Title: People v. McWilliams

State: california

Issuer: California Supreme Court

Document:

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF 
CALIFORNIA 
 
THE PEOPLE, 
Plaintiff and Respondent, 
v. 
DUVANH ANTHONY MCWILLIAMS, 
Defendant and Appellant. 
 
S268320 
 
Sixth Appellate District 
H045525 
 
Santa Clara County Superior Court 
C1754407 
 
 
February 23, 2023 
 
Justice Kruger authored the opinion of the Court, in which 
Chief Justice Guerrero and Justices Corrigan, Liu, Groban, 
Jenkins, and Cantil-Sakauye* concurred. 
 
Justice Liu filed a concurring opinion. 
 
 
* 
Retired Chief Justice of California, assigned by the Chief 
Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of the California 
Constitution. 
1 
PEOPLE v. MCWILLIAMS 
S268320 
 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
Responding to a report of suspicious activity in the area, a 
police officer unlawfully detained a bystander who had no 
apparent connection to the report.  The officer ran a records 
search and learned that the bystander, Duvanh Anthony 
McWilliams, was on parole and subject to warrantless, 
suspicionless parole searches.  The officer proceeded to search 
McWilliams and his vehicle, where the officer found an unloaded 
gun, ammunition, drugs, and drug paraphernalia. 
As a general rule, evidence seized as a result of an 
unlawful search or seizure is inadmissible against the defendant 
in a subsequent prosecution.  But the law permits use of the 
evidence when the causal connection “between the lawless 
conduct of the police and the discovery of the challenged 
evidence has ‘become so attenuated as to dissipate the taint.’ ”  
(Wong Sun v. United States (1963) 371 U.S. 471, 487.)  Here, the 
Court of Appeal held that the officer’s discovery of McWilliams’s 
parole search condition sufficiently attenuated the connection 
between the unlawful detention and the contraband found in 
McWilliams’s vehicle.  The Court of Appeal relied on cases 
allowing the admission of evidence seized incident to arrest on 
a valid warrant, where the warrant was discovered during an 
unlawful investigatory stop.  (Utah v. Strieff (2016) 579 U.S. 232 
(Strieff); People v. Brendlin (2008) 45 Cal.4th 262 (Brendlin).)   
PEOPLE v. MCWILLIAMS 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
2 
We now reverse.  Unlike an arrest on an outstanding 
warrant, a parole search is not a ministerial act dictated by 
judicial mandate (Strieff, supra, 579 U.S. at p. 240), but a matter 
of discretion.  We conclude the officer’s discretionary decision to 
conduct the parole search did not sufficiently attenuate the 
connection between the officer’s initial unlawful decision to 
detain McWilliams and the discovery of contraband.  The 
evidence therefore was not admissible against him. 
I. 
Early one evening in January 2017, Officer Matthew 
Croucher of the San Jose Police Department responded to a 
report of a possible vehicle burglary in a business parking lot.  
When he arrived on the scene, a security guard told him she had 
seen two “suspicious individuals on bikes” shining flashlights 
into parked cars. 
Officer Croucher drove through the parking lot but did not 
see anything noteworthy.  He then drove through an adjacent 
parking lot.  There he found about four or five parked cars, one 
of which was occupied.  The occupant of the car was McWilliams, 
who was fully reclined in the passenger seat.  McWilliams did 
not appear to be sleeping, just “hanging out.”   
Officer Croucher waited for backup, then approached the 
vehicle and instructed McWilliams to exit.  At the suppression 
hearing, Croucher testified this was for safety reasons; it was 
his usual practice “with most car stops that [he] do[es], or most 
suspicious vehicles that [he] come[s] across.”  After McWilliams 
exited the vehicle, Croucher asked for his identification and 
permitted McWilliams to retrieve the identification from the 
vehicle.  Croucher then performed a records check and learned 
that McWilliams was “on active and searchable [California 
PEOPLE v. MCWILLIAMS 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
3 
Department of Corrections] parole.”  Croucher proceeded to 
search both McWilliams and the vehicle, from which he seized a 
firearm, drugs, and drug paraphernalia. 
McWilliams was charged with multiple drug and weapons 
offenses.  He filed a motion to suppress the evidence found in his 
vehicle.  (See Pen. Code, § 1538.5.)  He argued, among other 
things, that the evidence should be excluded as the fruits of a 
detention conducted in violation of the Fourth Amendment to 
the United States Constitution. 
The trial court denied the motion, concluding the 
detention was lawful.  The court reasoned that Officer Croucher 
had reasonable suspicion to detain McWilliams based on the 
security guard’s 911 call reporting suspicious activity in the 
area.  McWilliams pleaded guilty to three counts of the criminal 
information and received a negotiated sentence of seven years 
in state prison.     
McWilliams appealed the denial of the suppression 
motion.  A divided Court of Appeal affirmed.  (People v. 
McWilliams (Mar. 8, 2021, H045525) [nonpub. opn.].)  Unlike 
the trial court, the Court of Appeal concluded the officer lacked 
reasonable suspicion to detain McWilliams, since McWilliams 
neither matched the security guard’s description of the 
individuals involved in the suspicious activity nor was engaged 
in any conduct “suggestive of criminal activity.”  But the 
appellate court nonetheless upheld the trial court’s denial of the 
suppression motion, reasoning that the officer’s discovery of the 
parole search condition sufficiently attenuated the connection 
between the officer’s unlawful detention of McWilliams and the 
evidence seized during the search.  The court likened the 
discovery of the parole search condition to the discovery of the 
PEOPLE v. MCWILLIAMS 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
4 
arrest warrants in Strieff, supra, 579 U.S. 232 and Brendlin, 
supra, 45 Cal.4th 262, which the courts held to be sufficiently 
attenuating.  Like the arrest warrants in those cases, the parole 
search condition here “predated the detention, was not subject 
to interpretation, and supplied entirely independent legal 
authorization for the search.”  The court further concluded the 
evidence was admissible because the unlawful detention was 
not “pretextual, in bad faith, or part of recurrent police 
misconduct.”  
Justice Danner concurred in part and dissented in part.  
She agreed with the majority that the initial detention was 
unlawful, but disagreed that the evidence seized from 
McWilliams’s vehicle was nonetheless admissible.  In her view, 
the discovery of the parole search condition was not an 
intervening circumstance that dissipated the taint of the 
unlawful detention, since Officer Croucher had no obligation to 
perform a search upon discovering the parole search condition 
but instead exercised his discretion to do so.  Justice Danner also 
disagreed with the majority’s conclusion that “the officer’s 
actions here do not raise a broader issue of police misconduct,” 
given 
Officer 
Croucher’s 
thin 
rationale 
for 
detaining 
McWilliams; his testimony that it is his routine practice to order 
people out of suspicious vehicles; and the “growing recognition 
that seemingly small constitutional violations can add up to 
problems of significant national dimensions.”  (People v. 
McWilliams, supra, H045525 (conc. & dis. opn. of Danner, J.), 
citing, inter alia, Strieff, supra, 579 U.S. at p. 254 (dis. opn. of 
Sotomayor, J.) [“it is no secret that people of color are 
disproportionate victims” of unlawful, suspicionless stops].) 
The disagreement between the justices of the Court of 
Appeal in this case mirrors a similar division among Courts of 
PEOPLE v. MCWILLIAMS 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
5 
Appeal that have considered the attenuating effect of a 
probation (as opposed to parole) search condition.  (Compare 
People v. Durant (2012) 205 Cal.App.4th 57, 66 [concluding that 
the “illegality in the initial traffic detention was attenuated by 
appellant’s probation search condition”] with People v. Bates 
(2013) 222 Cal.App.4th 60, 71 (Bates) [declining to adopt 
Durant’s reasoning and reaching the opposite conclusion on the 
facts].)  We granted review to consider the proper application of 
the attenuation doctrine to the officer’s discovery of the parole 
search condition in this case.1 
II. 
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution 
protects the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, 
houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and 
seizures.”2  The right is primarily enforced through the 
 
