Opinion ID: 167957
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: A-file

Text: 58 In its order below, the district court found that Defendant's fingerprints were used to connect him to his immigration record and prior criminal record, otherwise known as his A-file. The Government argues, in addition to its Lopez-Mendoza argument, that (1) Defendant lacked standing to challenge the introduction of the A-file; and (2) it is inappropriate to suppress this file because its contents were not developed as the result of any illegal activity, but rather the file was compiled prior to, and independently of, the illegal seizure of Defendant. The Government's challenge thus requires us to determine whether independent government records must be suppressed as fruits of the poisonous tree if the illegal arrest brings to the attention of authorities the fact that an individual is present in the United States and a subsequent check of independently created and maintained records reveals the individual's immigration and/or prior criminal record. 59
60 While the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine applies only when the defendant has standing regarding the Fourth Amendment violation which constitutes the poisonous tree, see United States v. Salvucci, 448 U.S. 83, 85, 100 S.Ct. 2547, 65 L.Ed.2d 619 (1980), the law imposes no separate standing requirement regarding the evidence which constitutes the fruit of that poisonous tree. In Wong Sun, the seminal case defining the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine, the defendant, James Wah Toy, moved to suppress, inter alia, drugs found at the house of his co-defendant, Johnny Yee. 371 U.S. at 487-88, 83 S.Ct. 407. Toy had standing to object to admission of the drugs at his trial because of the alleged violation of his Fourth Amendment rights; in that case, the unlawful arrest of Toy. See id. at 484, 83 S.Ct. 407. The Supreme Court suppressed Toy's statements to the officers, including the statement that he had no drugs but that Yee did, as fruit of the illegal arrest. Id. at 486-87, 83 S.Ct. 407. The Supreme Court ultimately held that Toy was also entitled to suppression of the drugs found at Yee's house because it [was] clear that the narcotics were `come at by the exploitation of [Toy's statement]' and hence that [the drugs] may not be used against Toy. Id. at 488, 83 S.Ct. 407. Thus, regardless of the fact that Toy maintained no reasonable expectation of privacy in the drugs at Yee's house, the Supreme Court determined that he could object to them as poisonous fruits. See id. at 488, 83 S.Ct. 407. 61 In a number of cases, we have reinforced the principle that the relevant inquiry in determining whether a defendant has standing to challenge evidence as fruit of a poisonous tree is whether his or her Fourth Amendment rights were violated, not the defendant's reasonable expectation of privacy in the evidence alleged to be poisonous fruit. In United States v. DeLuca, 269 F.3d 1128 (10th Cir.2001), for example, the defendant, a passenger in a car, moved to suppress methamphetamine taken from the car. Id. at 1130-31. We held that, although the defendant did not have standing to directly challenge the search of the car because he had neither a possessory nor property interest in the car, he had standing to challenge the lawfulness of his detention and thus to seek to suppression of the methamphetamine as fruit of that detention. Id. at 1132. See also United States v. Shareef, 100 F.3d 1491, 1500 (10th Cir.1996) (recognizing that, although a defendant may lack the requisite possessory or ownership interest in a vehicle to directly challenge a search of that vehicle, the defendant may nonetheless contest the lawfulness of his own detention and seek to suppress evidence found in that vehicle as the fruit of the illegal detention); United States v. Eylicio-Montoya, 70 F.3d 1158, 1162 (10th Cir. 1995) (same). 62 Contrary to our conclusion, the Third and Fifth Circuits have expressly concluded that, at least absent egregious circumstances, 11 it is erroneous for a district court to suppress the contents of a defendant's A-file because an alien charged with illegal reentry has no possessory or proprietary interest in his immigration file or the documentary evidence contained in that file and thus has no standing to challenge the file's introduction into evidence. See Bowley, 435 F.3d at 431 (citing the expectation of privacy language used in United States v. Pineda-Chinchilla, 712 F.2d 942, 943-44 (5th Cir.1983)); Pineda-Chinchilla, 712 F.2d at 943-44 (citing Rawlings v. Kentucky, 448 U.S. 98, 104, 100 S.Ct. 2556, 65 L.Ed.2d 633 (1980); Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 143, 99 S.Ct. 421, 58 L.Ed.2d 387 (1978)). Contrary to these decisions, we do not read Rawlings or Rakas, nor any other Supreme Court or Tenth Circuit case, to support the proposition that the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine applies only when the defendant has standing regarding both the violation which constitutes the poisonous tree and separate standing regarding the evidence which constitutes the fruit of that poisonous tree. 12 Instead, in both Rawlings and Rakas, the Supreme Court merely held that a defendant has standing to seek suppression of evidence only if he has had his own Fourth Amendment rights infringed by the search and seizure which he seeks to challenge. Rakas, 439 U.S. at 138, 99 S.Ct. 421; Rawlings, 448 U.S. at 104, 100 S.Ct. 2556; see also United States v. Allen, 235 F.3d 482, 489 (10th Cir.2000). 63 A defendant's standing to challenge the admissibility of evidence deemed fruit of an illegal search and seizure therefore arises from the alleged violation of his Fourth Amendment rights by virtue of the primary illegality; here, the unlawful arrest of Defendant. There is no independent requirement that a defendant also have standing or a proprietary interest in the items sought to be suppressed under the fruits of the poisonous tree doctrine. See 6 LaFave, supra, § 11.4, at 257 ([I]t must be cautioned that a defendant ... can prevail on a `fruit of the poisonous tree' claim only if he has standing regarding the violation which constitutes the poisonous tree, without reference to any other standing requirements) (emphasis added, footnote omitted). In this case, the Government has conceded on appeal that Defendant himself was unlawfully detained and arrested; thus, Defendant has standing to object to any poisonous fruit obtained as a result of that primary illegality. 64
