Opinion of O'CONNOR, J.

467 U. S.

doctrine on public safety exigencies incident to custodial interrogation, complete with the hair-splitting distinctions that currently plague our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. "While the rigidity of the prophylactic rules was a principal weakness in the view of dissenters and critics outside the Court,... that rigidity [has also been called a] strength of the decision. It [has] afforded police and courts clear guidance on the manner in which to conduct a custodial investigation: if it was rigid, it was also precise. . . . [T]his core virtue of Miranda would be eviscerated if the prophylactic rules were freely [ignored] by . . . courts under the guise of [reinterpreting] Miranda. . . ." Fare v. Michael C., 439 U. S. 1310, 1314 (1978) (REHNQUIST, J., in chambers on application for stay).

The justification the Court provides for upsetting the equilibrium that has finally been achieved-that police cannot and should not balance considerations of public safety against the individual's interest in avoiding compulsory testimonial selfincrimination—really misses the critical question to be decided. See ante, at 657-658. Miranda has never been read to prohibit the police from asking questions to secure the public safety. Rather, the critical question Miranda addresses is who shall bear the cost of securing the public safety when such questions are asked and answered: the defendant or the State. Miranda, for better or worse, found the resolution of that question implicit in the prohibition against compulsory self-incrimination and placed the burden on the State. When police ask custodial questions without administering the required warnings, Miranda quite clearly requires that the answers received be presumed compelled and that they be excluded from evidence at trial. See Michigan v. Tucker, supra, at 445, 447-448, 451, 452, and n. 26; Orozco v. Texas, supra, at 326.

The Court concedes, as it must, both that respondent was in "custody" and subject to "interrogation" and that his statement "the gun is over there" was compelled within the meaning of our precedent. See ante, at 654–655. In my view,

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since there is nothing about an exigency that makes custodial interrogation any less compelling, a principled application of Miranda requires that respondent's statement be suppressed.

II

The court below assumed, without discussion, that the privilege against self-incrimination required that the gun derived from respondent's statement also be suppressed, whether or not the State could independently link it to him.2 That conclusion was, in my view, incorrect.

A

Citizens in our society have a deeply rooted social obligation "to give whatever information they may have to aid in law enforcement." Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S., at 478.

* Respondent contends that the separate admissibility of the gun is not preserved for our review. Brief for Respondent 45-51. This contention is meritless. Respondent's motion to suppress and supporting affidavit asked that the gun be excluded because it was obtained in contravention of his privilege under the Fifth Amendment. See App. 5a, 7a-8a. The State clearly opposed this motion, contending that admission of the statements and the gun would not violate respondent's rights under the Constitution. Id., at 9a. Both the Supreme Court of the State of New York and the New York Court of Appeals required the gun, as well as the statements, to be suppressed because respondent was not given the warnings to which they thought he was constitutionally entitled. Id., at 43a (Supreme Court); 58 N. Y. 2d, at 666, 444 N. E. 2d, at 985 (Court of Appeals). The issue whether the failure to administer warnings by itself constitutionally requires exclusion of the gun was therefore clearly contested, passed on, and preserved for this Court's review. See Illinois v. Gates, 462 U. S. 213, 217-224 (1983).

Respondent also contends that, under New York law, there is an "independent and adequate state ground" on which the Court of Appeals' judgment can rest. Brief for Respondent 51-55. This may be true, but it is also irrelevant. Both the trial and appellate courts of New York relied on Miranda to justify exclusion of the gun; they did not cite or expressly rely on any independent state ground in their decisions. In these circumstances, this Court has jurisdiction. See Michigan v. Long, 463 U. S. 1032, 1040-1041 (1983).

Opinion of O'CONNOR, J.

467 U. S.

Except where a recognized exception applies, "the criminal defendant no less than any other citizen is obliged to assist the authorities." Roberts v. United States, 445 U. S. 552, 558 (1980). The privilege against compulsory self-incrimination is one recognized exception, but it is an exception nonetheless. Only the introduction of a defendant's own testimony is proscribed by the Fifth Amendment's mandate that no person "shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." That mandate does not protect an accused from being compelled to surrender nontestimonial evidence against himself. See Fisher v. United States, 425 U. S. 391, 408 (1976).

