Opinion ID: 2272225
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Evidence Should have been Suppressed

Text: The normal rule is that all evidence obtained by searches and seizures in violation of the Constitution is . . . inadmissible in state court. Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 655, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961). Application of this exclusionary rule extends beyond the direct product of a constitutional illegality. It also requires exclusion of the fruit of the poisonous tree, that is, evidence discovered and later found to be derivative of a Fourth Amendment violation. Miller, 894 S.W.2d at 654. Although this exclusionary principle is driven by dual considerations of deterrence and of judicial integrity, Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 600, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 45 L.Ed.2d 416 (1975), the deterrence rationale is paramount: The rule is calculated to prevent, not to repair. Its purpose is to deterto compel respect for the constitutional guaranty in the only effectively available wayby removing the incentive to disregard it. Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 217, 80 S.Ct. 1437, 4 L.Ed.2d 1669 (1960). But the exclusionary rule is not absolute. Once it is determined that, as here, the illegality is the but for cause of obtaining the evidence, the evidence may nevertheless be admissible if the connection between the illegality and acquisition of the evidence is sufficiently remote. As the Supreme Court has stated the rule: We need not hold that all evidence is `fruit of the poisonous tree' simply because it would not have come to light but for the illegal actions of the police. Rather, the more apt question is such a case is `whether, granting establishment of the primary illegality, the evidence to which instant objection is made has been come at by exploitation of that illegality or instead by means sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint.' Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431, 442, 104 S.Ct. 2501, 81 L.Ed.2d 377 (1984), quoting, Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 487-88, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963). Here, the State recognizes that, assuming the detention of Mr. Grayson was unreasonable either initially or after the officer confirmed that Mr. Grayson was not Mr. Reed, then the evidence should have been excluded if the taint of the original illegality was not purged. But the State argues that the taint was purged under the attenuation doctrine. The attenuation doctrine provides that when police derive evidence from an initial illegality, the evidence still may be admitted at trial if the connection between the evidence and the constitutional violation was so attenuated as to dissipate the taint. Nardone v. United States, 308 U.S. 338, 341, 60 S.Ct. 266, 84 L.Ed. 307 (1939). Here, the State argues, the fact that Officer Lambert learned before arresting Mr. Grayson that he had an outstanding municipal warrant and arrested him on that warrant automatically attenuated the connection and made the exclusionary rule inapplicable. But, in a number of prior cases, Missouri courts have applied the exclusionary rule despite the discovery of an arrest warrant after an improper stop. See, e.g., State v. Dixon, 218 S.W.3d 14 (Mo.App. 2007) (evidence must be excluded when officer learned of a warrant prior to actually effectuating the arrest, when the officer would not have been in a position to do so absent the illegal seizure of the defendant); State v. Taber, 73 S.W.3d 699 (Mo.App. 2002) (same). Indeed, the United States Supreme Court has held that three factors must be considered in evaluating attenuation: (1) the temporal proximity of the illegality and the acquisition of the derivative evidence; (2) the presence of intervening circumstances; and (3) the flagrancy of the official misconduct. Brown, 422 U.S. at 603-04, 95 S.Ct. 2254; see also, Miller, 894 S.W.2d at 655. The existence of the warrant was an intervening circumstance. Whether that circumstance is sufficient to attenuate the taint cannot be determined without considering the strength of the other two factors, howeverthat is, the temporal proximity of the illegality and the flagrancy of the misconduct. [5] Here, the temporal proximity of the illegal seizure to the arrest and discovery of the methamphetamine was immediateOfficer Lambert pulled over Mr. Grayson based on less than reasonable suspicion, detained him based on a hunch, discovered the outstanding warrant, immediately arrested him and brought him to the station, and found the methamphetamine in the back of the patrol car. This factor favors exclusion. The nature of Officer Lambert's misconduct also favors exclusion. He engaged in the very type of misconduct that the exclusionary rule was designed to prevent. As discussed at length above, Mr. Grayson's detention was unreasonable from its inception because the stop was not supported by articulable facts sufficient to constitute reasonable suspicion. Further, Officer Lambert subjectively recognized at the point he approached the red Mazda