Opinion ID: 788213
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Purpose or Flagrancy of the Official Misconduct

Text: 66 Finally, courts favor suppression if law enforcement officials conducted the illegal search with the purpose of extracting evidence against the defendant or if they flagrantly broke the law in conducting the search. 17 See Brown, 422 U.S. at 603-04, 95 S.Ct. 2254. 67 On one hand, courts frequently hesitate to find that an officer's violation of the law was purposeful or flagrant when the officer broke the law acting in good faith. See, e.g., United States v. Boone, 62 F.3d 323, 325 (10th Cir.1995) (noting that a mistaken belief that the defendant had consented to the search ... rises to the level of a Fourth Amendment violation, [but] it does not qualify as flagrant misconduct that would favor suppression); United States v. Ramos, 42 F.3d 1160, 1164 (8th Cir.1994) (holding that attenuation existed where, among other considerations, the officer's conduct was in good faith); United States v. Richard, 994 F.2d 244, 252 (5th Cir.1993) (holding that attenuation existed where, among other considerations, both agents reasonably believed that they had consent to search the defendant's motel room). Here, the district court appears to have concluded that the officers acted in good faith. It commented that 68 [t]he transcript ... indicates th[e officers] were trying to investigate crime, doing it in a professional way. Their demeanor, tone and dress all indicated a professional approach to this, and not an oppressive action that would overbear the defendant's ability to resist and cause him to consent when he didn't intend to do so. 69 On the other hand, we do not think that substantial evidence supports such a conclusion. Officer Sceirine admitted that he and the other officers approached Washington's room without probable cause to search it. Yet, he and the other RPD officers repeatedly attempted to—and eventually did—gain access—first visually, and later, physically—to Washington's room in violation of Washington's Fourth Amendment rights. It is particularly significant that Sceirine thrice indicated to Washington that the officers could arrest him for failing to register with the RPD as a gun-crime convict. As Sceirine testified at the district court's suppression hearing, he was conveying to Washington ... that [he] could arrest him. But Sceirine never arrested Washington for failing to register with the RPD. 18 Thus, Sceirine's repeated reminders to Washington that the officers could arrest him at any time, in our view, appear to have been given as a tactic to coerce Washington into consenting to the search of his room. Through this approach, Sceirine was hoping to get around the warrant requirement for residential searches because, by his own admission and as the parties agree, the officers did not have probable cause to obtain a search warrant. We also find significant that, once the officers were unconstitutionally inside Washington's room, Sceirine used the fruits of the officers' unconstitutional entry and unconstitutional recovery of Washington's methamphetamine line to coax Washington into signing the permission to search form. 70 On this record, we find it difficult to conclude that the officers acted in good faith towards Washington. Indeed, contrary to the district court's findings, the officers—once they had completed their pat-down search of Washington and finished questioning him in the hallway outside his room about his involvement in methamphetamine manufacturing and/or distribution—unconstitutionally capitalized on their prior violations of Washington's Fourth Amendment rights. 71 Further, the record is clear that the purpose of the officers' encounter with Washington was to obtain evidence of criminal activity—in particular, evidence of a methamphetamine lab—in Washington's room. As noted above, the audio tape and transcript of Washington's encounter with the RPD officers is replete with statements by Officer Sceirine that he and the other officers wanted to search Washington's room for such evidence. Yet, at the time that the officers unconstitutionally entered Washington's room, nothing that Washington had said or done and nothing that the officers observed transformed their lack of probable cause to search Washington's room into probable cause. Against this backdrop, the impropriety of the officers' unconstitutional entry of Washington's room—much less, their continued presence and extended encounter with Washington—becomes obvious.... The [entry], both in design and in execution, was investigatory. The detectives embarked upon this expedition for evidence in the hope that something might turn up. Brown, 422 U.S. at 605, 95 S.Ct. 2254. 72 Because the purpose of the officers' encounter with Washington—in particular, the officers' repeated efforts to conduct a warrantless search of Washington's room—was to detect evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing, City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32, 41, 121 S.Ct. 447, 148 L.Ed.2d 333 (2000), and because there is strong evidence that the officers did not act in good faith toward Washington, we conclude that the purpose and flagrancy factor weighs in favor of suppression. Indeed, only suppression will serve the deterrence principle inherent in the exclusionary rule. United States v. Ienco, 182 F.3d 517, 526 (7th Cir.1999).