Pennsylvania v. Muniz

Pennsylvania v. Muniz
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued Feb. 27, 1990 Decided June 18, 1990
Full case name	Pennsylvania v. Inocencio Muniz
Docket no.	89–213
Citations	496 U.S. 582 (more) 110 S.Ct. 2638
Court membership
Chief Justice William Rehnquist Associate Justices William J. Brennan Jr. · Byron White Thurgood Marshall · Harry Blackmun John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy
Case opinion
Majority	Brennan (except for Part III–C)

Pennsylvania v. Muniz, 496 US 582 (1990), is a U.S. Supreme Court case involving the Self-incrimination Clause of the 5th Amendment and the meaning of “testimonial” under the 5th Amendment. A drunk-driving suspect, Muniz, made several incriminating statements while in police custody, and the Supreme Court held that only one of these statements was inadmissible because it was incriminating and testimonial.^[1] This testimonial statement was the suspect’s confused response when the police officer asked him for the date when he turned six years old.^[2] The other statements were admissible because they either counted as physical evidence for 5th Amendment purposes^[3] or fell under the routine booking exception to Miranda v. Arizona.^[4]