Opinion ID: 1978971
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Suppression of the Evidence An Application of Myers v. State

Text: Because the intervening cause argument is properly before us, we now examine whether the police discovery of the arrest warrant and arrest of Petitioner pursuant to that warrant constituted an intervening cause that dissipates the taint of the arguably illegal stop. Petitioner argues that even if the State's intervening cause argument was preserved, the trial court nonetheless correctly suppressed the evidence recovered after Petitioner was illegally stopped. Petitioner cites Ferguson v. State, 301 Md. 542, 483 A.2d 1255 (1984), in which this Court examined the attenuation doctrine and ultimately adopted the multi-factor analysis articulated by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 45 L.Ed.2d 416 (1975). Petitioner explains that this Court, by adopting the Supreme Court's Brown analysis, examines three factors to determine whether evidence obtained after an illegal arrest or stop has been purged of the taint of the illegality. The first factor is the temporal proximity of the illegality and the evidence. See Ferguson, 301 Md. at 549, 483 A.2d at 1258. Petitioner next explains that the second factor to be weighed is the presence of an intervening event. See id. Lastly, Petitioner posits that the third factor is the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct. See Ferguson, 301 Md. at 549, 483 A.2d at 1258. Based on these three factors, Petitioner contends that the officer's discovery of the marijuana after Petitioner's illegal detention was not so attenuated such that it would dissipate the taint of the illegal stop. As to the first factor, Petitioner asserts that the discovery of the marijuana and the illegal stop were contemporaneous and that this Court, in Ferguson, stated that a lapse of twenty minutes weighed in favor of suppression. Ferguson, 301 Md. at 550, 483 A.2d at 1259. Next, Petitioner states that the arrest was not an intervening circumstance based on the Seventh Circuit's analysis in United States v. Ienco, 182 F.3d 517 (7th Cir.1999). [5] By analogy to Ienco, Petitioner argues that it is evident that the contraband was left on the ground before, and not after, [Petitioner] was arrested on the valid warrant because Petitioner was seated while illegally detained and stood up to be arrested. Petitioner contends, therefore, that under Ienco, this Court should find that the marijuana should be suppressed. Petitioner states further that even if the arrest warrant does constitute an intervening cause, that fact alone does not mandate admission of the tainted evidence. Instead, Petitioner cites cases in other jurisdictions for the proposition that the analysis is actually a balancing test and that no one factor should be given dispositive weight. Petitioner then discusses the third Ferguson factor and argues that an officer's act of arresting an individual without probable cause weighs in favor of suppression. According to Petitioner, because Sergeant Bryant stopped Petitioner without reasonable articulable suspicion, Sergeant Bryant acted purposefully and flagrantly. Moreover, Petitioner states that Sergeant Bryant stopped him with the hope that the officer would discover an outstanding warrant or contraband because he never questioned Petitioner about the recent robberies, making his conduct even more flagrant. Petitioner lastly asserts that [t]o permit the State to use evidence obtained in this fashion would simply encourage officers to begin stopping individuals without reasonable articulable suspicion to do so and with the sole intention of uncovering contraband, knowing that if it was revealed that the individual had an outstanding warrant any evidence recovered would not be subject to the exclusionary rule despite their unlawful act of stopping the individual in the first place. Petitioner therefore concludes that suppression is the proper remedy. The State contravenes Petitioner's position on the basis that even if the stop were illegal, the existence and discovery of the warrant dissipates the taint. The State explains that this Court, by adopting the case law of the Supreme Court, has noted three methods by which evidence obtained after initial unlawful conduct can be purged of any taint. First, taint will be purged if the police would have inevitably or ultimately discovered the evidence notwithstanding a constitutional violation. See Myers, 395 Md. at 285, 909 A.2d at 1062 (citing Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431, 443 n. 4, 104 S.Ct. 2501, 2509 n. 4, 81 L.Ed.2d 377, 387 n. 4 (1984)). Second, the taint will be purged upon a showing that the evidence was derived from an independent source. See Myers, 395 Md. at 284-85, 909 A.2d at 1062 (citing Segura v. United States, 468 U.S. 796, 813-14, 104 S.Ct. 3380, 3390, 82 L.Ed.2d 599, 614 (1984)). Third, the taint will be purged if the illegal government conduct is so attenuated as to purge any taint resulting