Opinion ID: 2980910
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: king’s motion to suppress

Text: When reviewing a district court’s determination on a motion to suppress, this Court reviews the district court’s findings of fact for clear error and its ultimate legal conclusion de novo. See United States v. Al-Cholan, 610 F.3d 945, 953 (6th Cir. 2010). “A factual finding will only be clearly erroneous when, although there may be evidence to support it, the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.” United States v. Navarro-Camacho, 186 F.3d 701, 705 (6th Cir. 1999). Where, as here, “a district court has denied a motion to suppress, this Court reviews the evidence in the light most likely to -6- No. 10-3781 United States v. King support the district court’s decision.” United States v. Adams, 583 F.3d 457, 463 (6th Cir. 2009). King appeals the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress for two reasons. First, King asserts that the Lakewood City Police lacked jurisdiction to arrest him because the relevant criminal conduct occurred in Cleveland rather than Lakewood. Second, King argues that his arrest was insufficiently attenuated from the Lakewood Police’s improper Terry stop. King’s first argument is unavailing because, even assuming the Lakewood City Police lacked jurisdiction to arrest King, jurisdictional defects do not amount to per se violations of the Fourth Amendment. See Virginia v. Moore, 553 U.S. 164, 172 (2008) (explaining that the legality of a seizure under the Fourth Amendment “has never depended on the law of the particular State” in which the seizure occurs) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also State v. Weideman, 764 N.E.2d 997, 1001-02 (Ohio 2002) (holding that an officer’s violation of Ohio’s jurisdictional law did “not rise to the level of a constitutional violation”). King next argues that, because the Lakewood Police’s initial Terry stop was improper, his subsequent arrest and search incident to arrest should be suppressed as “fruits of the poisonous tree.” See Appellant Br. at 15; see also Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471 (1963). In particular, King notes that there were “only a few minutes between the unlawful police activity and the defendant’s actions. That lapse could not in any way dissipate the taint.” Appellant Br. at 18. Generally, “[i]n order to make effective the fundamental constitutional guarantees of sanctity of the home and inviolability of the person,” the United States Supreme Court requires that “evidence seized during an unlawful search [can] not constitute proof against the victim of the search” and must therefore be excluded from trial. Wong Sun, 371 U.S. at 484. There are, however, -7- No. 10-3781 United States v. King exceptions to this exclusionary rule. Evidence obtained following an unlawful search or seizure will not be excluded if its discovery results from “an intervening independent act of a free will” sufficient to purge the primary taint of the unlawful invasion.” Id. at 486. In this Circuit, fleeing or otherwise resisting an unlawful search or seizure constitutes an intervening independent act of free will that purges the taint from the initial unlawful search or seizure. See United States v. Allen, 619 F.3d 518 (6th Cir. 2010) (finding that “it is widely recognized that if a suspect’s response to an illegal stop is itself a new, distinct crime, then the police constitutionally may arrest the suspect for that crime”) (internal alterations omitted). According, we find that the district court properly denied King’s motion to suppress. The district court first held that Detective Guzik lacked reasonable suspicion to support his initial Terry stop of King’s vehicle. R. 24, Order Denying Defendant’s Motion to Suppress, p. 9. Nonetheless, the district court denied King’s motion because “Defendant’s flight cannot be said to have resulted from an exploitation of the illegality of the initial traffic stop, but was instead an intervening act of free will that is sufficient to purge the taint of the illegal stop.” Id. at 11 (quoting Wong Sun, 371 U.S. at 488). Assuming without deciding that the district court’s Terry stop holding was correct, we wholeheartedly agree with the district court’s conclusion that King’s flight constituted an intervening act that purged any taint from the initial traffic stop. As the district court noted, “[d]uring the course of the high-speed chase that ensued from his flight, the Defendant committed numerous violations, including felony fleeing, which . . . provided probable cause for arrest.” Id. at 12. Accordingly, “the evidence collected post-flight need not be suppressed based upon the illegality of the initial traffic stop, so long as there was a legitimate basis -8- No. 10-3781 United States v. King for its seizure following the capture and arrest of the Defendant subsequent to his flight.” Id. When King was finally apprehended, he was arrested and the search incident to arrest uncovered approximately thirty-two grams of crack cocaine. Id. The district court found that because “the arrest of the Defendant was lawful, the evidence recovered from his person was lawfully obtained and need not be suppressed.” Id. We agree.