truck and saw that neither the truck, the person nor the conduct matched the tip that he had no basis for continuing the detention of Mr. Grayson but detained him anyway exclusively based on a hunchOfficer Lambert had known [Mr. Grayson] for a lot of years and knew that a lot of times there were warrants for him. It is plain from his testimony that Officer Lambert prolonged the encounter with Mr. Grayson in the hope that something might turn up, a purpose that the Supreme Court has condemned. Brown, 422 U.S. at 605, 95 S.Ct. 2254. Such a fishing expedition is precisely the sort of overreaching police behavior that the exclusionary rule is intended to deter. United States v. Jefferson, 906 F.2d 346, 348, 349 (8th Cir.1990) (applying exclusionary rule when officer unreasonably detained defendant at highway rest stop so the officer could engage in what he himself called a fishing expedition); State v. Murphy, 693 S.W.2d 255, 266 (Mo.App.1985) (It is axiomatic that the Fourth Amendment was never intended to license prosecuting authorities to engage in unbridled `fishing expeditions'). This principle was well-stated in People v. Mitchell, 355 Ill.App.3d 1030, 291 Ill. Dec. 786, 824 N.E.2d 642, 644 (2005). In that case, two officers encountered the defendant on the street while he was taking an early morning walk. The officers had no reason to suspect the defendant of anything but stopped and obtained identification from him anyway, then discovered there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest. Id., 291 Ill.Dec. 786, 824 N.E.2d at 644-45. The officers then arrested Mr. Mitchell and seized illegal drugs from his person while executing a search incident to the arrest. Id. Mitchell held that the illegal drug evidence was the fruit of an unreasonable seizure and should have been excluded at trial. Applying the Brown factors, the court rejected the argument that the arrest pursuant to the warrant attenuated the taint of the illegal seizure. Id., 291 Ill.Dec. 786, 824 N.E.2d at 649-50. In so doing, the court tellingly remarked: Where, as here, the sole apparent purpose of the detention is to check for a warrant, there is nothing else to suppress beyond anything relating to an unknown crime that might turn up, if we were to accept the State's position, since discovery of a warrant would justify the seizure of any additional evidence. If nothing were found, no arrest or seizure would occur, and there would be nothing to suppress. If we were to adopt the rule that the State advocates, there would be no reason for the police not to stop whomever they please to check for a warrant. To hold that the discovery of a warrant in this case removed the taint of the illegality would be akin to holding that the substance of a confession obtained by coercion removes the taint of the coercive practices used to obtain it. Id., 291 Ill.Dec. 786, 824 N.E.2d at 650. (emphasis added). Similarly, in Taber, 73 S.W.3d at 707-02, an officer stopped a vehicle because he believed it was missing a necessary front license plate, and only after the stop did he realize the car was licensed in Kansas, which does not require a front license plate. The officer unlawfully continued the detention, however, by asking the driver for her license. Id. at 702. Upon checking her identification, he discovered she had an outstanding warrant and arrested her. Id. In the subsequent search incident to arrest, the trooper discovered marijuana in her purse. Id. Taber agreed with the defendant that the trial court should have suppressed the marijuana as fruit of the poisonous tree, stating: Evidence is considered fruit of the poisonous tree where its seizure directly results from an illegal search and/or seizure. Miller, 894 S.W.2d at 654. Here, in claiming that the evidence sought to be suppressed was fruit of her unlawful seizure, the appellant argues that the trooper would not have known about the outstanding warrant for her arrest, which not only resulted in her arrest, but the search of her purse incident thereto and the seizure of the marijuana, if he had not first obtained her state identification card, which directly resulted from her unlawful seizure. Id. at 707. As Dixon put the matter in approving exclusion of tainted evidence notwithstanding the existence of a warrant discovered after the illegal detention already had occurred: Corporal Grissom `seized' Mr. Dixon before obtaining information that there was an outstanding warrant for Mr. Dixon's arrest. The State concedes that Corporal Grissom did not have reasonable suspicion prior to learning of the outstanding warrant to justify a seizure. Accordingly, the evidence obtained as a result of the illegal seizure must be suppressed as `fruit of the poisonous tree.' 218 S.W.3d at 22. The State is incorrect in its suggestion that the Supreme Court made it easier to show that the taint of illegal conduct was purged in Hudson v. Michigan, 547 U.S. 586, 592, 126 S.Ct. 2159, 165 L.Ed.2d 56 (2006). In Hudson, the police failed to knock and announce themselves properly before entering a home while executing a valid search warrant. Id. at 588, 126 S.Ct. 2159. The Supreme Court noted that the failure