Opinion ID: 1106337
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the defendant's role in attenuation analysis

Text: The majority applies the Brown attenuation doctrine to this case despite significant factual differences. Brown involved the admissibility of a confession, not any other type of evidence. The issue was whether Miranda warnings dissipated the taint of an illegal arrest. The United States Supreme Court opinion is focused on the unique relationship between the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures and the Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination: The Illinois courts refrained from resolving the question, as apt here as it was in Wong Sun, whether Brown's statements were obtained by exploitation of the illegality of his arrest. They assumed that the Miranda warnings, by themselves, assured that the statements ( verbal acts, as contrasted with physical evidence ) were of sufficient free will as to purge the primary taint of the unlawful arrest. . . . . . . . Although, almost 90 years ago, the Court observed that the Fifth Amendment is in intimate relation with the Fourth, Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 633, 6 S.Ct. 524, 29 L.Ed. 746 (1886), the Miranda warnings thus far have not been regarded as a means either of remedying or deterring violations of Fourth Amendment rights. Frequently, as here, rights under the two Amendments may appear to coalesce since the `unreasonable searches and seizures' condemned in the Fourth Amendment are almost always made for the purpose of compelling a man to give evidence against himself, which in criminal cases is condemned in the Fifth Amendment. Ibid. The exclusionary rule, however, when utilized to effectuate the Fourth Amendment, serves interests and policies that are distinct from those it serves under the Fifth. It is directed at all unlawful searches and seizures, and not merely those that happen to produce incriminating material or testimony as fruits. In short, exclusion of a confession made without Miranda warnings might be regarded as necessary to effectuate the Fifth Amendment, but it would not be sufficient fully to protect the Fourth. Miranda warnings, and the exclusion of a confession made without them, do not alone sufficiently deter a Fourth Amendment violation. . . . In order for the causal chain, between the illegal arrest and the statements made subsequent thereto, to be broken, Wong Sun requires not merely that the statement meet the Fifth Amendment standard of voluntariness but that it be sufficiently an act of free will to purge the primary taint. 371 U.S. at 486, 83 S.Ct. 407. Wong Sun thus mandates consideration of a statement's admissibility in light of the distinct policies and interests of the Fourth Amendment. . . . . It is entirely possible, of course, as the State here argues, that persons arrested illegally frequently may decide to confess, as an act of free will unaffected by the initial illegality. But the Miranda warnings, alone and per se, cannot always make the act sufficiently a product of free will to break, for Fourth Amendment purposes, the causal connection between the illegality and the confession. They cannot assure in every case that the Fourth Amendment violation has not been unduly exploited. . . . The question whether a confession is the product of a free will under Wong Sun must be answered on the facts of each case. No single fact is dispositive. The workings of the human mind are too complex, and the possibilities of misconduct too diverse, to permit protection of the Fourth Amendment to turn on such a talismanic test. The Miranda warnings are an important factor, to be sure, in determining whether the confession is obtained by exploitation of an illegal arrest. But they are not the only factor to be considered. The temporal proximity of the arrest and the confession, the presence of intervening circumstances, and, particularly, the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct are all relevant. The voluntariness of the statement is a threshold requirement.. . . . . . . We emphasize that our holding is a limited one. We decide only that the Illinois courts were in error in assuming that the Miranda warnings, by themselves, under Wong Sun always purge the taint of an illegal arrest. 422 U.S. at 600-05, 95 S.Ct. 2254 (citations omitted) (footnotes omitted) (emphasis added). The Court ruled inadmissible a confession that followed an illegal arrest by less than two hours, with no intervening event of significance whatsoever. Id. at 604, 95 S.Ct. 2254. Other courts, including the court in United States v. Green, 111 F.3d 515 (7th Cir.1997), on which the majority relies today, have applied these factors to searches incident to arrest on outstanding warrants discovered during illegal detentions. [1] As reflected in the majority opinion, appellate courts in other states, relying on Green, have also applied the Brown attenuation test under analogous circumstances. See State v. Page, 140 Idaho 841, 103 P.3d 454, 459 (2004); State v. Jones, 270 Kan. 526, 17 P.3d 359, 360 (2001); State v. Hill, 725 So.2d 1282, 1285 (La.1998). However, the United States Supreme Court has never done so. Given that the instant case does not involve a confession, the Brown attenuation analysis does not clearly govern. In the absence of clear directions from the Supreme Court, I am reluctant to apply the test under these circumstances. The Court in Brown was concerned with the effect of an illegal arrest on the defendant's free will, i.e., whether it served as a cause in the decision to confess. An analogous situation arises when a defendant consents to a search during an illegal detention. There the fruits of the search are inadmissible unless the State establishes, by clear and convincing evidence, that an unequivocal break in the chain of events leading from the police illegality to the discovery of evidence dissipated the taint of the illegal police conduct. See Reynolds v. State, 592 So.2d 1082, 1086 (Fla.1992); Norman v. State, 379 So.2d 643, 647 (Fla. 1980). This principle is an application of the poisonous tree doctrine in which the pertinent question is whether, granting establishment of the primary illegality, the evidence to which instant objection is made has been come at by exploitation of that illegality or instead by means sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint. Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 487-88, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963) (quoting John MacArthur Maguire, Evidence of Guilt 221 (1959)). Unlike the Brown confession scenario, the defendant's free will plays no role in the discovery of evidence in a search incident to arrest pursuant to an active warrant discovered during an illegal stop. This scenario bears little resemblance to that of a defendant who confesses or consents to a search for reasons that may be attenuated from the illegality of the stop. For purposes of the exclusionary rule, the complex workings of the human mind, i.e., the defendant's decision to confess, can sever the causal chain between a confession and the preceding illegality in a manner that has no parallel in the acquisition of physical evidence in a search incident to arrest. The distinction between a confession and a physical search following illegal police conduct is reflected in Libby v. State, 561 So.2d 1253 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990), which involves both a confession and a search. There the Second District ruled inadmissible the fruits of a search incident to arrest on an outstanding warrant discovered during an illegal detention, stating only that [t]he fact that a computer check revealed an outstanding warrant for the appellant does not validate the illegal detention. Id. at 1253. The court then ruled inadmissible the ensuing confession, citing to Brown and noting that [t]here were no intervening circumstances, such as consultation with counsel or release from custody, to sufficiently attenuate the confession. Id. at 1254. Consistent with the distinction reflected in Libby, courts in the decisions relied upon by the Fourth District below looked to the link between the police illegality and the evidence acquired thereby without applying the three-part test of Brown. None of these cases involved a confession. See Solino v. State, 763 So.2d 1249, 1252 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000) (holding that since investigatory stop was unlawful, there was no basis for charge of escape arising from defendant's flight from arrest based on information obtained during stop); Rollins v. State, 578 So.2d 850, 851 (Fla. 2d DCA 1991) (holding that the discovery of an outstanding warrant does not validate an illegal detention); Kimbrough v. State, 539 So.2d 619, 619 (Fla. 4th DCA 1989) (holding that physical evidence obtained in search of defendant during detention lacking founded suspicion would properly be suppressed); see also Reagan v. State, 667 So.2d 378, 378 (Fla. 1st DCA 1995) (citing to Libby and Kimbrough in holding that there were no legally sufficient intervening circumstances that would render admissible fruits of search conducted after illegal initial stop). In accord with these decisions, I would hold inadmissible the fruits of the search incident to arrest in this case. There is no break in the chain of circumstances from the illegal detention to the discovery of evidence in the form of an act of free will on the part of the defendantbe it a confession or consent to an otherwise unauthorized search. This result well serves the purpose of the exclusionary rule, which is a judicially created remedy ... designed to discourage governmental misconduct and safeguard against future violations. State v. Johnson, 814 So.2d 390, 394 (Fla.2002). The illegality of the stop would not, however, invalidate the arrest on the pre-existing warrant discovered during the illegal traffic stop. When determining whether the exclusionary rule should be applied, a court should weigh the benefits of deterrence of police misconduct against the costs of precluding the prosecution from using trustworthy tangible evidence in its case-in-chief. See United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 907, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984). The costs of invalidating an arrest based on a warrant arising from circumstances unrelated to the illegality of the detention that led to discovery of the warrant outweigh the benefits of deterring illegal traffic stops. Thus, a valid warrant would remain enforceable even when it is executed during an illegal detention. Further, the question arises as to what would be suppressed by invalidating the arrest. Although a defendant's identity at the time of an illegal detention is suppressible, see State v. Perkins, 760 So.2d 85, 89 (Fla.2000), a crime victim's in-court identification of the accused as the perpetrator is not suppressible as the product of an illegal arrest. See id. at 87 n. 5 (citing United States v. Crews, 445 U.S. 463, 100 S.Ct. 1244, 63 L.Ed.2d 537 (1980)). Therefore, the charges in the outstanding warrant can go forward ifunlike this casethe defendant is indeed the person subject to the warrant.