Opinion ID: 621368
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: inevitable discovery, independent source, and attenuation

Text: In support of its decision, the majority asserts that the bank records at issue were in the Government's possession entirely free of illegal taint. Maj. Op. at 5. In making this argument, the majority blurs elements of three exceptions to the fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree doctrine: (1) inevitable discovery; (2) independent source; and (3) attenuation. None of these exceptions apply. Citing United States v. Alexander, 540 F.3d 494 (6th Cir.2008), the majority invokes the inevitable-discovery doctrine and accompanying principle that the exclusionary rule cannot be applied so as to make the government worse off than if the illegal search or seizure had not occurred. As recognized by the Supreme Court in Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431, 443-44, 104 S.Ct. 2501, 81 L.Ed.2d 377 (1984), the inevitable-discovery doctrine provides an exception to the exclusionary rule for evidence... that inevitably would have been discovered by lawful means, United States v. Keszthelyi, 308 F.3d 557, 573-74 (6th Cir.2002). However, by the government's own admission, there is no indication that the connection between Fofana and Ousmane Diallo would have inevitably been made. See R. 55 (Pretrial Tr. at 6) (government acknowledging that, because of the passport, law enforcement was able to put [] together the fact that Fofana was the person who opened the accounts under the alias Ousmane Diallo and that it was pure speculation whether such connection would have been made otherwise). In fact, the government did not even raise the application of the inevitable-discovery doctrine on appeal. Without evidence that the connection between Fofana and Ousmane Diallo would have inevitably been made regardless of the illegal search, I cannot perceive how the majority concludes that exclusion of the bank records places the government in a worse position. To the contrary, exclusion in this instance returns the parties to the status quo prior to the illegal search. The majority also alludes to the independent-source doctrine, emphasizing that the bank records were lawfully in the government's possession prior to the illegal search. While the independent-source doctrine does provide that evidence need not be excluded where a proper, independent search led to the evidence in question, it is inapplicable here. United States v. Baldwin, 114 Fed.Appx. 675, 681 (6th Cir.2004) (unpublished opinion) (quoting United States v. Dice, 200 F.3d 978, 984 (6th Cir.2000)) (internal quotation marks omitted). The majority's argument misses the proper focus of the analysis. The bank records, which bore the alias Ousmane Diallo, were meaningless as against Fofana until the discovery of the passports in Fofana's possession established the connection between Fofana and the alias Ousmane Diallo. Thus, it matters not that the government had the bank records prior to the illegal search because the government would never have known to use those bank records in prosecuting Fofana if not for the illegal search. It is the establishment of the connection between Fofana and the alias Ousmane Diallo that is important for our analysisnot the prior legal possession of the bank records themselves. To make out an independent-source exception the government needed to demonstrate that it had knowledge of the connection between Fofana and Ousmane Diallo via an independent source. [1] The district court was correct in concluding that the government failed to carry its burden in this respect. Finally, the government invokes the attenuation doctrine citing United States v. Crews, 445 U.S. 463, 100 S.Ct. 1244, 63 L.Ed.2d 537 (1980), and United States v. Ceccolini, 435 U.S. 268, 98 S.Ct. 1054, 55 L.Ed.2d 268 (1978). The Supreme Court has explained the attenuation doctrine as follows: 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 in 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.' Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 487-88, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963). The Supreme Court has suggested three factors to guide the attenuation analysis: the temporal proximity of the [illegality] and the emergence of the incriminating evidence at issue, the presence of intervening circumstances, and, particularly, the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct. United States v. Williams, 615 F.3d 657, 669 (6th Cir.2010) (alterations in original omitted) (quoting Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 603-04, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 45 L.Ed.2d 416 (1975)). The cases that the majority cites in support of its attenuation argument are not analogous. The Supreme Court in Crews based its finding of attenuation on the fact that the police's knowledge of respondent's identity and the victim's independent recollections of him both antedated the unlawful arrest and were thus untainted by the constitutional violation. 445 U.S. at 477, 100 S.Ct. 1244. In other words, the Supreme Court found that the identifying link connecting the defendant to the crime, i.e., the witness's independent knowledge, existed prior to and independent of the illegality. Although the police had knowledge of the bank records' existence prior to the illegality, as the police in Crews had knowledge of the respondent's identity, the police did not have knowledge of the link between Fofana and the alias. The link between Fofana and the alias is the identifying link crucial to the Crews holding: the victim's independent recollections connecting the respondent to the crime. As a result, the illegal search at issue here, as opposed to that in Crews, did provide something of evidentiary value that the police did not already have in their grasp by link[ing] together two extant ingredients in [the] identification Fofana and the alias Ousmane Diallo. Id. at 475, 100 S.Ct. 1244. In Ceccolini, the Supreme Court concluded that witness testimony given as an act of ... free will after [s]ubstantial periods of time elapsed between the time of the illegal search and the initial contact with the witness ... and the testimony at trial was sufficiently attenuated. 435 U.S. at 279, 98 S.Ct. 1054. The present case involves physical evidence rather than witness testimony and, therefore, excludes the possibility that free will could remove the taint. See United States v. Akridge, 346 F.3d 618, 633-34 (6th Cir.2003) (Moore, J., dissenting) (listing five considerations informing the Supreme Court's inquiry in Ceccolini and identifying the element of free will as the most important). The bank records in question, unlike the testifying witness in Ceccolini, have no independent identifying ability and, therefore, are unable to bridge the connection between Fofana and Ousmane Diallo apart from the taint of the illegal search. In addition, there was not a significant lapse in time between the illegal search and use of information gained by the illegal search. The illegal search occurred in November 2007 and U.S. Bank filed the Suspicious Activity Report implicating Fofana less than three months later. R. 46 (Suspicious Activity Report at 4). [2] In short, there is no attenuation to purge the taint between the illegal search and the identification of Fofana as synonymous with Ousmane Diallo. It is clear that the illegal search has been exploited in order to marshal the bank records in the government's possession against Fofana.