1 
Although all parties assume a similar analysis would 
apply to both parole and probation searches, our analysis here 
focuses on parole searches like the search at issue in this case.  
 
In this court, the Attorney General has taken the view 
that the Court of Appeal erred in concluding the discovery of 
McWilliams’s 
parole 
status 
sufficiently 
attenuated 
the 
connection between the unlawful detention and the subsequent 
search.  The Santa Clara District Attorney’s Office, which 
handled this matter in the trial court, has filed an amicus curiae 
brief supporting the judgment of the Court of Appeal. 
2 
The California Constitution similarly protects the “right of 
the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and 
effects against unreasonable seizures and searches.”  (Cal. 
Const., art. I, § 13.)  But under the so-called truth-in-evidence 
provision of the state Constitution, “ ‘issues relating to the 
suppression of evidence derived from governmental searches 
and seizures are reviewed under federal constitutional 
 
PEOPLE v. MCWILLIAMS 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
6 
exclusionary rule, “a deterrent sanction that bars the 
prosecution from introducing evidence obtained by way of a 
Fourth Amendment violation.”  (Davis v. United States (2011) 
564 U.S. 229, 231–232 (Davis); see Strieff, supra, 579 U.S. at 
p. 237.)  Where it applies, the exclusionary rule forbids 
admission of both the “ ‘primary evidence obtained as a direct 
result of an illegal search or seizure’ ” and “ ‘evidence later 
discovered and found to be derivative of an illegality’ ” — 
familiarly known as the “ ‘ “fruit of the poisonous tree.” ’ ”  
(Strieff, at p. 237, quoting Segura v. United States (1984) 468 
U.S. 796, 804.) 
The exclusionary rule does not, however, apply in every 
case involving a Fourth Amendment violation.  Balancing the 
benefits of the exclusionary remedy against its costs, the United 
States Supreme Court has fashioned various exceptions to the 
exclusionary rule, including the so-called attenuation doctrine.  
(Strieff, supra, 579 U.S. at pp. 237–238; see Davis, supra, 564 
U.S. at p. 237.)  The attenuation doctrine holds that, 
notwithstanding the exclusionary rule, “[e]vidence is admissible 
when the connection between unconstitutional police conduct 
and the evidence is remote or has been interrupted by some 
intervening circumstance, so that ‘the interest protected by the 
constitutional guarantee that has been violated would not be 
served by suppression of the evidence obtained.’ ”  (Strieff, at 
p. 238, quoting Hudson v. Michigan (2006) 547 U.S. 586, 593 
(Hudson).)  In conducting the attenuation inquiry, courts are 
 
