United States Supreme Court

“ The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit purported to identify three such grievous errors in the Ohio Supreme Court's affirmance of respondent Archie Dixon’s murder conviction. Because it is not clear that the Ohio Supreme Court erred at all, much less erred so transparently that no fairminded jurist could agree with that court's decision, the Sixth Circuit's judgment must be reversed. ”

“ The Sixth Circuit disagreed, believing that Dixon's confession was inadmissible under Elstad because it was the product of a "deliberate question-first, warn-later strategy." 627 F. 3d, at 557. In so holding, the Sixth Circuit relied heavily on this Court's decision in Missouri v. Seibert, 542 U.S. 600 (2004) . [3] In Seibert, police employed a two-step strategy to reduce the effect of Miranda warnings: A detective exhaustively questioned Seibert until she confessed to murder and then, after a 15- to 20- minute break, gave Seibert Miranda warnings and led her to repeat her prior confession. ”

“ State v. Dixon, 101 Ohio St. 3d 328, 331, 2004–Ohio–1585, 805 N.E. 2d 1042, 1050. The police read Dixon his Miranda rights, obtained a signed waiver of those rights, and spoke with Dixon for about half an hour. At 8 p.m. the police, now using a tape recorder, again advised Dixon of his Miranda rights. In a detailed confession, Dixon admitted to murdering Hammer but attempted to pin the lion's share of the blame on Hoffner.
At Dixon's trial, the Ohio trial court excluded both Dixon’s initial confession to forgery and his later confession to murder. The State took an interlocutory appeal. ”