Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-04-03867/USCOURTS-ca8-04-03867-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Oscar Flores-Sandoval
Appellee
United States of America
Appellant

Document Text:

1

ICE is the investigative arm of the United States Department of Homeland

Security and includes the investigative, detention and removal, and intelligence

functions of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). News Release,

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE Announces Agency Reorganization

Plan; Interim Headquarters and Field Structure Detailed (May 16, 2003), at

http://www.ice.gov.htm.

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 04-3867

___________

United States of America, *

*

Appellant, *

*

v. * Appeal from the United States

* District Court for the

Oscar Flores-Sandoval, also known as * District of South Dakota.

Armando Polanco-Diaz, also known as *

Daniel Sanchez-Rodriguez, *

*

Appellee. *

___________

Submitted: June 21, 2005

Filed: September 6, 2005

___________

Before RILEY, BOWMAN, and BENTON, Circuit Judges.

___________

BOWMAN, Circuit Judge.

We must decide whether the United States Immigration and Customs

Enforcement (ICE)1

 may take custody of a person and fingerprint him without any

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2

The Honorable Lawrence J. Piersol, Chief Judge, United States District Court

for the District of South Dakota, adopting the report and recommendations of the

Honorable John E. Simko, United States Magistrate Judge for the District of South

Dakota.

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admissible reason to believe the person is an illegal alien. We conclude that such a

custodial detention without justification offends the Fourth Amendment, and

therefore, the fingerprints and statements obtained as a result of the detention must

be suppressed. We affirm the District Court.2

I.

Appellant Oscar Flores-Sandoval was taken into custody on July 13, 2003, by

local law-enforcement officers in Elk Point, South Dakota. The circumstances of his

initial arrest are curiously unavailable and therefore not included in the record.

According to Flores-Sandoval's original motion to suppress, local law-enforcement

officers in Elk Point were questioning Flores-Sandoval, and because he primarily

speaks Spanish, the officers called an agent of the United States Border Patrol to act

as an interpreter. In the process, Flores-Sandoval allegedly admitted to the Border

Patrol agent that he was in the country illegally. There is no indication FloresSandoval received a Miranda warning from the police or the Border Patrol during this

custodial encounter. In any event, Flores-Sandoval was placed in the Union County

Jail without being charged. Instead, he was the subject of a civil administrative

detainer issued by the Border Patrol pursuant to 8 C.F.R. § 287.7 (2005). The Border

Patrol then notified ICE Agent Tracy Warner that Flores-Sandoval was being

detained as a possible illegal alien. Warner directed ICE detention and removal

personnel to transport Flores-Sandoval from the Union County Jail to the ICE office

in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. That transportation occurred the next day, after FloresSandoval spent the night in jail.

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When Flores-Sandoval arrived at the ICE office in Sioux Falls, the setting in

the office was relaxed, informal, and others were present, but Flores-Sandoval was

still in custody and was not free to leave. Warner scanned electronic fingerprints of

Flores-Sandoval's index fingers using an automated fingerprint identification system.

The system searched ICE records to determine if Flores-Sandoval had ever been

arrested or deported by the immigration service or had attempted to enter the country

illegally. The system indicated that Flores-Sandoval previously had been deported

as an alien. After learning this, Warner read Flores-Sandoval his Miranda rights

using the Spanish language. Flores-Sandoval then waived his Miranda rights and

admitted he previously had been deported. At that point, Warner took a full set of

Flores-Sandoval's fingerprints in ink and retrieved his alien registration file. FloresSandoval was subsequently indicted under 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a) (2000) for re-entry

after deportation.

Following his indictment, Flores-Sandoval moved to suppress the statements

he made after he was taken into custody by local law-enforcement officers in Elk

Point and the statements and fingerprints obtained by Warner, arguing that his

detention was illegal and that the evidence obtained by Warner was fruit of the

poisonous tree. The District Court found that the government had not met its burden

to show the initial detention by Elk Point law-enforcement officers was lawful, and

therefore, the court held that any evidence obtained as a result of that detention was

tainted. Accordingly, the District Court suppressed Flores-Sandoval’s alleged

statement to the Border Patrol that he was an illegal alien. Finding no relevant

intervening circumstances between Flores-Sandoval's initial detention and the taking

of his fingerprints by ICE, the District Court held that "[t]here is nothing about sitting

in jail that sufficiently purges the primary taint of the illegal arrest.” Report and

Recommendation of Sept. 14, 2004, at 5 (Simko, J., as adopted by Piersol, C.J.).

Consequently, the District Court also suppressed the evidence thereafter obtained by

ICE, including Flores-Sandoval's fingerprints and the admission that he previously

had been deported. The government appeals.

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II.

In reviewing the District Court's decision to suppress the evidence, we review

its findings of fact for clear error and its conclusions of law de novo. United States

v. Guevara-Martinez, 262 F.3d 751, 753 (8th Cir. 2001). The question at the heart

of this case is whether ICE’s detention of Flores-Sandoval was constitutional,

because we must exclude any evidence "obtained by exploitation of [an unlawful

detention] instead of by means sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the

primary taint." Id. at 755 (quoting Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 488

(1963)) (internal quotation marks omitted).