standards.’ ”  (People v. Macabeo (2016) 1 Cal.5th 1206, 1212, 
quoting People v. Troyer (2011) 51 Cal.4th 599, 605; see Cal. 
Const., art. I, § 28, subd. (f)(2).)  We accordingly focus on federal 
constitutional standards in our analysis in this case. 
PEOPLE v. MCWILLIAMS 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
7 
guided by three factors first set out in Brown v. Illinois (1975) 
422 U.S. 590, 603–604 (Brown):  (1) the “temporal proximity” 
between the unlawful conduct and the discovery of evidence; 
(2) the “presence of intervening circumstances”; and (3) the 
“purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct.”  (See Strieff, 
at p. 239.)  Once the defendant establishes a Fourth Amendment 
violation, the prosecution bears the burden of establishing 
admissibility under this exception to the exclusionary rule.  
(Brown, at p. 604.) 
In Brendlin, supra, 45 Cal.4th 262, this court considered 
how the attenuation doctrine applies when an officer unlawfully 
seizes an individual and then discovers that the individual has 
an outstanding arrest warrant.  In that case, a sheriff’s deputy 
had unlawfully stopped a vehicle to investigate expired 
registration tabs, on a hunch that the temporary operating 
permit in the window might belong to a different vehicle.  The 
deputy asked the occupants to identify themselves, ran a records 
check, and discovered that the passenger, Brendlin, had an 
outstanding no-bail arrest warrant.  The officer arrested 
Brendlin and searched him incident to the arrest, finding drugs 
and drug paraphernalia.  (Id. at pp. 265–266.)   
We analyzed the three Brown factors to determine 
whether 
the 
incriminating 
evidence 
was 
admissible 
notwithstanding the unlawful stop.  We acknowledged that the 
first factor, temporal proximity, weighed against attenuation 
because “only a few minutes elapsed” between the unlawful stop 
and the search.  (Brendlin, supra, 45 Cal.4th at p. 270.)  But we 
placed little weight on this factor, noting that the timeline is 
typical of cases in which an investigatory stop leads to the 
discovery of an outstanding arrest warrant, and in such 
circumstances this factor is “ ‘outweighed by the others.’ ”  
PEOPLE v. MCWILLIAMS 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
8 
(Ibid.)  As for the second factor, we concluded that an arrest on 
a valid warrant and subsequent search incident to arrest is an 
intervening circumstance that “tends to dissipate the taint 
caused by an illegal traffic stop.”  (Id. at p. 271.)  We explained 
that “[a] warrant is not reasonably subject to interpretation or 
abuse,” and that “the no-bail warrant [t]here supplied legal 
authorization to arrest defendant that was completely 
independent of the circumstances that led the officer to initiate 
the traffic stop.”  (Ibid.)  Finally, as to the third factor, we found 
the deputy’s misconduct was neither purposeful nor flagrant.  
The deputy testified that, in his experience, temporary stickers 
on a vehicle with expired registration “sometimes belonged to a 
different vehicle or had been falsified.”  (Ibid.)  Although the 
deputy had insufficient grounds to make the stop, “the 
insufficiency was not so obvious as to make one question [his] 
good faith in pursuing an investigation of what he believed to be 
a suspicious registration, nor [did] the record show that he had 
a design and purpose to effect the stop ‘in the hope that 
something [else] might turn up.’ ”  (Ibid., quoting Brown, supra, 
422 U.S. at p. 605.) 
Nearly a decade later, the United States Supreme Court 
granted review in Strieff to address the same issue as Brendlin.  
(Strieff, supra, 579 U.S. at p. 237.)  In Strieff, a police detective 
investigated an anonymous tip that a certain residence was the 
site of narcotics activity.  After observing visitors enter the 
house and leave after a few minutes, the detective came to 
believe that the house occupants were dealing drugs.  The 
detective, Officer Fackrell, stopped one visitor, Strieff, as he 
exited the house.  Strieff turned over his identification to 
Fackrell upon request and Fackrell learned that Strieff had an 
outstanding arrest warrant for a traffic violation.  Fackrell 
PEOPLE v. MCWILLIAMS 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
9 
arrested Strieff, searched him incident to the arrest, and found 
methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia.  (Id. at pp. 235–
236.)  
Assuming with the parties that the investigatory stop was 
unlawful, the high court determined that the discovery of the 
arrest warrant sufficiently attenuated the connection between 
the stop and the ensuing discovery of drug-related evidence.  
(Strieff, supra, 579 U.S. at p. 239.)  As to the first Brown factor, 
the court concluded that the close temporal proximity between 
the stop and the search favored suppression.  (Ibid.)  But the 
high court found the second factor, the presence of intervening 
circumstances, “strongly favor[ed] the State.”  (Id. at p. 240.)  
The court explained:  “In this case, the warrant was valid, it 
predated Officer Fackrell’s investigation, and it was entirely 
unconnected with the stop.  And once Officer Fackrell discovered 
the warrant, he had an obligation to arrest Strieff.  ‘A warrant 
is a judicial mandate to an officer to conduct a search or make 
an arrest, and the officer has a sworn duty to carry out its 
provisions.’  [Citation.]  Officer Fackrell’s arrest of Strieff thus 
was a ministerial act that was independently compelled by the 
pre-existing warrant.  And once Officer Fackrell was authorized 
to arrest Strieff, it was undisputedly lawful to search Strieff as 
an incident of his arrest to protect Officer Fackrell’s safety.”  (Id. 
at pp. 240–241, citing Arizona v. Gant (2009) 556 U.S. 332, 339.)  
Finally, the court concluded that the third Brown factor also 
“strongly favor[ed] the State” because the officer “was at most 
negligent” in conducting the unlawful investigatory stop.  
(Strieff, at p. 241.)  The court explained that there was “no 
indication that this unlawful stop was part of any systemic or 
recurrent police misconduct”; rather, “all the evidence suggests 
that the stop was an isolated instance of negligence that 
PEOPLE v. MCWILLIAMS 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
10 
occurred in connection with a bona fide investigation of a 
suspected drug house.”  (Id. at p. 242.)  The court accordingly 
held the evidence seized in the search incident to Strieff’s arrest 
was admissible notwithstanding the initial unlawful stop.  (Id. 
at p. 243.) 
III. 
Here, as in Brendlin and Strieff, an officer conducted a 
concededly unlawful seizure:  The Court of Appeal in this case 
concluded, and all parties now agree, that Officer Croucher 
violated the Fourth Amendment when he ordered McWilliams 
out of his vehicle with no basis to suspect McWilliams of 
involvement in any criminal activity.  And here, as in Brendlin 
and Strieff, the officer conducted a records check after that 
unlawful detention.  But unlike in Brendlin and Strieff, the 
records check did not turn up an outstanding warrant for arrest.  
Rather, it revealed that McWilliams was on parole and subject 
to a parole condition authorizing warrantless, suspicionless 
searches of his person and his vehicle.  (See Pen. Code, § 3067, 
subd. (b)(3).)  The question now before us is whether the 
evidence discovered in the ensuing search should have been 
suppressed under the exclusionary rule, or whether the evidence 
was properly admitted because the discovery of McWilliams’s 
parole search condition sufficiently attenuated the connection 
between the unlawful detention and the search.  To answer the 
question, we consider how the three Brown factors apply in this 
distinct context. 
A. 
The first Brown factor, temporal proximity between the 
unlawful detention and the search, requires no extended 
discussion.  As Strieff explains, the high court has “declined to 
PEOPLE v. MCWILLIAMS 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
11 
find that this factor favors attenuation unless ‘substantial time’ 
elapses between an unlawful act and when the evidence is 
obtained.”  (Strieff, supra, 579 U.S. at p. 239.)  All agree that 
here, because no “ ‘substantial time’ ” separated Officer 
Croucher’s initial decision to detain McWilliams and his 
subsequent decision to search him and his vehicle, this factor 
weighs against a finding of attenuation.  (Ibid.) 
The central subject of disagreement in this case concerns 
whether, and to what extent, the discovery of a parole search 
condition disrupts the causal connection between the unlawful 
stop and the discovery of evidence.  This is the concern of the 
second Brown factor, the presence of intervening circumstances.  
(See Strieff, supra, 579 U.S. at p. 238.)  McWilliams argues the 
discovery of a parole search condition, unlike the discovery of an 
arrest warrant, can never qualify as such an intervening 
circumstance.  He argues it is therefore unnecessary to engage 
in the Brown attenuation analysis at all — but if we do, we 
should assign no attenuating significance to the discovery of the 
parole search condition under the second Brown factor.  In the 
alternative, McWilliams argues, and the Attorney General 
agrees, that discovery of a parole search condition does trigger 
the Brown attenuation analysis, but on its own does very little 
to attenuate the taint of illegality under the second prong of 
Brown.  The District Attorney of Santa Clara County, 
participating as an amicus curiae in support of the judgment of 
the Court of Appeal, disagrees with McWilliams on both counts; 
in the District Attorney’s view, discovery of a parole search 
condition is at least as attenuating a circumstance as the 
discovery of an arrest warrant, and strongly supports finding 
attenuation in this case and others like it. 
PEOPLE v. MCWILLIAMS 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
12 
At the outset, we decline McWilliams’s invitation to hold 
that discovery of a parole search condition can never qualify as 
an intervening circumstance that tends to attenuate the link 
between an unlawful stop and an ensuing search.  Many of the 
arguments McWilliams makes in support of this proposed 
categorical 
rule 
are 
squarely 
foreclosed 
by 
precedent.  
McWilliams argues, for instance, that the discovery of the parole 
search condition is itself the “fruit” of the illegal detention, and 
for that reason cannot attenuate the primary taint.  We rejected 
much the same argument in Brendlin.  We explained that, under 
long-standing high court precedent, exclusion “ ‘may not be 
premised on the mere fact that a constitutional violation was a 
“but-for” cause of obtaining evidence.’ ”  (Brendlin, supra, 45 
Cal.4th at p. 268, quoting Hudson, supra, 547 U.S. at p. 592.)  
Discovery of an arrest warrant, we explained, is not “ ‘ “ ‘fruit of 
the poisonous tree’ simply because it would not have come to 
light but for the illegal actions of the police.” ’ ”  (Brendlin, at 
p. 268; accord, Strieff, supra, 579 U.S. at p. 235.)  The same is 
true when a records check reveals a parole search condition 
rather than a warrant. 
McWilliams also attempts to analogize the discovery of a 
parole search condition following an unlawful detention to the 
discovery of contraband that comes into plain view because of 
an unlawful search or seizure.  In the latter situation, where a 
police officer’s illegal conduct “caused the evidence to be placed 
in plain view” — for instance, where an unlawful order to exit a 
car leads to the observation of contraband on the driver’s 
person — the police may not rely on the plain view doctrine to 
justify a warrantless seizure.  (U.S. v. Davis (10th Cir. 1996) 94 
F.3d 1465, 1470.)  But as McWilliams’s own cases explain, the 
rationale for this rule is specific to the plain view doctrine, 
PEOPLE v. MCWILLIAMS 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
13 
whose “ ‘first and most fundamental prerequisite to reliance 
upon plain view as a basis for a warrantless seizure . . . is that 
“the initial intrusion which brings the police within plain view 
of such an article” is itself lawful.’ ”  (Ibid. [“ ‘The [plain view] 
doctrine serves to supplement the prior justification — whether 
it be a warrant for another object, hot pursuit, search incident 
to lawful arrest, or some other legitimate reason for being 
present unconnected with a search directed against the 
accused.’ ”].)  This is not a plain view case, and plain view cases 
do not help McWilliams here. 
McWilliams’s invocation of the conditions on valid parole 
searches, as set forth in People v. Sanders (2003) 31 Cal.4th 318, 
333 (Sanders), is likewise unavailing.  Sanders holds that, to 
conduct a valid parole search, an officer must be aware of the 
search condition at the time; it is not enough for the officer to 
learn of the condition after the search is done.  McWilliams 
suggests that by parity of reasoning, the discovery of a parole 
search condition should not operate to validate a prior 
unauthorized detention.  But for essentially the same reasons 
we explained in Brendlin, the rule of Sanders is inapposite here.  
(See Brendlin, supra, 45 Cal.4th at p. 273.)  No one here 
contends the post-detention discovery of a parole search 
condition should retroactively validate the initial decision to 
detain McWilliams.  The illegality of the detention is 
undisputed.  The question is whether the mid-detention 
discovery of a parole search condition is an intervening 
circumstance that justifies making an exception to the 
exclusionary rule for the evidence turned up in that search.  
That is a question Sanders does not answer. 
Ultimately, however, we need not and do not decide here 
whether or under what circumstances discovery of a parole 
PEOPLE v. MCWILLIAMS 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
14 
search condition could ever sufficiently dissipate the taint from 
an initial unlawful detention.  It suffices for us to conclude that 
the discovery of the parole search condition had no considerable 
attenuating effect under the circumstances of this case.  
In reaching a contrary conclusion, the Court of Appeal 
emphasized the evident similarities between a valid arrest 
warrant and a parole search condition:  Like an arrest warrant, 
a parole search condition necessarily predates the detention and 
is authorized by state law independent of the detention.  (See 
Pen. Code, § 3067.)  The court’s reliance on these features was 
understandable because these are the very same features we 
mentioned in Brendlin when we concluded that the discovery of 
a valid arrest warrant was an intervening circumstance that 
attenuated the causal chain between the unlawful stop and the 
incriminating evidence.  (Brendlin, supra, 45 Cal.4th at p. 271.)  
But despite their similarities, the arrest warrants at issue in 
Brendlin and Strieff differ from parole search conditions in a 
critical respect:  As judicial mandates to take a suspect into 
custody, the warrants not only authorized, but compelled, 
further action by the officer.   
Although we did not mention this point explicitly in 
Brendlin, the court emphasized it in Strieff.  After laying out a 
set of general observations about the lack of connection between 
the unlawful stop and the existence of the arrest warrant, the 
court went on to explain that “once Officer Fackrell discovered 
the warrant, he had an obligation to arrest Strieff.  ‘A warrant 
is a judicial mandate to an officer to conduct a search or make 
an arrest, and the officer has a sworn duty to carry out its 
provisions.’  [Citation.]  Officer Fackrell’s arrest of Strieff thus 
PEOPLE v. MCWILLIAMS 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
15 
was a ministerial act that was independently compelled by the 
pre-existing warrant.”  (Strieff, supra, 579 U.S. at p. 240.)3 
By contrast to the arrest warrant in Strieff, a parole 
search condition merely authorizes a suspicionless search of the 
parolee for purposes of monitoring the parolee’s rehabilitation 
and compliance with the terms of parole.  It is not a judicial 
mandate, nor does it compel further action of any sort.  Whether 
to take further action is largely within law enforcement’s 
discretion; the search of a parolee is generally permissible, so 
long as the search is not arbitrary, capricious, or harassing.  
(People v. Reyes (1998) 19 Cal.4th 743, 754 (Reyes).) 
We agree with other courts that have held that the 
absence of compulsion to continue the interaction after an initial 
unlawful detention makes a difference in the attenuation 
analysis.  (See State v. Christian (Kan. 2019) 445 P.3d 183, 190 
[distinguishing Strieff and finding insufficient attenuation 
where officer could choose whether to arrest defendant for 
having no proof of insurance].)  As a general rule, the law 
recognizes that an intervening circumstance can break the 
chain of causation when that circumstance involves “an act of a 
third person or other force which by its intervention prevents 
the actor from being liable for harm” the actor played a 
substantial role in bringing about.  (Rest.2d Torts, § 440; see 
Soule v. General Motors Corp. (1994) 8 Cal.4th 548, 573, fn. 9.)  
The corollary is that, as a general matter, defendant’s “own 
 
