Opinion ID: 621368
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: deterrence and social costs

Text: The majority's final three arguments relate to deterrence and the attendant social costs of exclusion. Specifically, the majority argues that: (1) exclusion would serve only minimal deterrent value because the illegal search was not conducted for the purpose of uncovering the evidence at issue; (2) exclusion of the bank records provides only minimal incremental deterrence because the passports have already been excluded; and (3) exclusion would burden the truth-seeking function of the courts. I disagree. First, the majority states that the evidence should not be excluded because the focus of the airport search was in no way related to the usefulness of the information obtained to the bank fraud prosecution and, therefore, the deterrent effect of excluding the evidence is ... minimal. This statement is simply inaccurate. Maj. Op. at 989. By the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent's own admission, the purpose of the illegal search was to uncover contraband. R. 26 (Suppression Hr'g Tr. at 97). Thus, while we do not know precisely what the agent expected (or hoped) to find, we do know that the agent's searching activities were aimed at implicating Fofana in criminal wrongdoing. By finding the passports connecting Fofana to Ousmane Diallo, the agent succeeded in this aim regardless of whether the agent specifically foresaw and intended this exact result. [3] Allowing successful prosecution based on the fruits of this search creates incentives for agents to engage in similar conduct in the future. Moreover, the circumstances of this search are sufficiently distinguishable from those in Ceccolini. In Ceccolini, the officer observed an envelope with incriminating evidence while in a flower shop spending his short break engaged in conversation with his friend Lois Hennessey. 435 U.S. at 270, 98 S.Ct. 1054. Given the incidental, casual encounter in Ceccolini between the officer and his friend, the flower shop employee, it is easy to see how the Court was confident that there was no future misconduct to deter. In contrast, the search in question occurred in conjunction with an administrative TSA search, to which TSA reports approximately two million travelers are subjected each day. [4] Given the broad discretion already granted to TSA agents to search the traveling public, it is important to deter unconstitutional conduct and to ensure that TSA's broad powers are not improperly exploited for law-enforcement purposes. Suppressing the bank records serves this precise deterrent purpose. Second, the majority states that because the passports have been suppressed, suppression of the bank records will achieve only minimal incremental deterrence. I disagree. Although suppression of the passports has some deterrent effect, it is not enough given the significant benefit in using the information obtained from the passports to pursue the bank-fraud prosecution. In fact, in light of the usefulness of the information obtained from the illegal search, the government may view the suppression of the passports as a worthwhile sacrifice. Particularly in the context of airport administrative searches, it is important to maintain an incentive structure that does not encourage illegal behavior by ultimately permitting law enforcement to utilize evidence obtained as a result of misconduct in aid of significant prosecutions. [5] Suppressing the bank records achieves precisely this deterrent effect. Third, the majority argues that the bank records should not be excluded because doing so would burden the truth-seeking function of the courts. Maj. Op. at 990. In support, the majority presents a kidnaping hypothetical and admonishes the use of the exclusionary rule to force ... a Hobson's choice. Id. This argument overlooks a crucial reality of this case: The government was in no way forced into a Hobson's choice. The government could have structured its investigation to insulate the admissibility of the bank records as against Fofana via the various established exceptions to the fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree doctrine. After learning of the connection between Fofana and Ousmane Diallo, the government could have pursued an independent investigation to procure this connection via an independent source. See Wong Sun, 371 U.S. at 487, 83 S.Ct. 407. This is in fact more or less what occurred in United States v. Watson, 950 F.2d 505 (8th Cir.1991), which the majority cites favorably in support of its position. [6] In the alternative, had the government wished to avoid exerting investigatory resources, under established Sixth Circuit precedent, it could have simply asserted its typical processes for investigating bank fraud to demonstrate that it would have inevitably discovered the connection between Fofana and Ousmane Diallo. See Keszthelyi, 308 F.3d at 574 (The government can satisfy its burden by showing that routine procedures that police would have used regardless of the illegal search would have resulted in the discovery of the disputed evidence.) (internal quotation marks omitted). [7] The government, however, did not make either effort and instead asks this court to sanction its inaction by allowing it to rely on the illegality for the evidence's admission. The Fourth Amendment requires more. With an array of established exceptions providing the government with safety valves to the exclusionary rule's application, it is not only unnecessary but also improper to indulge the government's request. The conclusion that the majority reaches today is inconsistent with our prior decision in United States v. Leake, 95 F.3d 409, 417-418 (6th Cir.1996), in which this Circuit suppressed evidence discovered pursuant to an illegal search that provided the necessary connection between the defendant and an alias. In Leake, an independent investigation by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) had been initiated prior to an illegal search of Leake's home by Kentucky police officers. As a result of the illegal search, the police officers were able to contact Leake's girlfriend, who provided a list of information, which included the fact that Leake's alias was John Sandusky. Id. Subsequent investigation by the DEA utilizing information resulting from the illegal search led to utility and vehicle registration records in the name of John Sandusky that linked Leake to the conspiracy previously under investigation. Id. at 414. Although the government admitted that the list provided by the girlfriend that contained the alias was inadmissible, id. at 415 n. 9, it argued that other evidence thereby derived was admissible pursuant to the inevitable-discovery or independent-source doctrines, id. at 417. The court held that all evidence connecting Leake to the alias `John Sandusky' must be suppressed, id. at 421, noting that [w]hile it is conceivable that investigators might have worked their way to the evidence relating to the alias John Sandusky, the government has failed to carry its burden of proof in this regard, id. at 418 (citing Nix, 467 U.S. at 444-45, 104 S.Ct. 2501). I find it is difficult to square the careful exclusion of the alias evidence and the various connections it facilitated to other incriminating evidence in Leake with the majority's holding today. There was no evidence linking Fofana to Ousmane Diallo prior to the illegal search, and the government made no effort to demonstrate its ability to establish this link independent of the illegality. Just like Leake, this is a case brimming with lose ends. Id. at 418 n. 18. Had the government taken simple, independent investigatory steps to solidify its case against Fofana we would be deciding a very different case today. In fact, we would very likely have a case in which we could unanimously agree that at least one of the established exceptions to the fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree doctrine applied. However, such is not the case before us. As Justice Stevens so aptly stated in Nix v. Williams : The majority refers to the `societal cost' of excluding probative evidence. In my view, the more relevant cost is that imposed on society by police officers who decide to take procedural shortcuts instead of complying with the law. Nix, 467 U.S. at 457, 104 S.Ct. 2501 (Stevens, J., concurring) (citation omitted). While it is often the unhappy result of the exclusionary rule that those who are culpable go free, this is the cost of ensuring meaningful protection of important constitutional rights. See Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 659, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961) (The criminal goes free, if he must, but it is the law that sets him free. Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the character of its own existence.). I cannot condone the government's brazen disregard of the Fourth Amendment in this instance. Doing so is inconsistent with prior precedent and diminishes the importance of constitutional liberties. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.