Opinion ID: 2322259
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The drugs and other evidence seized on the night of Jones's initial arrest are fruits of the illegal seizure and thus are inadmissible.

Text: Since the police illegally seized Jones, any evidence gathered as a result of that seizure must be suppressed as fruit of the poisonous tree. [30] The traditionally recognized exceptions to this doctrine are limited to attenuation, inevitable discovery, independent source, or some intervening act or event sufficient to purge the taint of the illegal stop. [31] The United States Supreme Court has never held that abandonment of evidence in response to unlawful police action (e.g., an illegal seizure) constitutes an exception to the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine. Nor has this Court specifically addressed whether evidence that was abandoned as a result of an illegal seizure must be suppressed. Courts that have addressed this question have concluded that suppression is required if the abandonment was a direct consequence of the illegal seizure. [32] The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has held that when the abandonment of property is precipitated by an unlawful seizure, that property also must be excluded. [33] The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has similarly ruled that [w]hile it is true that a criminal defendant's voluntary abandonment of evidence can remove the taint of an illegal stop or arrest, it is equally true that for this to occur, the abandonment must be truly voluntary and not merely the product of police misconduct. [34] Thus, a defendant does not voluntarily abandon property where the abandonment is in response to, because of, or as a direct result of, the unlawful police conduct. [35] Given this authority, the question regarding Jones's first motion to suppress becomes whether his abandonment of the drugs was a result of the unlawful seizure. The United States Supreme Court has set forth several factors that are relevant to determining whether a defendant's behavior was a result of illegal police action. [36] Those factors include: (1) the temporal proximity of the arrest and the defendant's response, (2) the presence or absence of intervening circumstances, and (3) the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct. [37] Put another way, there must be a causal nexus between the unlawful police conduct and [the defendant's] abandonment of his [property]. [38] All three factors point to a conclusion that the illegal seizure provoked Jones' actions. On the first factor, the record reflects that after Detective Dudzinski asked Jones for his identification, Jones refused and immediately began walking away towards the rear where the other members had been gathered outside. [39] Jones dropped the bag of cocaine in the garden while doing so. [40] As for the second factor, no intervening act or event appears that would have severed the causal connection between when Dudzinski seized Jones and when Jones abandoned the drugs. The trial testimony suggests that nothing else occurred in that short interval of time. [41] Thus, this is not a situation where Jones' response to the illegal stop was itself a new, distinct crime that would constitute an intervening act that purged the taint of the unlawful seizure. [42] Finally, nothing in the record suggests that Jones' decision to walk away from Dudzinski and discard the drugs was simply a mere coincidental decision, or caused by anything other than the illegal stop. [43] Thus, the third factor also weighs in favor of concluding that the abandonment was a direct consequence of the illegal seizure. This outcome is consistent with those reached by other courts that have addressed similar facts. [44] Having applied the United States Supreme Court's three factors, we conclude that Jones abandoned the drugs in response to his illegal seizure. The drugs and the fruits of the ensuing arrest should, accordingly, have been suppressed.