3 
The District Attorney suggests that the arrest warrant in 
Strieff — which was for a traffic violation — would not have 
required custodial arrest under California law.  Be that as it 
may, the high court’s analysis presumed that arrest was 
compelled under the Utah arrest warrant at issue in the case.   
PEOPLE v. MCWILLIAMS 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
16 
conduct cannot be an intervening cause sufficient to defeat a 
finding of causation.  ‘A superseding cause is something culpable 
that intervenes . . . , some action of a third party that makes the 
plaintiff’s 
injury 
an 
unforeseeable 
consequence 
of 
the 
defendant’s negligence.’ ”  (Whitlock v. Brueggemann (7th Cir. 
2012) 682 F.3d 567, 584; see also, e.g., Von der Heide v. Com., 
Dept. of Transp. (Pa. 1998) 718 A.2d 286, 289.) 
The rule of Strieff comports with this ordinary 
understanding of causation principles:  As Strieff conceived of it, 
the discovery of the arrest warrant represented a form of 
compulsion by a third party magistrate that left the officer with 
no effective choice but to carry out an arrest.  (Strieff, supra, 579 
U.S. at p. 240.)  This case, however, involves no such third party 
compulsion; the discovery of McWilliams’s parole status merely 
gave the detaining officer the discretion to conduct a 
warrantless, suspicionless search.  At least absent other factors, 
the detaining officer’s discovery of a parole search condition, and 
subsequent decision to conduct a parole search, does 
comparatively little to disrupt the causal chain. 
This conclusion about the relative attenuating force of 
parole search conditions fits with the core concern underlying 
the Brown attenuation analysis.  As Brown made clear, the 
factors must be applied in such a way as to ensure the officer is 
not “unduly exploit[ing]” an unlawful search or seizure to 
produce incriminating evidence.  (Brown, supra, 422 U.S. at 
p. 603.)  The existence of a valid arrest warrant significantly 
alleviates such exploitation concerns because the warrant 
represents a “ ‘judicial mandate’ ” to take further action (Strieff, 
supra, 579 U.S. at p. 240), that “is not reasonably subject to 
interpretation or abuse” (Brendlin, supra, 45 Cal.4th at p. 271, 
citing Hudson, supra, 547 U.S. at p. 595 and U.S. v. Green (7th 
PEOPLE v. MCWILLIAMS 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
17 
Cir. 1997) 111 F.3d 515, 522).  Because a parole search 
condition, by contrast, entails no such compulsion but instead 
invokes law enforcement discretion, it raises greater concerns 
about the course of events connecting an unlawful stop to an 
ensuing search.  There is a danger that an officer who has 
unlawfully stopped a bystander without reasonable suspicion 
will regard the discovery of a parole search condition as a license 
to continue pursuing a baseless hunch, rather than fairly 
considering whether a search is appropriate to assess the 
individual’s rehabilitation and monitor “his transition from 
inmate to free citizen.”  (Reyes, supra, 19 Cal.4th at p. 752.)  In 
other words, in the hands of the very same officer who conducted 
an illegal stop, there is a risk that the discretion to conduct a 
parole search will lead to the exploitation of that illegal conduct, 
rather than severing the causal connection between the stop and 
the search. 
 