to knock and announce was unconnected to the discovery of evidence inside the house; indeed, it was not even a but for cause of such discovery as the police had a warrant and discovered the evidence as a result of the warrant, not as a result of the violation of the knock-and-announce rule. Id. at 592, 126 S.Ct. 2159. Further, the purpose of the knock-and-announce rule is to avoid alarming those inside and allow them either to open the door or to prepare for police entry so as to minimize the risk of violence and protect property, not to prevent illegal searches and seizures. Id. at 594, 126 S.Ct. 2159. For these reasons, the Supreme Court concluded in Hudson that the interest protected by the constitutional guarantee that has been violated [i.e., the knock and announce rule] would not be served by suppression of the evidence obtained. Id. at 593, 126 S.Ct. 2159. But, as Justice Kennedy noted in his concurring opinion as the fifth member of the Hudson majority, [t]oday's decision determines only that in the specific context of the knock-and-announce requirement, a violation is not sufficiently related to the later discovery of evidence to justify suppression. Hudson, 547 U.S. at 603, 126 S.Ct. 2159 (Kennedy, J., concurring). Hudson did not change the attenuation doctrine, it just found the reason for the exclusionary rule inapplicable to the knock and announce context. By contrast, as discussed above, the interest protected by the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable seizures goes to the very heart of and is directly served by application of the exclusionary rule and the deterrence principle that primarily undergirds it. The State's argument that similarly, here, exclusion of the evidence would discourage police from seeking warrants, critically misunderstands the exclusionary principle Mr. Grayson seeks to invoke and the facts of this case. Mr. Grayson does not seek to invalidate his arrest on the existing, valid municipal warrant. Instead, he seeks to prevent the State from admitting the bag of methamphetamine that was found in the backseat of Officer Lambert's patrol car in his separate trial for possession of a controlled substance, as it was discovered only because Mr. Grayson had been seized illegally, notwithstanding the fact that there happened to be a lawful basis to arrest Mr. Grayson after the seizure took place. For similar reasons, the State's attempt to invoke two other exceptions to the fruit of the poisonous tree rulethe independent source and inevitable discovery doctrinesis equally unavailing. The Supreme Court discussed the independent source doctrine in Murray v. United States, 487 U.S. 533, 108 S.Ct. 2529, 101 L.Ed.2d 472 (1988). In that case, police improperly entered a warehouse and saw illegal materials, but thereafter a lawful warrant (not based on information gleaned from the illegal entry) was issued through which police independently saw and seized the illegal items. Id. at 535-36, 108 S.Ct. 2529. As the seizure was independent of the illegality, the exclusionary rule simply did not apply. Id. at 537, 108 S.Ct. 2529. Similarly, the inevitable discovery rule, closely related to the independent source doctrine, provides that evidence obtained through unlawful means may be admissible if it can be shown that the same evidence would have been inevitably discovered in a lawful manner. Nix, 467 U.S. at 444, 104 S.Ct. 2501 (police could introduce evidence of 10-year-old victim's body where massive search team combing ground nearby inevitably would have discovered body, even though illegal questioning of defendant led to its discovery first). As the United States Supreme Court noted in Nix, the purpose of the exclusionary rule is to ensure that the prosecution is not to be put in a better position than it would have been if no illegality had transpired. Id. at 443, 104 S.Ct. 2501. Conversely, the reason for the exceptions is to ensure that the prosecution is not put in a worse position simply because of some earlier police error or misconduct. Id. Here, Officer Lambert obtained the bag of methamphetamine by taking advantage of the direct chain of events arising from the initial illegality perpetrated on Mr. Grayson. Had Mr. Grayson not been detained while driving innocently and further detained after Officer Lambert ascertained that he was not Terry Reed, then Officer Lambert never would have been in a position to arrest Mr. Grayson and later discover the bag of methamphetamine while inspecting the patrol car's backseat after transporting Mr. Grayson to jail. While the state may have properly arrested Mr. Grayson on the outstanding warrant at some point, [6] it is not the arrest on the warrant but the conviction of possession of methamphetamine found in the patrol car some time after the arrest that is objected to here. Here, the prosecution was put in a better position than it would have been if no illegality had transpired. Nix, 467 U.S. at 443, 104 S.Ct. 2501. The bag of methamphetamine obtained by Officer Lambert was the fruit of Mr. Grayson's unlawful detention, and the motion to suppress it and any testimony pertaining to it should have been granted. [7]