Justice O'Connor wrote for the dissent. She criticized the majority for not being faithful to the Court's earlier opinions involving two-stage interrogations, especially Oregon v. Elstad, a 1985 case involving a two-stage interrogation. The dissent stated that under the precedent of Elstad, it did not matter whether the police failed to give Miranda warnings before the first confession, so long as the confession was not coerced. Even if the first confession were coerced, "the court must examine whether the taint dissipated through the passing of time or a change in circumstances." To make that determination, O'Connor would have courts look to many of the same factual considerations identified by the plurality: "the time that passes between confessions, the change in place of interrogations, and the change in identity of the interrogators."