McWilliams and the Attorney General agree that because 
the choice to conduct a parole search was within Officer 
Croucher’s discretion, rather than a matter of compulsion, the 
discovery of the parole search condition does little to attenuate 
the connection between Officer Croucher’s unlawful detention of 
McWilliams and the evidence at issue.  But the District 
Attorney, acting as amicus curiae in support of the Court of 
Appeal’s judgment, argues that the absence of compulsion to 
conduct a parole search ought to be irrelevant to the analysis.  
We are unpersuaded. 
 
In support of the argument, the District Attorney observes 
that there was also discretion at play in Brendlin and Strieff:  
Although the officers in those cases may have been under 
judicial compulsion to take the suspects into custody after they 
discovered outstanding arrest warrants, the District Attorney 
PEOPLE v. MCWILLIAMS 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
18 
points out, the officers were not compelled to search the suspects 
incident to arrest and instead chose to do so as a matter of 
discretion.  True enough, but the argument mistakes the point.  
We do not hold that any element of discretion necessarily 
defeats a claim of attenuation; we simply conclude, rather, that 
the absence of compulsion naturally weakens the claim.  In 
Strieff, the court explained that once Officer Fackrell discovered 
an outstanding warrant for Strieff’s arrest, the discovery “broke 
the causal chain between the unconstitutional stop and the 
discovery of evidence by compelling Officer Fackrell to arrest 
Strieff.”  (Strieff, supra, 579 U.S. at p. 242.)  Once that causal 
chain was broken by the compulsion to arrest, the ultimate 
decision to conduct a search incident to arrest was attributable 
to the legally required arrest itself — “to protect Officer 
Fackrell’s safety” as he carried out the arrest — and not the 
initial unlawful decision to stop Strieff.  (Id. at p. 241, citing 
Arizona v. Gant, supra, 556 U.S. at p. 339.)  Here, there was no 
comparable compulsion for Officer Croucher to take any 
particular 
action 
regarding 
McWilliams, 
and 
thus 
no 
comparable force breaking the causal chain between Croucher’s 
unconstitutional detention of McWilliams and his discretionary 
decision to search. 
 
The District Attorney next argues that an officer’s 
discretion to conduct a search is constrained in various ways 
that limit the opportunities for “interpretation or abuse.”  
(Brendlin, supra, 45 Cal.4th at p. 271.)  The authorized scope of 
a parole search is ordinarily clear; the officer must be aware of 
the search condition before conducting the search (Sanders, 
supra, 31 Cal.4th at p. 333); and the officer may not conduct a 
search that is arbitrary, capricious, or harassing (Reyes, supra, 
19 Cal.4th at p. 752).  These constraints mean, for instance, that 
PEOPLE v. MCWILLIAMS 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
19 
an officer may not conduct a particular parole search in a 
harassing manner, or for reasons unrelated to any legitimate 
penological purpose, such as personal animosity toward the 
parolee.  (Ibid.; see In re Anthony S. (1992) 4 Cal.App.4th 1000, 
1004.)  These limitations on parole searches are certainly 
important, but they do not answer the Fourth Amendment 
question at hand.  The issue before us does not concern the 
validity of the parole search, standing alone, but instead 
concerns whether a court must exclude evidence in response to 
an 
immediately 
preceding, 
concededly 
unconstitutional 
detention.  And as already explained, despite the limitations 
governing parole searches, the law leaves an officer substantial 
discretion whether to conduct such searches, which weakens the 
case for finding a break in the causal chain connecting that 
unlawful detention and the discovery of evidence. 
Taking a different tack, the District Attorney argues that 
the discovery of a parole search condition must have at least as 
much attenuating force as the discovery of an arrest warrant 
because a parolee has a “significantly diminished expectation of 
privacy in comparison to a mere arrestee.”  (See Samson v. 
California (2006) 547 U.S. 843, 852 [parolees “have severely 
diminished expectations of privacy by virtue of their status 
alone”].)  This argument, too, confuses the issue.  To be sure, 
parolees’ diminished expectation of privacy is the reason the 
Fourth Amendment generally permits suspicionless parole 
searches.  (Id. at p. 847.)  But the question before us does not 
involve the constitutionality of parole searches; it is whether the 
discovery of the parole search condition in this case sufficiently 
attenuated the taint stemming from an initial unconstitutional 
detention.  To answer this question, we evaluate “the causal link 
between the government’s unlawful act and the discovery of 
PEOPLE v. MCWILLIAMS 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
20 
evidence.”  (Strieff, supra, 579 U.S. at p. 238.)  For purposes of 
this causation analysis, McWilliams’s expectations of privacy as 
a parolee have no particular relevance.  
Finally, the District Attorney points to an out-of-state case 
as an example of the attenuating force of a parole search 
condition.  (State v. Fenton (Idaho Ct.App. 2017) 413 P.3d 419.)  
There, the police officer who made an unlawful stop discovered 
the defendant was on parole and called the defendant’s 
probation officer, who then decided to conduct a search after he 
arrived on the scene.  (Id. at pp. 421–423.)  This case is unlike 
Fenton, however, in that the officer who initially stopped 
McWilliams and the officer who decided to conduct the parole 
search were one and the same.  To decide this case, and most 
cases like it, we need not decide whether the third party 
probation officer’s decision to search in Fenton sufficiently 
attenuated the discovery of incriminating evidence from the 
initial unlawful stop.  We likewise need not consider whether, 
as the Attorney General argues, the discovery of a parole search 
condition might sufficiently dissipate the taint of an initial 
unlawful stop when there is a substantial period of time between 
the discovery and a parole search.  It suffices to conclude that in 
this case — where the same officer who conducted the illegal 
detention also decided, minutes later, to conduct a parole search 
that yielded incriminating evidence — the discovery of the 
parole search condition did relatively little to break the causal 
connection between the two events.  
B. 
We turn, then, to the third and final Brown factor, the 
flagrancy and purposefulness of police misconduct.  While the 
first two factors identify forces — time and intervening 
PEOPLE v. MCWILLIAMS 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
21 
circumstances — that may tend to attenuate the causal 
connection between the misconduct and the discovery of 
evidence, the focus of the third factor is different:  It “ ‘is  directly 
tied to the purpose of the exclusionary rule — deterring police 
misconduct.’ ”  (Brendlin, supra, 45 Cal.4th at p. 271.)  Police 
misconduct, the high court has said, is “most in need of 
deterrence . . . when it is purposeful or flagrant.”  (Strieff, supra, 
579 U.S. at p. 241; accord, Brendlin, at p. 271.)  The greater the 
degree of purposefulness or flagrancy associated with the police 
misconduct, the greater the justification required to admit 
evidence obtained through the misconduct.4 
To the extent McWilliams suggests that Officer Croucher’s 
decision to detain him without reasonable suspicion itself 
establishes purposeful or flagrant misconduct under the third 
Brown factor, the law is to the contrary.  Every attenuation case 
involves an improper search or seizure, but not every 
impropriety rises to the level of purposeful or flagrant illegality.  
(Strieff, supra, 579 U.S. at pp. 242–243; see Brendlin, supra, 45 
Cal.4th at p. 271.)  But as McWilliams emphasizes, here Officer 
Croucher’s basis to suspect McWilliams of violating the law was 
 
