Opinion ID: 793736
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Majority's Holding Creates a Split with the Eighth Circuit

Text: 29 Not only does the majority misconstrue the meaning of Lopez-Mendoza 's body or identity language and its applicability to fingerprint evidence, the opinion in Ortiz-Hernandez creates an intercircuit split. In Guevara-Martinez, which we quoted with approval in Garcia-Beltran, the Eighth Circuit conclude[d] that Lopez-Mendoza's statement about the suppression of identity only refers to jurisdictional challenges, not to fingerprint evidence challenged in a criminal proceeding. Guevara-Martinez, 262 F.3d at 754. The Eighth Circuit held that Guevara-Martinez's fingerprints were obtained for investigatory purposes, applied Wong Sun, and suppressed them. Id. at 755-56. 30 The Eighth Circuit acknowledged that Guevara-Martinez's fingerprints could be obtained in civil deportation proceedings, and these validly obtained prints used to reindict him on criminal charges. Despite this potential practical consequence, the court refused to ignore [the Government's] use of tainted evidence, and suppressed the invalidly obtained fingerprints. Id. at 756. 31 The Eighth Circuit has adhered to its rule that illegally obtained fingerprint evidence may not be used in § 1326 prosecutions despite the government's ability to obtain exemplars in civil deportation proceedings. See, e.g., United States v. Flores-Sandoval, 422 F.3d 711, 715 (8th Cir.2005); United States v. Perez-Perez, 337 F.3d 990, 994 (8th Cir.2003); United States v. Rodriguez-Arreola, 270 F.3d 611, 619 (8th Cir.2001). Whether or not the Eighth Circuit is correct that a civil deportation proceeding is sufficient to dissipate the taint of an illegality in a § 1326 proceeding, see Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, 251 U.S. 385, 392, 40 S.Ct. 182, 64 L.Ed. 319 (1920) (stating that merely requiring an extra step to procure illegally obtained evidence reduces the Fourth Amendment to a form of words), the Government is not attempting to introduce properly obtained fingerprints in Ortiz-Hernandez's criminal trial. Instead, it seeks an order from the district court dge compelling production of fingerprint exemplars in the criminal case. 32 The Eighth Circuit has not, as we now do in Ortiz-Hernandez, turned a blind eye to the means by which the government obtains fingerprints for use at trial. The Eighth Circuit has recognized that the government is likely to initiate deportation proceedings against defendants charged with violating 8 U.S.C. § 1326 and to obtain fingerprint exemplars in those civil proceedings. Under the Eighth Circuit's case law, the government may then use those untainted prints in the criminal case. Nothing in the Eighth Circuit's precedent, however, would permit the Government to obtain fingerprint exemplars through compelled production in Ortiz-Hernandez's criminal case. To the contrary, the Eighth Circuit has been crystal clear that it will not tolerate what the Ortiz-Hernandez majority has allowed the Government to do: 33 [T]he government points out that a set of untainted fingerprints can be obtained in the civil deportation proceedings that Guevara-Martinez will inevitably face. Since Guevara-Martinez can be recharged using the new set of fingerprints, the government asks us to ignore its use of tainted evidence in this case. We decline to reverse the district court on this alternate ground. In Davis, the Supreme Court refused to affirm a conviction because the authorities there could have used a second set of prints that were validly obtained, stating that [t]he important thing is that those administering the criminal law understand that they must [obtain the evidence the right way]. 34 Guevara-Martinez, 262 F.3d at 756 (quoting Davis, 394 U.S. at 72[5] n. 4, 89 S.Ct. 1394) (second and third alterations in original). 35 No case of which I am aware, in this circuit or the Eighth Circuit, has held that fingerprint exemplars may be obtained through compelled production in a criminal case in the absence of probable cause to arrest or indict a defendant. No case, that is, until this one.
36 As I read the case law, the Government may continue to prosecute Ortiz-Hernandez for the § 1326 violation. It may introduce evidence to prove that he is the same person who previously was removed from the country. But the Government must use untainted evidence. There is a price to pay for obtaining evidence the wrong way, and that price is suppression. The Government is not suddenly exempted from paying that price because the evidence at issue is fingerprint evidence. 37 Perhaps the Government will be unable to make its case against Ortiz-Hernandez without using tainted evidence. That is an accepted consequence of the exclusionary rule. As the Supreme Court explained in Lopez-Mendoza, when the government illegally obtains evidence of an immigration offense, the upshot is that the crime might go unpunished. See Lopez-Mendoza, 468 U.S. at 1047, 104 S.Ct. 3479 (The constable's blunder may allow the criminal to go free. . . .). But the exclusionary rule does not apply in civil deportation proceedings, and for that reason Ortiz-Hernandez likely will be deported. See id. (When the crime in question involves unlawful presence in this country, the criminal may go free, but he should not go free within our borders.). 38 There has never been a finding in this case that the taint of Ortiz-Hernandez's illegal arrest has been dissipated. The majority did not so hold. Instead, it relied on an incorrect, previously rejected interpretation of Lopez-Mendoza's body or identity language. Our court should correct this error by rehearing Ortiz-Hernandez en banc.