),

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the Court entirely disregards the unambiguous language of
§ 3501(a). Although § 3501(a) says that a confession is ad
missible if it is “voluntarily given,” the Court reads that
provision to mean that a voluntary confession may not be
excluded on the ground that the confession was obtained in
violation of Miranda. To this reading, the short answer is
that Congress really did not write the statute that way.
As is true with most of the statutory interpretation ques
tions that come before this Court, the question in this case
is not like a jigsaw puzzle. There is simply no perfect solu
tion to the problem before us.
Instead, we must choose between two imperfect solutions.
The first (the one adopted by the Court) entirely disregards
the clear and simple language of § 3501(a), rests on the propo
sition that Congress did not understand the plain import of
the language it used in subsection (a), but adheres to a
strictly literal interpretation of § 3501(c). The second option
respects the clear language of subsection (a), but either
accepts some statutory surplusage or interprets § 3501(c)’s
reference to a voluntary confession to mean an otherwise
voluntary confession. To my mind, the latter choice is far
preferable.
B
In addition to the antisuperfluousness canon, the Court re
lies on the canon that favors a specific statutory provision
over a conflicting provision cast in more general terms, ante,
at 316, but that canon is inapplicable here. For one thing,
§ 3501(a) is quite specific; it specifically provides that if a con
fession is voluntary, it is admissible. More importantly,
there is no other provision, specific or general, that conflicts
with § 3501(a). See National Cable & Telecommunications
Assn., Inc. v. Gulf Power Co., 534 U. S. 327, 335–336 (2002)
(“It is true that specific statutory language should control
more general language when there is a conflict between the
two. Here, however, there is no conflict” (emphasis added)).
Subsection (c) is not conflicting because it does not authorize

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the suppression of any voluntary confession. What the
Court identifies is not a conflict between two statutory pro
visions but a conflict between the express language of one
provision (§ 3501(a)) and the “negative implication” that
the Court draws from another (§ 3501(c)). United States
v. Alvarez-Sanchez, 511 U. S. 350, 355 (1994). Because
§ 3501(c) precludes the suppression of a voluntary confession
based solely on a delay of less than six hours, the Court in
fers that Congress must have contemplated that a voluntary
confession could be suppressed based solely on a delay of
more than six hours. The Court cites no authority for a
canon of interpretation that favors a “negative implication”
of this sort over clear and express statutory language.
C
The Court contends that a literal interpretation of
§ 3501(a) would leave the prompt presentment requirement
set out in Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 5(a)(1) “with
out any teeth, for . . . if there is no McNabb-Mallory there is
no apparent remedy for delay in presentment.” Ante, at 320.
There is nothing strange, however, about a prompt present
ment requirement that is not enforced by a rule excluding
voluntary confessions made during a period of excessive pre
presentment delay. As the Court notes, “[t]he common law
obliged an arresting officer to bring his prisoner before a
magistrate as soon as he reasonably could,” ante, at 306, but
the McNabb-Mallory supervisory rule was not adopted until
the middle of the 20th century. To this day, while the States
are required by the Fourth Amendment to bring an arrestee
promptly before a judicial officer, see, e. g., County of River
side v. McLaughlin, 500 U. S. 44, 56 (1991), we have never
held that this constitutional requirement is backed by an au
tomatic exclusionary sanction, see, e. g., Hudson v. Michigan,
547 U. S. 586, 592 (2006). And although the prompt present
ment requirement serves interests in addition to the preven
tion of coerced confessions, the McNabb-Mallory rule pro

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328 CORLEY v. UNITED STATES
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vides no sanction for excessive prepresentment delay in
those instances in which no confession is sought or obtained.
Moreover, the need for the McNabb-Mallory exclusionary
rule is no longer clear. That rule, which was adopted long
before Miranda, originally served a purpose that is now ad
dressed by the giving of Miranda warnings upon arrest. As
Miranda recognized, McNabb and Mallory were “responsive
to the same considerations of Fifth Amendment policy” that
the Miranda rule was devised to address. Miranda v. Ari
zona, 384 U. S. 436, 463 (1966).
In the pre-Miranda era, the requirement of prompt pre
sentment ensured that persons taken into custody would,
within a relatively short period, receive advice about their
rights. See McNabb v. United States, 318 U. S. 332, 344
(1943). Now, however, Miranda ensures that arrestees re
ceive such advice at an even earlier point, within moments
of being taken into custody. Of course, arrestees, after re
ceiving Miranda warnings, may waive their rights and sub
mit to questioning by law enforcement officers, see, e. g.,
Davis v. United States, 512 U. S. 452, 458 (1994), and arrest
ees may likewise waive the prompt presentment require
ment, see, e. g., New York v. Hill, 528 U. S. 110, 114 (2000)
(“We have . . . ‘in the context of a broad array of constitu
tional and statutory provisions,’ articulated a general rule
that presumes the availability of waiver, . . . and we have
recognized that ‘the most basic rights of criminal defendants
are . . . subject to waiver’ ”). It seems unlikely that many
arrestees who are willing to waive the right to remain silent
and the right to the assistance of counsel during questioning
would balk at waiving the right to prompt presentment.
More than a few Courts of Appeals have gone as far as to
hold that a waiver of Miranda rights also constitutes a
waiver under McNabb-Mallory. See, e. g., United States v.
Salamanca, 990 F. 2d 629, 634 (CADC), cert. denied, 510
U. S. 928 (1993); United States v. Barlow, 693 F. 2d 954, 959
(CA6 1982), cert. denied, 461 U. S. 945 (1983); United States