4 
Where neither of the first two Brown factors establishes 
sufficient attenuation, courts have held that evidence may be 
subject to suppression even absent flagrant or purposeful 
conduct.  (See U.S. v. Garcia (9th Cir. 2020)  974 F.3d 1071, 1082 
[“[E]ven accepting the district court’s finding that the officers 
acted in good faith, this fact alone is not enough to justify 
admission of the evidence.”]; U.S. v. Bocharnikov (9th Cir. 2020) 
966 F.3d 1000, 1005 [same]; U.S. v. Perez-Esparza (9th Cir. 
1979) 609 F.2d 1284, 1291 [“[T]he last factor is insufficient to 
overcome the lack of attenuation dictated by the first two 
factors.”].)  Here, however, we find purposeful conduct and so 
have no occasion to consider how to weigh the third Brown factor 
under different circumstances. 
PEOPLE v. MCWILLIAMS 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
22 
not merely insufficient — it was essentially nonexistent.  The 
security guard in a business parking lot had reported suspicious 
activity involving two individuals riding bicycles and shining 
flashlights into cars.  Officer Croucher found McWilliams alone 
and reclined inside a car, with no bicycle or flashlight in sight.  
Rather than approaching McWilliams to ask him for 
information, Officer Croucher instead ordered McWilliams out 
of the car for asserted safety concerns, thereby effecting a 
seizure of his person.  Then, despite these asserted safety 
concerns, Officer Croucher allowed McWilliams to return to his 
car to retrieve his identification and used that identification to 
run a records check.   
Officer Croucher may not have acted in bad faith when he 
detained McWilliams.  But a finding of purposefulness does not 
require a showing of bad faith; the law instructs that officers act 
purposefully for Brown purposes when they conduct “a 
suspicionless fishing expedition ‘in the hope that something 
[will] turn up.’ ”  (Strieff, supra, 579 U.S. at p. 242, quoting 
Taylor v. Alabama (1982) 457 U.S. 687, 691; accord, e.g., 
Brendlin, supra, 45 Cal.4th at pp. 271–272; see Bates, supra, 
222 Cal.App.4th at p. 71 [finding purposefulness where officer 
stopped a car “without any observation of possible wrongdoing,” 
based on “a hunch that [a suspect] might be in the vehicle”].)  
One post-Strieff appellate court, for example, has found 
purposefulness and flagrancy where an officer stopped the 
defendant in an attempt to identify a person connected to a 
shooting that occurred two days earlier, “on the basis of a 
photograph 
that 
provided 
little 
meaningful 
identifying 
information to the police besides the race” of the person, and 
despite the absence of any indication that the person in the 
photograph had committed any crime in the first place.  (U.S. v. 
PEOPLE v. MCWILLIAMS 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
23 
Walker (2d Cir. 2020) 965 F.3d 180, 183; see id. at pp. 184, 188.)  
Then, even after it became evident that the defendant was not 
the person depicted in the photograph, the officer conducted a 
records check that revealed a valid arrest warrant; conducted a 
search incident to arrest; and found incriminating evidence.  
Notwithstanding Strieff, the court concluded the evidence 
should have been suppressed based on consideration of the third 
Brown factor.  (Walker, at p. 190.)  The problem with the stop, 
the Second Circuit explained, was “not simply the lack of 
reasonable suspicion,” but “the extreme lack of reasonable 
suspicion.”  (Id. at p. 189.)  The court added that reliance on the 
photograph 
to 
make 
the 
stop 
necessarily 
“involved 
impermissible and manifest stereotyping, which cannot be 
characterized as merely negligent conduct.”  (Id. at p. 190.)  And 
even if the initial justification for the stop “were not woefully 
anemic,” the officer’s decision to run a records check, even after 
he verified the defendant was not the subject of the photograph, 
amounted to “a mere fishing expedition.”  (Id. at pp. 189–190.)   
The Attorney General and District Attorney argue Officer 
Croucher’s conduct in this case is comparable to the conduct of 
the officer in Strieff, which the court viewed as neither 
purposeful nor flagrant but “at most negligent.”  (Strieff, supra, 
579 U.S. at p. 241.)  We are unpersuaded by the comparison.  In 
Strieff, the officer had observed Strieff exiting what the officer 
reasonably believed to be a drug house; his primary error was in 
failing to observe how long Strieff remained at the location, 
which meant he “lacked a sufficient basis to conclude that Strieff 
was a short-term visitor who may have been consummating a 
drug transaction.”  (Strieff, at p. 241.)  In this case, by contrast, 
McWilliams had no connection whatsoever with the reported 
suspicious 
activity 
that 
prompted 
Officer 
Croucher’s 
PEOPLE v. MCWILLIAMS 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
24 
investigation; he was found alone, seated in a car rather than 
riding a bicycle, with nary a flashlight in sight. 
Nor do we view the officer’s conduct in this case as 
comparable to that in Brendlin, in which we found nothing in 
the record to indicate the deputy who instigated the stop was 
engaged in a mere fishing expedition.  (Brendlin, supra, 45 
Cal.4th, supra, at p. 271.)  In Brendlin, the officer offered a 
justification for the suspicion of criminality that prompted the 
traffic stop:  that, in his experience, cars bearing expired 
registration tabs and temporary stickers are frequently being 
operated illegally.  Though the justification was insufficient to 
justify the stop, we explained that “the insufficiency was not so 
obvious as to make one question [the deputy]’s good faith in 
pursuing an investigation of what he believed to be a suspicious 
registration.”  (Ibid.)  Here, by contrast, Officer Croucher offered 
no basis — rooted in experience or otherwise — for believing 
McWilliams was involved in the suspicious parking-lot activity 
he had set out to investigate. 
Of course, neither is this case on all fours with Walker, 
where the investigating officer stopped an individual based on a 
perceived resemblance to a photograph of a person who, as far 
as the officer knew, had not committed any crime, and where 
the two individuals bore no resemblance to one another besides 
the color of their skin.  But while Walker may have involved 
more flagrant misconduct than this case, it also involved a 
search conducted after the discovery of a valid arrest warrant; 
even so, and despite Strieff, the court in that case concluded that 
the discovery was not sufficiently attenuating under the 
circumstances of that case.  This case, by contrast, concerns a 
search conducted after the discovery of a parole condition 
authorizing suspicionless searches — a discovery that, for 
PEOPLE v. MCWILLIAMS 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
25 
reasons already discussed, has meaningfully less attenuating 
force than the discovery of a valid arrest warrant.  Here we 
conclude that the officer’s decision to detain McWilliams merely 
because he was in the broad vicinity of reported suspicious 
activity was purposeful and further supports applying the 
exclusionary rule to deter this type of unconstitutional conduct.  
(See Brown, supra, 422 U.S. at p. 600; Strieff, supra, 579 U.S. at 
p. 241.) 
McWilliams, who is Black, also urges us to find 
purposefulness and flagrancy based on an inference that racial 
bias may have played a role in Officer Croucher’s decision to 
detain him.  As McWilliams himself acknowledges, however, 
nothing in the factual record supports that inference.  But he 
asks us to consider a more general point:  that “seemingly small 
constitutional violations can add up to problems of significant 
national dimensions.”  (People v. McWilliams, supra, H045525 
(conc. & dis. opn. of Danner, J.), citing, inter alia, Strieff, supra, 
579 U.S. at p. 254 (dis. opn. of Sotomayor, J.) [“it is no secret 
that people of color are disproportionate victims” of unlawful, 
suspicionless stops].)  The Attorney General acknowledges this 
broader point, and agrees that courts must be mindful about 
rules that encourage officers to conduct stops “in an arbitrary 
manner” and “risk treating members of our communities as 
second-class citizens.”  (Strieff, at p. 252 (dis. opn. of Sotomayor, 
J.).)  As the Attorney General recognizes, a rule permitting 
officers to rely exclusively on discretionary parole search 
conditions to purge the taint of unconstitutional, suspicionless 
detentions would risk creating such incentives; ultimately, a 
more careful approach to the attenuation analysis “is in the 
interest of society” as well as “the individuals who experience 
the deprivation of their Fourth Amendment rights.”   
PEOPLE v. MCWILLIAMS 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
26 
 