The distinction between testimonial and nontestimonial evidence was explored in some detail in Schmerber v. California, 384 U. S. 757 (1966), a decision this Court handed down a week after deciding Miranda. The defendant in Schmerber had argued that the privilege against self-incrimination barred the State from compelling him to submit to a blood test, the results of which would be used to prove his guilt at trial. The State, on the other hand, had urged that the privilege prohibited it only from compelling the accused to make a formal testimonial statement against himself in an official legal proceeding. This Court rejected both positions. It favored an approach that protected the "accused only from being compelled to testify against himself, or otherwise provide the State with evidence of a testimonial or communicative nature." 384 U. S., at 761. The blood tests were admissible because they were neither testimonial nor communicative in nature. Id., at 765.

In subsequent decisions, the Court relied on Schmerber in holding the privilege inapplicable to situations where the accused was compelled to stand in a lineup and utter words that allegedly had been spoken by the robber, see United States v. Wade, 388 U. S. 218, 221–223 (1967), to provide handwriting samples, see Gilbert v. California, 388 U. S. 263, 265-266 (1967), and to supply voice exemplars. See United States v. Dionisio, 410 U. S. 1, 5–7 (1973); see also United States v.

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Mara, 410 U. S. 19, 21-22 (1973). "The distinction which emerged [in these cases], often expressed in different ways, [was] that the privilege is a bar against compelling 'communications' or 'testimony,' but that compulsion which makes a suspect or accused the source of 'real or physical evidence' does not violate it." Schmerber v. California, supra, at 764.

B

The gun respondent was compelled to supply is clearly evidence of the "real or physical" sort. What makes the question of its admissibility difficult is the fact that, in asking respondent to produce the gun, the police also "compelled" him, in the Miranda sense, to create an incriminating testimonial response. In other words, the case is problematic because police compelled respondent not only to provide the gun but also to admit that he knew where it was and that it was his.

It is settled that Miranda did not itself determine whether physical evidence obtained in this manner would be admissible. See Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U. S., at 445-446, 447, 452, and n. 26. But the Court in Schmerber, with Miranda fresh on its mind, did address the issue. In concluding that the privilege did not require suppression of compelled blood tests, the Court noted:

"This conclusion would not necessarily govern had the State tried to show that the accused had incriminated himself when told that he would have to be tested. Such incriminating evidence may be an unavoidable byproduct of the compulsion to take the test, especially for an individual who fears the extraction or opposes it on religious grounds. If it wishes to compel persons to submit to such attempts to discover evidence, the State may have to forgo the advantage of any testimonial products of administering the test-products which would fall within the privilege." 384 U. S., at 765, and n. 9 (emphasis in original).

Opinion of O'CONNOR, J.

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Thus, Schmerber resolved the dilemma by allowing admission of the nontestimonial, but not the testimonial, products of the State's compulsion.

The Court has applied this bifurcated approach in its subsequent cases as well. For example, in United States v. Wade, 388 U. S. 218, 223 (1967), where admission of a lineup identification was approved, the Court emphasized that no question was presented as to the admissibility of anything said or done at the lineup. Likewise, in Michigan v. Tucker, where evidence derived from a technical Miranda violation was admitted, the Court noted that no statement taken without Miranda warnings was being admitted into evidence. See 417 U. S., at 445; cf. California v. Byers, 402 U. S. 424, 431-433 (1971) (opinion of BURGER, C. J.). Thus, based on the distinction first articulated in Schmerber, "a strong analytical argument can be made for an intermediate rule whereby[,] although [the police] cannot require the suspect to speak by punishment or force, the nontestimonial [evidence derived from] speech that is [itself] excludable for failure to comply with the Miranda code could still be used." H. Friendly, Benchmarks 280 (1967).

To be sure, admission of nontestimonial evidence secured through informal custodial interrogation will reduce the incentives to enforce the Miranda code. But that fact simply begs the question of how much enforcement is appropriate. There are some situations, as the Court's struggle to accommodate a "public safety" exception demonstrates, in which the societal cost of administering the Miranda warnings is very high indeed. The Miranda decision quite practically does not express any societal interest in having those warn

3

"The most obvious example, first suggested by Judge Henry Friendly, involves interrogation directed to the discovery and termination of an ongoing criminal activity such as kidnaping or extortion. See Friendly, The Bill of Rights as a Code of Criminal Procedure, 53 Calif. L. Rev. 929, 949 (1965).