Opinion ID: 1727393
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: O'Neal and Ware

Text: In O'Neal and Ware, the Third and Second Districts answered certified questions in the negative which were nearly identical to that question certified to the Fourth District in the instant case. [3] In concluding that a defendant's identity is not a suppressible fruit of an unlawful stop in a prosecution for driving while license suspended, both courts principally relied on language from INS v. Lopez-Mendoza, 468 U.S. 1032, 104 S.Ct. 3479, 82 L.Ed.2d 778 (1984). Specifically, the O'Neal and Ware courts cited the following language in Lopez-Mendoza as controlling: The body or identity of a defendant or respondent in a criminal or civil proceeding is never itself suppressible as a fruit of an unlawful arrest, even if it is conceded that an unlawful arrest, search, or interrogation occurred. Id. at 1039, 104 S.Ct. 3479. We agree with the Fourth District's conclusion that the reliance by the Second and Third Districts on the aforementioned language was misplaced. In Lopez-Mendoza, the Supreme Court addressed the question of whether the Fourth Amendment's exclusionary rule should be extended to civil deportation proceedings. United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259, 272, 110 S.Ct. 1056, 108 L.Ed.2d 222 (1990). In holding that the exclusionary rule did not extend to civil deportation proceedings, the Court addressed the claims of two aliens, Lopez-Mendoza and Sandoval-Sanchez, both of whom were denied protection of the exclusionary rule in their deportation proceedings. Lopez-Mendoza claimed his arrest was illegal and, therefore, objected to his compelled presence at the deportation proceeding. As the Court noted, Lopez-Mendoza neither objected to nor sought the suppression of evidence: At his deportation hearing Lopez-Mendoza objected only to the fact that he had been summoned to a deportation hearing following an unlawful arrest; he entered no objection to the evidence offered against him. Lopez-Mendoza, 468 U.S. at 1040, 104 S.Ct. 3479. Lopez-Mendoza essentially claimed that his illegal arrest operated to deprive the immigration court of jurisdiction over his person. It was in the context of this claim, and not a claim to suppress evidence, that the Court issued the language relied upon by the O'Neal and Ware courts. This distinction was highlighted by the Court in distinguishing Mendoza's claim from that raised in the consolidated case of Sandoval-Sanchez: Respondent Sandoval-Sanchez has a more substantial claim. He objected not to his compelled presence at a deportation proceeding, but to evidence offered at that proceeding. Lopez-Mendoza, 468 U.S. at 1040, 104 S.Ct. 3479. [4] Moreover, unlike its treatment of Lopez-Mendoza's claim, the Court did not address the substance of Sandoval-Sanchez's evidentiary claim. The Court instead mooted Sandoval-Sanchez's claim by holding the exclusionary rule inapplicable to civil deportation proceedings. Id. at 1050, 104 S.Ct. 3479. Thus, it appears that the Court's reference to the body or identity of a defendant as immune from suppression truly referred to identity in a personal jurisdiction sense. [5] This reading is further supported by an analysis of the cases cited by the Court in support of its proposition. See Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 119, 95 S.Ct. 854, 43 L.Ed.2d 54 (1975) (Nor do we retreat from the established rule that illegal arrest or detention does not void a subsequent conviction.); Frisbie v. Collins, 342 U.S. 519, 522, 72 S.Ct. 509, 96 L.Ed. 541 (1952) (This Court has never departed from the rule ... that the power of a court to try a person for crime is not impaired by the fact that he had been brought within the court's jurisdiction by reason of a `forcible abduction.'); United States ex rel. Bilokumsky v. Tod, 263 U.S. 149, 158, 44 S.Ct. 54, 68 L.Ed. 221 (1923) (Irregularities on the part of the government official prior to, or in connection with, the arrest would not necessarily invalidate later proceedings in all respects conformable to law.). [6]