from that conduct. See Myers, 395 Md. at 284, 909 A.2d at 1062 (citing Wong Sun v. U.S., 371 U.S. 471, 487, 83 S.Ct. 407, 417, 9 L.Ed.2d 441, 455 (1963); Nardone v. United States, 308 U.S. 338, 341, 60 S.Ct. 266, 268, 84 L.Ed. 307, 312 (1939)). In analyzing the Brown factors, the State argues that even though the time lapse between the stop and the discovery of the evidence was relatively brief, this Court should conclude, in accordance with Myers, as well as the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in United States v. Green, 111 F.3d 515, 521 (7th Cir.1997), [6] that the question of timing is not dispositive on the issue of taint. In addition, the State argues that because this Court, in Myers, decided that the discovery of an outstanding arrest warrant is an intervening circumstance, the second factor clearly weighs in the State's favor. The State distinguishes this case from Ienco because there existed no outstanding arrest warrant in Ienco. The State points out that the Ienco court specifically noted that, in Green, it had held that the discovery of an outstanding arrest warrant is an intervening circumstance, see Ienco, 182 F.3d at 527-28, and that the case was different from a Fifth Circuit case, United States v. Walker, 535 F.2d 896, 898-99 (5th Cir.1976), where an initial illegal arrest did not taint evidence found in a search pursuant to a second lawful arrest. The State argues, therefore, that because the police had probable cause to arrest Petitioner before they discovered the marijuana, the fact that Petitioner may have discarded the bag while he was seated on the ground is not relevant. On this point, the State cites Myers, 395 Md. at 292, 909 A.2d at 1066, where this Court held that the question of timing is not dispositive on the issue of taint, especially because there was an outstanding arrest warrant discovered between the initial stop and the subsequent search incident to the arrest, even though some of the evidence was discovered shortly after the illegal stop. The State points out that Sergeant Bryant stopped Petitioner because he loosely fit the description of recent burglars and that nothing in the record indicates that Sergeant Bryant acted in bad faith when he approached Petitioner and Martin for identification, as Petitioner suggests in his brief. Therefore, the State concludes that this Court must find that the probable cause from the outstanding warrant dissipated any taint from the initial detention. We reject Petitioner's contention as to this point and again agree with the State. As we stated supra, even if the police officer's initial encounter with Petitioner was illegal, that fact would not be dispositive at this stage in our analysis. In Myers v. State , we analyzed the impact of an outstanding arrest warrant on an arguably unlawful stop by police officers and the application of the three factors under Brown for determining whether the causal connection had been sufficiently attenuated to dissipate the taint of the illegal conduct. In Myers, a case factually similar to the case, sub judice, we held that, assuming arguendo, the initial stop by the police of Myers's vehicle was illegal, the officer's discovery of the outstanding warrant and arrest of Myers pursuant to that warrant was sufficient to remove the taint of the initial stop such that the subsequent search of Myers and his vehicle were lawful. In addition, we acknowledged that some of the evidence was seized almost immediately after the arrest, whereas some was seized some time later after the officer obtained the additional warrants. We reasoned, however, as the State asserts, in the instant case, that the question of timing is not dispositive on the issue of taint, especially because there was an outstanding arrest warrant discovered between the initial stop and the subsequent search incident to the arrest, even though some of the evidence was discovered shortly after the illegal stop. Further, we explained that the discovery of the warrant for Myers's arrest constituted an intervening circumstance or cause that attenuated the taint of the illegal stop. Ultimately, we looked to the purpose and flagrancy of the officer's conduct and determined that the purpose of the stop was not to effectuate the arrest of Myers on an outstanding warrant or to search his vehicle. Merely because Officer Weikert's stop of Myers was determined to be invalid does not mean that his conduct was flagrant. Myers, 395 Md. at 293, 909 A.2d at 1067. Instead, we concluded that the officer stopped Myers because of what he thought was suspicious activityspeeding. Once he discovered an outstanding warrant, the officer gained an independent and intervening reason to arrest and search Myers. Therefore, we held that the lawful arrest and search of Myers attenuated the taint of the illegal stop and the evidence was admissible. In our application of Brown v. Illinois and Myers to the facts of this case, we focus our attention on the three factors articulated in Brown, supra .