The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has clarified the law on when a confession given after a Miranda warning is tainted by statements made by a suspect before the warning.

The court addressed the problem of so-called “deliberate two-step” strategies employed by law enforcement to obtain a self-implicating statement from a suspect before a Miranda warning, and then using that statement to obtain a confession post-Miranda in United States v. Carter, 05-2823-cr.