On appeal, the government asserts that ICE's detention of Flores-Sandoval was

constitutional because his admission to being an illegal alien, allegedly made to the

Border Patrol, gave ICE a proper basis to detain him pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1357(a)

(2000). We disagree. "Statements that result from an illegal detention are not

admissible." United States v. Hernandez-Hernandez, 384 F.3d 562, 565 (8th Cir.

2004). The giving of a Miranda warning may, in some cases, break the causal chain

between the illegal arrest and the statement, thereby rendering the statement

admissible. See id. (quoting Wong Sun, 371 U.S. at 486). The government, however,

bears the burden of showing the admissibility of the statement, i.e., that a defendant

waived his Miranda rights and made a free and voluntary confession. See id. As the

District Court determined, the circumstances of Flores-Sandoval's initial detention

and statement to the Border Patrol that he was an illegal alien are not in the record,

and there was no showing that he received a Miranda warning before he made the

statement. Thus, even though there is no indication of improper conduct by Warner

or ICE generally, the statement Flores-Sandoval allegedly made to the Border Patrol

must be suppressed and may not be invoked as providing a proper basis for ICE to

place him in custody and obtain additional statements and his fingerprints.

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The two statutory sources the government relies upon for the authority to detain

Flores-Sandoval underscore our conclusion that his detention by ICE was not

justified. The first is a statute allowing immigration officials to "interrogate any alien

or person believed to be an alien as to his right to be or to remain in the United

States." 8 U.S.C. § 1357(a)(1) (2000) (emphasis added). A plain reading of this

statute requires the government to show that immigration officials believed FloresSandoval was an alien before questioning him. Similarly, the second source of

authority the government cites is a federal regulation allowing immigration officials

to issue a detainer to "seek[] custody of an alien presently in the custody of [another]

agency, for the purpose of arresting and removing the alien." 8 C.F.R. § 287.7(a)

(2005). The section of the regulations immediately following the above-quoted

section sets forth "standards for enforcement activities . . . [that] must be adhered to

by every immigration officer." Id. § 287.8. Section 287.8 requires that prior to an

arrest, an immigration officer must have a "reason to believe" the person is an illegal

alien. Id. § 287.8(c)(2)(i).

The government has not shown, nor even asserted, that ICE had formed a

reason to believe Flores-Sandoval was an illegal alien based on anything other than

his initial statement to the Border Patrol admitting he was in the country illegally.

Absent that statement, which we again point out was made in circumstances

unrevealed by the record and presumably without a Miranda warning, the government

has demonstrated no evidence to justify detaining him. In other words, because the

government has failed to show that the statement was made in circumstances that

make its use permissible, we cannot say the government demonstrated a basis for

believing Flores-Sandoval was an illegal alien. Consequently, the authority for his

full-blown custodial arrest, overnight detention, transportation, and fingerprinting is

not to be found in the statute or regulation on which the government relies.

Nor do we find any factual or legal distinction in this case that would permit

an outcome different from the outcome in Guevara-Martinez, which held, in similar

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circumstances, that fingerprint evidence is subject to the exclusionary rule. 262 F.3d

at 755–57. As in Guevara-Martinez, there has been no showing that Flores-Sandoval

consented to the taking of his fingerprints, and it is unlikely that Flores-Sandoval felt

free to decline Warner's request for fingerprints and terminate the encounter. See

United States v. Zamoran-Coronel, 231 F.3d 466, 469 (8th Cir. 2000) (citing Florida

v. Bostick, 501 U.S. 429, 435–37 (1991)). In addition, the fingerprints were taken

during a custodial detention by ICE that has not been constitutionally justified.

Finally, Flores-Sandoval’s fingerprints were taken "for the purpose of assisting the

[ICE] investigation." Guevara-Martinez, 262 F.3d at 756. Thus, the District Court

properly excluded the fingerprint evidence.

Because the government was able to demonstrate no constitutional justification

for detaining Flores-Sandoval, the District Court did not err in granting his motion

to suppress his fingerprint evidence and statements.

III.

Following the disposition of this appeal, ICE may issue a detainer to retake

custody of Flores-Sandoval because, as a jurisdictional rather than an evidentiary

matter, his body and identity cannot be suppressed as fruit of the poisonous tree. Id.

at 753 (quoting INS v. Lopez-Mendoza, 468 U.S. 1032, 1039 (1984)). ICE will likely

obtain a new set of fingerprints from Flores-Sandoval for civil deportation

proceedings, and the government may recharge him with illegal re-entry after

deportation. As a practical matter, our decision is of very limited value to FloresSandoval. The decision simply applies well-established Supreme Court and Eighth

Circuit precedent and admittedly reaches a result that has a somewhat academic feel

to it. Yet we believe there is value in reminding the government that it must do things

"the right way." Id. at 756. Our holding today serves that important interest.

We affirm the District Court.

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