In sum, the People have not carried their burden of 
establishing the attenuation doctrine applies here.  No 
substantial time passed between Officer Croucher’s illegal 
detention of McWilliams and his seizure of the evidence in this 
case.  Officer Croucher’s subsequent discovery of McWilliams’s 
parole search condition, and his discretionary decision to 
conduct the parole search, did little to attenuate the connection 
between the unlawful stop and the evidence.  And Officer 
Croucher’s decision to conduct the stop, without any evident 
basis to believe McWilliams was connected to the activity Officer 
Croucher set out to investigate, indicates a purposefulness that 
further justifies the exclusion of the evidence.  We conclude the 
evidence Officer Croucher found after his illegal detention of 
McWilliams is not admissible.5   
 
 
 
5 
Although People v. Durant, supra, 205 Cal.App.4th 57, 
found attenuation on a different set of facts, we disapprove the 
opinion to the extent its reasoning is inconsistent with this 
opinion.  
PEOPLE v. MCWILLIAMS 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
27 
IV. 
We reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal and 
remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
            KRUGER, J. 
 
We Concur: 
GUERRERO, C. J. 
CORRIGAN, J. 
LIU, J. 
GROBAN, J. 
JENKINS, J. 
CANTIL-SAKAUYE, J.* 
 
 
* 
Retired Chief Justice of California, assigned by the Chief 
Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of the California 
Constitution. 
 
