Opinion ID: 411710
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The search of the white Ford van

Text: 27 Because the exclusionary rule bars the use of evidence seized in an illegal search, the district court erred in refusing to suppress the evidence seized in the search of the residence and the search of the station wagon and defendants' persons incident to their arrest. The further inquiry remains whether the evidence seized from the van in the hotel parking lot must be excluded. 28 After Miller stopped defendants' station wagon, he detected a strong odor of ether emanating from the car's interior and noted that the defendants were each sprinkled with a white powder he suspected to be PCP. He immediately arrested them, and searched the defendants and the station wagon. The search revealed two keys belonging to the Visalia Holiday Inn. The officers then looked through the parking lot of the Holiday Inn and located a 1977 white Ford van. They detected a strong odor of ether coming from the van and also noted in plain view (apparently through the van windows) a triple beam scale and box, three five gallon black cans, one five gallon water bottle, a number of five gallon buckets and a bag appearing to contain rubber gloves. The police obtained a warrant and subsequently searched the van. 4 The search disclosed two pounds of PCP and chemicals used in its manufacture. 29 Under the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine, evidence obtained not in an illegal search but as a result of that search is inadmissible against the victim of the search, unless the connection between the lawless conduct of the police and the discovery of the challenged evidence has 'become so attenuated as to dissipate the taint.'  United States v. Ceccolini, 435 U.S. 268, 273-74, 98 S.Ct. 1054, 1058-59, 55 L.Ed.2d 268 (1978); Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. at 487, 83 S.Ct. at 417. We decline to reach the difficult question whether the discovery of the van was inadmissible under this doctrine, because absent the inadmissible evidence obtained from the illegal search of the Avenue 320 residence and the automobile stop, there is no probable cause to support the search of the van. 30 The only evidence that the magistrate could properly consider in determining this issue of probable cause linked the van neither to the defendants nor to criminal activity at Avenue 320 or elsewhere. The anonymous informer stated that a white Dodge van was being used at the Avenue 320 residence. The van actually searched, however, was a Ford. The informant's information, coupled with the investigators' observations were insufficient to give rise to probable cause to search the residence and bore no relationship at all to a Ford van located in a hotel parking lot. When investigators located the van they noted the odor of ether emanating from the vehicle and observed a scale, a bag of rubber gloves and a number of containers. These circumstances simply do not approach probable cause to search. 31 The judgments of conviction are reversed.