Cite as: 538 U. S. 626 (2003)
Per Curiam
station and his detention there for investigative purposes absent probable cause or judicial authorization. The State does not claim to have had probable cause here, and an application of the test just mentioned shows that Kaupp was arrested, there being evidence of every one of Mendenhall's probative circumstances. A 17-year-old boy was awakened at 3 a.m. by at least three police officers, placed in handcuffs, and taken in his underwear and without shoes in a patrol car to the crime scene and then to the sheriff's offices, where he was taken into an interrogation room and questioned. The contrary reasons mentioned by the state courts—his "Okay" response, that the sheriff's office routinely handcuffed individuals when transporting them, and that Kaupp did not resist the handcuffs or act uncooperatively—are no answer to the facts here. Because Kaupp was arrested before he was questioned, and because the State does not claim that the sheriff's department had probable cause to detain him at that point, his confession must be suppressed unless the State can show that it was an act of free will sufficient to purge the primary taint of the unlawful invasion. The only relevant consideration supporting the State is the observance of Miranda, but such warnings alone cannot always break the causal connection between the illegality and the confession, Brown v. Illinois, 422 U. S. 590, 603. All other relevant considerations—the temporal proximity of the arrest and the confession, the presence of intervening circumstances, and the official misconduct's purpose and flagrancy—point the opposite way. Unless, on remand, the State can point to testimony undisclosed on this record, and weighty enough to carry its burden despite the clear force of the evidence here, the confession must be suppressed.
Certiorari granted; vacated and remanded.
Per Curiam.
This case turns on the Fourth Amendment rule that a confession "obtained by exploitation of an illegal arrest" may not be used against a criminal defendant. Brown v. Illinois, 422 U. S. 590, 603 (1975). After a 14-year-old girl disappeared in January 1999, the Harris County Sheriff's Department learned she had had a sexual relationship with her 19-year-old half brother, who had been in the company of petitioner Robert Kaupp, then 17 years old, on the day of the girl's disappearance. On January 26th, deputy sheriffs questioned the brother and Kaupp at headquarters; Kaupp was cooperative and was permitted to leave, but the brother
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