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v. Indian Boy X, 565 F. 2d 585, 591 (CA9 1977), cert. denied,
439 U. S. 841 (1978); United States v. Duvall, 537 F. 2d 15,
23–24, n. 9 (CA2), cert. denied, 426 U. S. 950 (1976); United
States v. Howell, 470 F. 2d 1064, 1067, n. 1 (CA9 1972); Petty
john v. United States, 419 F. 2d 651, 656 (CADC 1969), cert.
denied, 397 U. S. 1058 (1970); O’Neal v. United States, 411
F. 2d 131, 136–137 (CA5), cert. denied, 396 U. S. 827 (1969).
Whether or not those decisions are correct, it is certainly not
clear that the McNabb-Mallory rule adds much protection
beyond that provided by Miranda.
D
The Court contends that the legislative history of § 3501
supports its interpretation, but the legislative history proves
nothing that is not evident from the terms of the statute.
With respect to § 3501(a), the legislative history certainly
shows that the provision’s chief backers meant to do away
with Miranda,3 but the Court cites no evidence that this was
all that § 3501(a) was intended to accomplish. To the con
trary, the Senate Report clearly says that § 3501(a) was
meant to reinstate the traditional rule that a confession
should be excluded only if involuntary, see S. Rep. No. 1097,
90th Cong., 2d Sess., 38 (1968) (Senate Report), a step that
obviously has consequences beyond the elimination of Mi
randa. And the Senate Report repeatedly cited Escobedo
v. Illinois, 378 U. S. 478 (1964), as an example of an unsound
limitation on the admission of voluntary confessions, see Sen
ate Report 41–51, thus illustrating that § 3501(a) was not un
derstood as simply an anti-Miranda provision. Whether a
3 At argument, the Government conceded “that section (a) was consid
ered to overrule Miranda and subsection (c) was addressed to McNabb-
Mallory.” See Tr. of Oral Arg. 38. It is apparent that the attorney for
the Government chose his words carefully and did not concede, as the
Court seems to suggest, that subsection (a) was intended to do no more
than to overrule Miranda or that subsection (c) was the only part of § 3501
that affected the McNabb-Mallory rule.

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330 CORLEY v. UNITED STATES
Alito, J., dissenting
majority of the Members of the House and Senate had the
McNabb-Mallory rule specifically in mind when they voted
for § 3501(a) is immaterial. Statutory provisions may often
have a reach that is broader than the specific targets that the
lawmakers might have had in mind at the time of enactment.
The legislative history relating to § 3501(c) suggests noth
ing more than that some Members of Congress may mistak
enly have thought that the version of § 3501 that was finally
adopted would not displace the McNabb-Mallory rule. As
the Court relates, the version of § 3501(c) that emerged from
the Senate Judiciary Committee would have completely elim
inated that rule. See ante, at 318. Some Senators opposed
this, and the version of this provision that was eventually
passed simply trimmed the rule. It is possible to identify a
few Senators who spoke out in opposition to the earlier ver
sion of subsection (c) and then voted in favor of the version
that eventually passed, and it is fair to infer that these Sena
tors likely thought that the amendment of subsection (c) had
saved the rule. See 114 Cong. Rec. 14172–14175, 14798
(1968). But there is no evidence that a majority of the
House and Senate shared that view, and any Member who
took a few moments to read subsections (a) and (c) must
readily have understood that subsection (a) would wipe away
all nonconstitutionally based rules barring the admission of
voluntary confessions, not just Miranda, and that subsection
(c) did not authorize the suppression of any voluntary confes
sions. The Court unjustifiably attributes to a majority of
the House and Senate a mistake that, the legislative history
suggests, may have been made by only a few.
E
Finally, the Court argues that under a literal reading of
§ 3501(a), “many a Rule of Evidence [would] be overridden in
case after case.” Ante, at 317. In order to avoid this ab
surd result, the Court says, it is necessary to read § 3501(a)

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331 Cite as: 556 U. S. 303 (2009)
Alito, J., dissenting
as merely abrogating Miranda and not the McNabb-Mallory
rule. There is no merit to this argument.4
The language that Congress used in § 3501(a)—a confes
sion is “admissible” if “voluntarily given”—is virtually a ver
batim quotation of the language used by this Court in
describing the traditional rule regarding the admission of
confessions. See, e. g., Haynes v. Washington, 373 U. S. 503,
513 (1963) (“ ‘In short, the true test of admissibility is that
the confession is made freely, voluntarily and without com
pulsion or inducement of any sort’ ” (quoting Wilson v.
United States, 162 U. S. 613, 623 (1896))); Lyons v. Okla
homa, 322 U. S. 596, 602 (1944); Ziang Sung Wan v. United
States, 266 U. S. 1, 15 (1924); Bram v. United States, 168 U. S.
532, 545 (1897). In making these statements, this Court cer
tainly did not mean to suggest that a voluntary confession
must be admitted in those instances in which a standard rule
of evidence would preclude admission, and there is no reason
to suppose that Congress meant any such thing either. In
any event, the Federal Rules of Evidence now make it clear
that § 3501(a) does not supersede ordinary evidence Rules,
including Rules regarding privilege (Rule 501), hearsay
(Rule 802), and restrictions on the use of character evidence
(Rule 404). Thus, it is not necessary to disregard the plain
language of § 3501(a), as the Court does, in order to avoid the
sort of absurd results to which the Court refers.
For all these reasons, I would affirm the decision of the
Court of Appeals, and I therefore respectfully dissent.
4 Contrary to the Court’s suggestion, cases in which one of the standard
Rules of Evidence might block the admission of a voluntary confession
would seem quite rare, and the Court cites no real-world examples. The
Court thus justifies its reading of § 3501, which totally disregards the clear
language of subsection (a), based on a few essentially fanciful hypothetical
cases that, in any event, have been covered since 1975 by the Federal
Rules of Evidence.