State v. Lavaris

Petitioner, Luis Lavaris, challenges a Court of Appeals decision which upheld the admissibility of a confession which he made shortly after receiving the required Miranda warnings. He asserts that inculpatory statements made immediately prior to the warnings rendered the subsequent confession inadmissible. We hold that once a criminal defendant has let the "cat out of the bag", the subsequent giving of Miranda warnings alone will not erase the taint inherently associated with the pre-Miranda confession. Absent some kind of insulating factor to separate the two confessions, the second…