Illinois v. Perkins facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Illinois v. Perkins |
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| Argued February 20, 1990 Decided June 4, 1990 |
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| Full case name | Illinois v. Perkins |
| Docket no. | 88-1972 |
| Citations | 496 U.S. 292 (more) |
| Argument | Oral argument |
| Case history | |
| Prior | motion to suppress granted April 1987, affirmed, People v. Perkins, 531 NE 2d 141 (1988), cert. granted, 493 U. S. 808 (1989) |
| Subsequent | motion to suppress granted on other grounds, 207 Ill.App.3d 1124, affirmed, People v. Perkins, 618 NE 2d 1275 (1993), rehearing denied September 1993, ibid. |
| Holding | |
| Statements made by an incarcerated suspect to an undercover police agent are admissible as evidence, notwithstanding that the suspect was not given a Miranda warning, when the suspect did not know they were speaking to the police. | |
| Court membership | |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Kennedy, joined by Rehnquist, White, Blackmun, Stevens, O'Connor, Scalia |
| Concurrence | Brennan |
| Dissent | Marshall |
| Laws applied | |
| U.S. Const. amend. V, Miranda v. Arizona | |
Illinois v. Perkins, 496 US 292 (1990), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court that held that undercover police agents did not need to give Miranda warnings when talking to suspects in jail. Miranda warnings, named after the 1966 Supreme Court case Miranda v. Arizona, are generally required when police interrogate suspects in custody in order to protect the right not to self-incriminate and the right to counsel under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. However, the Court ruled that potential coercion must be evaluated from the suspect's point of view, and if they are unaware that they are speaking to police, they are not under the coercive pressure of a normal interrogation.
Background
Lloyd Perkins became a suspect in a murder investigation being conducted by Illinois police when they received a tip from an inmate named Donald Charlton. In March 1986, Charlton and Perkins were inmates together at Graham Correctional Center near Hillsboro, Illinois, and Charlton reported to police that he'd heard Perkins talk about killing someone. The details that Charlton shared were enough to make the tip credible, and it linked Perkins to the 1984 murder of Richard Stephenson in a suburb of East St. Louis, Illinois.
By the time police got the tip, Perkins had been released, but they tracked him to a jail in Montgomery County, Illinois, where he was being held on an unrelated charge. On March 31, police placed Charlton and an undercover police agent (John Parisi) in the jail with Perkins, both posing as escapees from a work release program. They starting talking to Perkins about escaping from the jail, and then steered the conversation to whether Perkins had ever killed anyone. Perkins then talked about killing someone in East St. Louis, and when prompted for more information, he gave extensive incriminating details. Since he was working undercover, Parisi did not identify himself as a police officer or give Perkins a Miranda warning.
