120
Thomas, J., dissenting
dissenting in part). We insult our colleagues in the States when we imply, as we do today, that state judges are not sufficiently competent and reliable to make a decision as straightforward as whether a person was in custody for purposes of Miranda. See 507 U. S., at 714 (O'Connor, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) ("We can depend on law enforcement officials to administer [Miranda] warnings in the first instance and the state courts to provide a remedy when law enforcement officers err").1
I also see no reason to remand this case to the Ninth Circuit for further analysis. There is no dispute that Thompson came to the police station voluntarily. There is no dispute that he was repeatedly told he could leave the police station at any time. And it is also clear that he left the police station freely at the end of the interrogation. In California v. Beheler, 463 U. S. 1121 (1983) (per curiam), we held that a person is not in custody if "the suspect is not placed under arrest, voluntarily comes to the police station, and is allowed to leave unhindered by police after a brief interview." Ibid. And in Oregon v. Mathiason, 429 U. S. 492 (1977) (per curiam), we found it "clear" that the defendant was not in Miranda custody where he "came voluntarily to the police
1 The majority believes that federal oversight of state-court custody judgments is necessary to "advanc[e] uniform outcomes," and when that cannot be achieved, to "reduce the area of uncertainty." Ante, at 113, n. 13. While uniformity of outcome is a virtue worth pursuing generally, we determined in a line of cases beginning with Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288 (1989) (plurality opinion), that on habeas, uniformity must give way to concerns of comity and finality. See id., at 310 ("The 'costs imposed upon the State[s] by retroactive application of new rules of constitutional law on habeas corpus . . . generally far outweigh the benefits of this application' ") (quoting Solem v. Stumes, 465 U. S. 638, 654 (1984) (Powell, J., concurring in judgment)). Federal habeas review is not the time for fine-tuning constitutional rules of criminal procedure at the expense of valid state convictions based on reasonable applications of then-existing law. See Butler v. McKellar, 494 U. S. 407, 414 (1990) ("The 'new rule' principle . . . validates reasonable, good-faith interpretations of existing precedents made by state courts").
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