356
Opinion of the Court
suppression of a confession that is made by an arrestee prior to presentment and more than six hours after arrest, regardless of whether the confession was voluntarily made. The Government contends that through § 3501, Congress repudiated the McNabb-Mallory rule in its entirety. Under this theory, § 3501(c) creates a safe harbor that prohibits suppression on grounds of pre-presentment delay if a confession is made within six hours following arrest, but says nothing about the admissibility of a confession given beyond that 6-hour period. The admissibility of such a confession, the Government argues, is controlled by § 3501(a), which provides that voluntary confessions "shall be admitted in evidence."
Largely agreeing with the Ninth Circuit, respondent contends that § 3501(c) codified a limited form of the McNabb-Mallory rule—one that requires the suppression of a confession made before presentment but after the expiration of the safe harbor period. A contrary interpretation of § 3501(c), respondent argues, would render that subsection meaningless in the face of § 3501(a).
As the parties recognize, however, we need not address subtle questions of statutory construction concerning the safe harbor set out in § 3501(c), or resolve any tension between the provisions of that subsection and those of § 3501(a), if we determine that the terms of § 3501(c) were never triggered in this case. We turn, then, to that threshold inquiry.
When interpreting a statute, we look first and foremost to its text. Connecticut Nat. Bank v. Germain, 503 U. S. 249, 253-254 (1992). Section 3501(c) provides that in any federal criminal prosecution,
"a confession made or given by a person who is a defendant therein, while such person was under arrest or other detention in the custody of any law-enforcement officer or law-enforcement agency, shall not be inadmissible solely because of delay in bringing such person before a
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