Court OKs Using Trick to Get Confession : Judiciary: Miranda rule does not prevent using undercover agents to induce prisoners to talk, justices decide. But use of coercion is still forbidden.

Police and prosecutors may trick a crime suspect into confessing by putting an undercover agent in his jail cell, the Supreme Court ruled Monday.

Under the so-called Miranda rule, police officers may not force a suspect in their custody to confess but they may use deception to gain the same end, the court said as it reinterpreted the precedent-setting 1966 case of Miranda vs. Arizona.

In 1966, a more liberal court tried to stop confessions being wrung from suspects through hours of tough, intimidating questioning. The court ordered that policemen issue “Miranda warnings,” telling suspects that they have a right to remain silent and to have a lawyer with them during questioning.

A suspect’s admissions to a crime could not be used against him unless he had “knowingly” waived his rights before confessing, the court declared in the Miranda case.

Now, the more conservative court has narrowed that ruling somewhat to make clear that it covers only forced confessions.

“Miranda forbids coercion, not mere strategic deception by taking advantage of a suspect’s misplaced trust in one he supposes to be a fellow prisoner,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the court.

The high court ruling covers only police officers working as undercover agents, not inmates who become police informers. In the last year, The Times has disclosed that several jailhouse informers in Los Angeles have admitted that they lied about supposed confessions by cellmates.

In this case, police officers in Illinois were told by a jailhouse informant that a cellmate had bragged about committing a murder--then unsolved--in East St. Louis in 1984. To confirm this allegation, prosecutors put a police undercover agent into a cellblock with the suspect, Lloyd Perkins, who was being held on other charges. When asked whether he had ever killed anyone, Perkins again told of committing murder.

Perkins was then arrested, charged and convicted of murder. However, an Illinois state appeals court threw out the confession.

In appealing to the high court, Illinois prosecutors, joined by the Bush Administration, said that undercover agents would be put out of business if they had to give Miranda warnings to suspects.

On a 7-2 vote, the high court agreed and reversed the state court in the case (Illinois vs. Perkins, 88-1972).

In dissent, Justice Thurgood Marshall called the ruling “disturbing” and said that it could encourage “abhorrent tricks,” such as using a clergyman to obtain confessions. Justice William J. Brennan Jr. also dissented.

Also, the court gave police officers with a valid search warrant broad authority to seize incriminating evidence found in a home, even if it was not listed on the warrant.

The Fourth Amendment requires officers to get a search warrant before entering a home and also requires that they specify what they intend to search for and seize. But the court has allowed officers to seize incriminating evidence they happened to come across in “plain view.”

However, the court had been divided over whether officers could seize items that they intended to seek but failed to list on the search warrant. On a 7-2 vote Monday, the court said that they could.

The current case (Horton vs. California, 88-7164) grew out of the robbery of a coin dealer in San Jose. Based on a tip, police got a warrant to search the home of Terry B. Horton to look for the stolen coins. None were found, but they did find an Uzi machine gun and other weapons that they believed were used in the crime. He was convicted in state courts and imprisoned.

In an appeal to the high court, Horton contended that the seizure of those items violated the Fourth Amendment. Only Justices Marshall and Brennan agreed.