Opinion ID: 2648104
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Independent Investigation

Text: Mr. Christy argues that the district court failed to require an independent investigation before applying the inevitable discovery doctrine. Aplt. Br. 17-21. He asserts that our case law requires a second investigation, independent of the one that resulted in the illegal search, that would have legally discovered the evidence in question. Id. at 18-20. This case, he continues, involves only one investigation—the joint investigation of the Westminster police, FBI, and BCSO. Id. at 20. We cannot agree with Mr. Christy’s interpretation of our inevitable discovery cases. We have said that the doctrine “permits evidence to be admitted if an independent, lawful police investigation inevitably would have discovered -8- it.” Cunningham, 413 F.3d at 1203 (quoting United States v. Owens, 782 F.2d 146, 152 (10th Cir. 1986)) (internal quotation marks omitted). In Owens, we relied on “the necessity of an independent investigation” in refusing to apply inevitable discovery to a warrantless search of a closed container in the defendant’s hotel room. 782 F.2d at 152. While we noted that the illegal search “tainted the only police investigation that was ongoing,” id., we have since held that “neither the majority opinion in Nix nor our cases limit the inevitable discovery exception to lines of investigation that were already underway.” United States v. Larsen,127 F.3d 984, 987 (10th Cir. 1997). In Cunningham and Souza we applied inevitable discovery to situations like the one here—where there was “one line of investigation that would have led inevitably to the obtaining of a search warrant by independent lawful means but was halted prematurely by a search subsequently contended to be illegal.” Cunningham, 413 F.3d at 1204 n.1. In Cunningham, police searched the defendant’s home after getting his consent. Id. at 1202. The defendant later contested the search, claiming his consent was coerced. Id. We held that even if the search was illegal, the evidence was admissible because the officers “would have obtained a search warrant” if the search had not occurred. Id. at 1205. In Souza, police illegally opened a UPS package that contained drugs. 223 F.3d at 1200, 1202. We held the evidence admissible under inevitable discovery because the officers “would have obtained a warrant” had the illegal search not occurred. -9- Id. at 1206. Thus, our case law does not require a second investigation when the first (and only) investigation would inevitably have discovered the contested evidence by lawful means. This comports with the Supreme Court’s treatment of inevitable discovery. When the Court approved of the doctrine in Nix, it did not limit its application to scenarios with a second, independent investigation, even though the facts of that case involved one. See Nix, 467 U.S. at 434-36. The Court instructed only that evidence is admissible if it would be discovered “by lawful means” or “without reference to the police error or misconduct.” Id. at 444, 448. And in Murray v. United States, the Court applied the related independent source rule to admit evidence discovered during an illegal search but subsequently seized by the same officers pursuant to a valid warrant. 487 U.S. 533, 541-44 (1988). The determinative factor in that case was that the warrant and eventual seizure were not tainted by the initial illegality—not that the evidence was discovered by a second, unrelated investigation. See id. at 542. Thus, lest there be any doubt, we reaffirm the notion that inevitable discovery requires only that the lawful means of discovery be “independent of the constitutional violation,” Larsen, 127 F.3d at 987, and conclude that a second investigation is not required. In this case, and as discussed more fully below, Officer Carvo had sufficient probable cause to obtain a warrant based on the information he had before the BCSO deputies searched Mr. Christy’s residence. - 10 - The warrant he would have inevitably obtained would thus have been independent of the constitutional violation.