Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/454/1017/
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 19:52:33+00:00

Document:
1976, police went to an East Orange, N.J., apartment building to execute the arrest warrant for Murphy. Upon arrival, one officer saw petitioner Edward Barry standing outside the building. Recognizing him from his investigation of another robbery one year earlier, the officer arrested petitioner and gave him Miranda warnings. Murphy was arrested inside the building.
ery of the guns used in the robbery, severed any causal link between the illegal arrest and the subsequent confession and therefore the confession was properly admitted. Other courts have arrived at very similar results, 1 but I have serious doubt that these cases can be squared with our own recent decisions.
In order for a statement given to police after an illegal arrest to be admissible at trial, the statement must not only be voluntary by Fifth Amendment standards, but it must also not be the result of exploiting the illegal arrest; rather, it must be "an act of free will [sufficient] to purge the primary taint." Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 486, 416 (1963); Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 602, 2261 (1975). Brown held that Miranda warnings, by themselves, cannot always make a confession "sufficiently a product of free will to break, for Fourth Amendment purposes, the causal connection between the illegality and the confession." 422 U.S., at 603, 95 S.Ct. at 2261. By focusing on the causal connection between an illegal arrest and a subsequent confession, Brown sought to implement the policies behind the use of the exclusionary rule to effectuate the Fourth Amendment . Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 218-219, 2259-2260 (1979). It identified three factors for determining whether it is necessary to exclude a confession obtained following an illegal arrest: "The temporal proximity of the arrest and the confession, the presence of intervening circumstances, . . . and, particularly, the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct are all relevant." Brown v. Illinois, supra, 422 U.S., at 603-604-2262 ( footnotes omitted).
Brown obviously raises serious questions about the admissibility of petitioner's confession. That petitioner confessed after being held for 18 hours while the defendant in Brown confessed after only 2 hours is not dispositive. As Justice STEVENS has observed: "The temporal relationship between the arrest and the confession may be an ambiguous factor. If there are no relevant intervening circumstances, a prolonged detention may well be a more serious exploitation of an illegal arrest than a short one ." Dunaway v. New York, supra, 442 U.S., at 220 ( concurring opinion). See also Hale v. Henderson, 485 F.2d 266, 267-269 ( CA 6 1973) (ordering suppression of statement made 42 hours after illegal arrest), cert. denied, 415 U.S. 930 (1974), cited in Brown v. Illinois, supra, 422 U.S., at 603, n. 8, n. 8; 3 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment 633-634 (1978).
representation by counsel at lineup purged lineup of taint from illegal arrest), cited in Brown v. Illinois, supra, 422 U.S., at 604. See also Wong Sun v. United States, supra, 371 U.S., at 491, 83 S. Ct., at 419 (actual release from detention prior to confession breaks chain).
In terms of the purposes of the exclusionary rule, allowing a confrontation such as occurred in this case to qualify as an intervening circumstance would permit the police to seize and detain any person without probable cause, secure in the knowledge that a confession later obtained by confronting the accused with evidence against him would be admissible. I had thought that this is what the Court sought to prevent in Brown and Dunaway, since "[h]ostility to seizures based on mere suspicion was a prime motivation for the adoption of the Fourth Amendment ." Dunaway v. New York, supra, 442 U.S., at 213.
Footnote 1 See, e. g., In re R.S., 93 Ill.App.3d 941, 49 Ill.Dec. 551, 418 N. E.2d 195 (1981); People v. Finch, 86 Ill.App.3d 493, 41 Ill.Dec. 741, 408 N.E.2d 87 (1980); People v. Emanuel, 98 Mich.App. 163, 295 N.W.2d 875 ( 1980); People v. Gabbard, 78 Ill.2d 88, 34 Ill.Dec. 750, 398 N.E.2d 574 ( 1979); State v. Lewis, 19 Wash.App. 35, 573 P.2d 1347 (1978); Commonwealth v. Bogan, 482 Pa. 151, 393 A.2d 424 (1978); but cf. United States v. Butler, 495 F.Supp. 679 (ED Ark.1980).
Footnote 2 As one commentator has suggested: "[I]n light of the inherent difficulties in establishing that police acted with an improper motive, it does not follow from this that an otherwise inadmissible confession deserves to be admitted into evidence simply because there has been no showing of a flagrant and purposeful Fourth Amendment violation. This is a factor, not the controlling factor . . . and thus must be considered with . . . 'the presence of intervening circumstances.' " 3 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment 635-636 (1978) ( footnotes omitted).

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.