Opinion ID: 793736
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: introduction

Text: 5 The majority in this case adopts a misreading of INS v. Lopez-Mendoza, 468 U.S. 1032, 104 S.Ct. 3479, 82 L.Ed.2d 778 (1984), that our circuit squarely rejected in United States v. Garcia-Beltran, 389 F.3d 864 (9th Cir.2004), and that is in direct conflict with the language of Lopez-Mendoza itself. In so doing, the majority eviscerates, for all practical purposes, the exclusionary rule's application to fingerprint evidence, and encourages questionable police practices. I respectfully dissent from my colleagues' decision not to rehear this case en banc. 6 Jose Luis Ortiz-Hernandez was arrested by Portland, Oregon officers on suspicion of drug-related activity. Those charges were later dropped, and Ortiz-Hernandez was indicted under 8 U.S.C. § 1326 for illegal reentry. In the § 1326 case, the district court suppressed fingerprint evidence taken in violation of Ortiz-Hernandez's Fourth Amendment rights and denied the Government's motion to compel a second set of fingerprint exemplars. The Government appealed the district court's denial of that motion to our court. 7 There is but one issue in dispute in this case. All members of the three-judge panel affirmed the district court's ruling that the officers did not have probable cause to arrest Ortiz-Hernandez. All three judges further agreed that Ortiz-Hernandez's fingerprints were taken for investigatory purposes and had to be suppressed. In a move that defies logic, however, the majority held that the Government — which has not demonstrated any independent source dissipating the taint of the earlier constitutional violation — may compel a new set of fingerprint exemplars, effectively gutting the exclusionary rule. As Judge W. Fletcher explained in his dissent, the majority allows the government to accomplish with the second fingerprint exemplars precisely the same thing it holds the government cannot accomplish with the first.  United States v. Ortiz-Hernandez, 427 F.3d 567, 580 (9th Cir.2005) (per curiam) (W.Fletcher, J., dissenting) (emphasis added). 8 Recognizing that its holding here limits the theoretical effect of suppressing the initial set of wrongfully obtained fingerprint exemplars, id. at 578 (majority opinion), the majority justifies its result as compelled by United States v. Parga-Rosas, 238 F.3d 1209 (9th Cir.2001), Ortiz-Hernandez, 427 F.3d at 577. Parga-Rosas is easily distinguished. It is Garcia-Beltran and Lopez-Mendoza that compel the correct result in this case: We should affirm the district court's denial of the Government's motion.