1 
PEOPLE v. MCWILLIAMS 
S268320 
 
Concurring Opinion by Justice Liu 
 
I agree with today’s opinion that Officer Croucher’s 
“discretionary decision to conduct the parole search [of 
defendant Duvanh McWilliams] did not sufficiently attenuate 
the connection between the officer’s initial unlawful decision to 
detain McWilliams and the discovery of contraband.”  (Maj. opn., 
ante, at p. 2.)  Our reasoning focuses on the discretionary nature 
of a search pursuant to a parole search condition.  (Id. at pp. 14–
17.)  I write separately to note that in such circumstances, an 
officer’s decision-making may be vulnerable to implicit biases 
that result in a heightened risk of exploitation of the unlawful 
detention.  This reality is a proper consideration under the 
second factor of the attenuation doctrine set out in Brown v. 
Illinois (1975) 422 U.S. 590, 603–604. 
In analyzing whether the discovery of a parole search 
condition is an intervening circumstance under the second 
Brown factor, today’s opinion says:  “By contrast to the arrest 
warrant in [Utah v. Strieff (2016) 579 U.S. 232], a parole search 
condition merely authorizes a suspicionless search of the parolee 
for purposes of monitoring the parolee’s rehabilitation and 
compliance with the terms of parole.  It is not a judicial 
mandate, nor does it compel further action of any sort.  Whether 
to take further action is largely within law enforcement’s 
discretion . . . .”  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 15.)  The attenuation 
doctrine’s treatment of a search incident to arrest on an 
PEOPLE v. MCWILLIAMS 
Liu, J., concurring 
2 
outstanding warrant recognizes the mandatory nature of the 
arrest and reasons that “the ultimate decision to conduct a 
search . . . [is] attributable to the legally required arrest itself — 
‘to protect [the officer]’s safety’ as he carrie[s] out the arrest — 
and not the initial unlawful decision to stop [the defendant].”  
(Id. at p. 18, quoting Utah v. Strieff, at p. 241.)  A search incident 
to such an arrest is, as the Attorney General said at oral 
argument, “something that operates independently of . . . [the 
officer’s] implicit biases.” 
The same cannot be said of an officer’s discretionary 
decision to conduct a search pursuant to a parole condition.  
Empirical studies have shown that “the conditions under which 
implicit biases translate most readily into discriminatory 
behavior are when people have wide discretion in making quick 
decisions with little accountability.”  (Kang et al., Implicit Bias 
in the Courtroom (2012) 59 UCLA L.Rev. 1124, 1142; see id. at 
pp. 1142–1150 [citing studies]; Casey et al., Addressing Implicit 
Bias in the Courts (2013) 49 Ct.Rev. 64, 68 & fn. 38 [citing 
studies].)  As Justice Danner noted in the Court of Appeal, the 
issue is not racism in the sense of intentional discrimination.  It 
is the operation of “attitudes and stereotypes” that “are not 
consciously accessible through introspection” and “can function 
automatically.”  (Kang et al., at p. 1129.)  Research confirms 
what is no surprise as a matter of common sense:  On-the-spot 
discretionary decisions are vulnerable to implicit bias because 
they are neither constrained by a clear rubric of relevant criteria 
nor preceded by extensive deliberation.  Where a discretionary 
search is preceded by an unlawful detention, the very impulses 
that may have given rise to the initial detention may also 
contribute to an officer’s decision to conduct the search.  Such 
impulses may include the well-documented unconscious 
PEOPLE v. MCWILLIAMS 
Liu, J., concurring 
3 
“stereotype of Black Americans as violent and criminal.”  
(Eberhardt et al., Seeing Black: Race, Crime, and Visual 
Processing (2004) 87 J. Personality & Soc. Psychol. 876, 876; see 
Hetey & Eberhardt, Racial Disparities in Incarceration Increase 
Acceptance of Punitive Policies (2014) 25 Psychol. Sci. 1949.) 
Black individuals like McWilliams disproportionately 
bear the brunt of discretionary decisions by law enforcement.  
“Black Californians are significantly more likely to be stopped 
than white Californians, and experiences during stops and 
outcomes afterward also vary. . . .  Black individuals are more 
than twice as likely to be searched as white individuals.”  
(Lofstrom et al., Racial Disparities in Law Enforcement Stops 
(Oct. 2021) p. 25.)  Not only are Black people stopped and 
searched more often, but such searches are less likely to yield 
evidence or contraband.  (Id. at pp. 14–16; see People v. 
Tacardon (2022) 14 Cal.5th 235, 264 (dis. opn. of Liu, J.) [citing 
Ayres & Borowsky, A Study of Racially Disparate Outcomes in 
the Los Angeles Police Department (Oct. 2008) pp. 5–8 [Black 
and Hispanic residents of Los Angeles, compared to Whites, 
were more likely to be stopped, frisked, searched, and arrested 
but significantly less likely to be found with weapons or drugs]; 
Gross & Barnes, Road Work: Racial Profiling and Drug 
Interdiction on the Highway (2002) 101 Mich. L.Rev. 651, 668 
[searches of White drivers in Maryland reveal drugs 22% more 
often than searches of Black drivers and over 200% more often 
than searches of Hispanic drivers]; Note, Discrimination During 
Traffic Stops: How an Economic Account Justifying Racial 
Profiling Falls Short (2012) 87 N.Y.U. L.Rev. 1025, 1040 
[searches of White drivers in Illinois reveal contraband over 50% 
more often than searches of non-White drivers]]; cf. Lofstrom et 
al., at p. 15 [contraband or evidence is found in 21.4 percent of 
PEOPLE v. MCWILLIAMS 
Liu, J., concurring 
4 
searches overall]; Bar-Gill & Friedman, Taking Warrants 
Seriously (2012) 106 Nw. U. L.Rev. 1609, 1655 [“police find 
evidence in only about 10% to 20% of the total traffic searches”].)  
For every search of a Black person that yields contraband, there 
are far more — and disproportionately more — searches of 
Black people that turn up nothing.  These practices are not only 
inefficient but also detrimental to building trust between 
minority communities and law enforcement.  (People v. 
Tacardon, at p. 264 (dis. opn. of Liu, J.).) 
As today’s decision explains, “[t]here is a danger that an 
officer who has unlawfully stopped a bystander without 
reasonable suspicion will regard the discovery of a parole search 
condition as a license to continue pursuing a baseless hunch, 
rather than fairly considering whether a search is appropriate 
to assess the individual’s rehabilitation and monitor ‘his 
transition from inmate to free citizen.’  [Citation.]  In other 
words, in the hands of the very same officer who conducted an 
illegal stop, there is a risk that the discretion to conduct a parole 
search will lead to the exploitation of that illegal conduct, rather 
than severing the causal connection between the stop and the 
search.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 17.)  It is appropriate for courts 
to recognize, in applying the second factor of Brown’s 
attenuation inquiry, that this risk in a given case may be 
heightened by the operation of implicit biases, including the 
unconscious association between Blackness and criminality. 
 
LIU, J. 
 
 
 
See next page for addresses and telephone numbers for counsel who 
argued in Supreme Court. 
 
Name of Opinion  People v. McWilliams 
__________________________________________________________  
 
Procedural Posture (see XX below) 
Original Appeal  
Original Proceeding 
Review Granted (published)  
Review Granted (unpublished) XX NP opn. filed 3/8/21 – 6th Dist. 
Rehearing Granted 
__________________________________________________________  
 
Opinion No. S268320 
Date Filed:  February 23, 2023 
__________________________________________________________  
 
Court:  Superior  
County:  Santa Clara 
Judge:  David A. Cena 
__________________________________________________________   
 
Counsel: 
 
William M. Robinson, under appointment by the Supreme Court, and 
Marc McKenna, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for 
Defendant and Appellant. 
 
Martin F. Schwarz, Public Defender (Orange), Laura Jose, Chief Public 
Defender, Adam Vining, Assistant Public Defender, and Abby Taylor, 
Deputy Public Defender, for Orange County Public Defender’s Office as 
Amicus Curiae on behalf of Defendant and Appellant. 
 
Xavier Becerra and Rob Bonta, Attorneys General, Lance E. Winters, 
Chief Assistant Attorney General, Jeffrey M. Laurence, Assistant 
Attorney General, Catherine A. Rivlin, Karen Z. Bovarick, Seth K. 
Schalit and Amit Kurlekar, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff 
and Respondent. 
 
Jeffrey F. Rosen, District Attorney (Santa Clara), and Jeff Rubin, 
Deputy District Attorney, for Santa Clara County District Attorney’s 
Office as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Plaintiff and Respondent.
 
 
Counsel who argued in Supreme Court (not intended for 
publication with opinion): 
 
William M. Robinson 
Sixth District Appellate Program 
95 South Market Street, Suite 570 
San Jose, CA 95113 
(408) 241-6171 
 
Amit Kurlekar 
Deputy Attorney General 
455 Golden Gate Avenue, Suite 11000 
San Francisco, CA 94102 
(415) 510-3810