Opinion ID: 1993666
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: the admission into evidence of the rifle

Text: The defendant contends that the pretrial justice erred in declining to suppress as evidence the rifle that had been retrieved by Sergeant Shepard from a point in Stump Pond located a short distance from the shoreline across from the Smithfield police station. The defendant suggests that this rifle would never have been discovered save for statements and directions illegally obtained by members of the State Police after Trepanier had asserted his right to counsel in the office of Lieutenant Richardson. The pretrial justice did agree that the statements obtained by the State Police and the specific directions concerning the point of disposition of the rifle should have been suppressed as violative of the principles set forth in Edwards v. Arizona, supra . However, the pretrial justice refused to suppress the rifle on the ground that there were three independent sources upon which to base police knowledge sufficient to retrieve the rifle in the normal course of events. One independent source was Laliberte, who had been told by defendant that he had disposed of the rifle in Stump Pond. The second source was Officer Warot who was also told by defendant that he had thrown the rifle into the pond across from the Smithfield police station. The third source was Sergeant Shepard, who testified that he went into the water across from the Smithfield police station and found the weapon in about twenty minutes. The trial justice found that the information from Laliberte and Officer Warot was sufficient to enable Sergeant Shepard, who had been a lifelong resident of the area, to narrow his search in such a manner as to lead to inevitable discovery. We believe that this case is far more compelling on the issue of inevitable discovery than was the case of Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431, 104 S.Ct. 2501, 81 L.Ed.2d 377 (1984). The Court upheld a trial court determination that a body would have inevitably been discovered even without the statements and directions that had been improperly elicited from Williams in violation of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel. In that case the trial court determined and the appellate courts supported the determination that a grid search of an area between Davenport, Iowa, and Des Moines, Iowa, would inevitably have produced the body. In the case at bar the area of Stump Pond across from the Smithfield police station was probably less extensive than the area of the search in Williams. The pretrial justice, as part of his factfinding function, was entitled to draw inferences concerning the public access to the pond, and the distance from the shoreline that a rifle could be thrown by a person like defendant and to determine from the established facts and these inferences the likelihood of discovery of the rifle without assistance from the statements and directions obtained by the State Police. In the circumstances of this case, we are of the opinion that the preponderance of the evidence required by Williams supported the finding that the information from the independent sources was sufficient to disassociate the retrieval of the rifle from the fruit of the poison tree. See Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, 251 U.S. 385, 40 S.Ct. 182, 64 L.Ed. 319 (1920). The pretrial justice did not err in declining to suppress the rifle.