65 Where, as here, a defendant's Fourth Amendment rights were violated, the only relevant question in determining whether evidence is fruit of the poisonous tree and therefore subject to the exclusionary rule is whether, granting establishment of the primary illegality, the evidence to which the 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. United States v. King, 990 F.2d 1552, 1563 (10th Cir.1993) (quoting Wong Sun, 371 U.S. at 488, 83 S.Ct. 407). In this case, the answer to that question necessarily depends on whether Defendant's fingerprints, which the Government used to secure Defendant's A-file, should be suppressed. If the fingerprints are determined to be suppressible it will be because of a determination that the fingerprints were illegally obtained for the investigative purpose of obtaining Defendant's immigration record and potentially charging him with a more serious crime. Under such circumstances it seems to us that the A-file is inextricably linked to the fingerprints and if one is a fruit of the poisonous tree (the unconstitutional arrest), then the other is as well. See Wong Sun, 371 U.S. at 484, 83 S.Ct. 407 (The exclusionary prohibition extends as well to the indirect as the direct products of [Fourth Amendment] invasions.); see also Nardone v. United States, 308 U.S. 338, 341, 60 S.Ct. 266, 84 L.Ed. 307 (1939) ([T]he knowledge gained by the Government's own wrong cannot be used by it simply because it is used derivatively.) (quotations omitted). 66 The Government has cited United States v. White, 326 F.3d 1135 (10th Cir.2003), for the statement that [t]he exclusionary rule enjoins the Government from benefitting from evidence it has unlawfully obtained; it does not reach backward to taint information that was in official hands prior to any illegality. Id. at 1140 (quoting Crews, 445 U.S. at 475, 100 S.Ct. 1244 (plurality opinion)). However, neither Crews nor White stand for the proposition that all preexisting Governmental records found as a result of an illegal arrest are exempt from suppression. 67 In Crews, the Supreme Court expressly noted that the Fourth Amendment violation ... yielded nothing of evidentiary value that the police did not already have in their grasp. 445 U.S. at 475, 100 S.Ct. 1244 (plurality opinion). The record in that case indicated that 68 prior to [the defendant's] illegal arrest, the police both knew respondent's identity and had some basis to suspect his involvement in the very crimes with which he was charged. Moreover, before they approached respondent, the police had already obtained access to the evidence that implicated him in the robberies, i.e., the mnemonic representations of the criminal retained by the victims and related to the police in the form of their agreement upon his description. In short, the Fourth Amendment violation in this case yielded nothing of evidentiary value that the police did not already have in their grasp. Rather, respondent's unlawful arrest served merely to link together two extant ingredients in his identification. 69 Id. (footnote omitted) (plurality opinion). It is in this context that the Supreme Court stated that [t]he exclusionary rule enjoins the Government from benefiting from evidence it has unlawfully obtained; it does not reach backward to taint information that was in official hands prior to any illegality. Id. (plurality opinion). In this case, by contrast, while Defendant's A-file was not developed as the result of any illegal activity, but rather was compiled prior to, and independently of, the illegal seizure of Defendant, the Border Patrol in this case did not effectively have Defendant's A-file in their grasp. Instead, the practicality of the situations is that they obtained Defendant's A-file only by first taking his fingerprints. 70 In White, we held that defendant's identity and the discovery of his status as a felon from criminal history records were not suppressible. However, we did so based on the doctrine of inevitable discovery, concluding that after the defendant voluntary gave the officers his name, an NCIC check using that name revealed an outstanding warrant that would have inevitably led to the defendant's arrest and the subsequent discovery of his prior felony conviction regardless of the illegal search. 326 F.3d at 1138. In refusing to suppress the defendant's status as a felon, we also noted that, at the time the illegal search was conducted, the officers neither knew of nor sought information about the defendant's status as a felon and consequently the illegal search was not exploited for the purpose of determining White's identity or his prior felony status. Id. at 1140. Accordingly, in White, we merely reiterated the general rule that evidence gained through exploitation of illegal police conduct must be suppressed unless that evidence would have been inevitably discovered. We did not announce a new rule prohibiting suppression of all previously compiled Government records regardless of whether exploitation of an illegal search and seizure produced the critical link between a defendant's identity and his immigration or prior criminal history record. 71 In this appeal, the Government does not argue inevitable discovery. Additionally, for the reasons explained earlier, it is possible that, in contrast to White, the police in this case exploited the illegal detention of Defendant by taking his fingerprints for the very purpose of investigating his immigration or prior criminal history status. Where, as may prove to be the case here, obtaining information regarding a defendant's immigration status and prior criminal history proves to be the objective of official illegality, the deterrence purpose of the exclusionary rule would effectively be served only by excluding the very evidence sought to be obtained by the primary illegal behavior, not just the means used to obtain that evidence. See Elkins, 364 U.S. at 217, 80 S.Ct. 1437 ([The] purpose [of the exclusionary rule] is ... to compel respect for the constitutional guaranty in the only effectively available way—by removing the incentive to disregard it.); see also Excluding From Evidence, supra, 69 YALE L.J. at 436 n. 24 (noting that the effectiveness of the exclusionary rule depends on excluding the piece of evidence that is the target of police activity). 72 The answer to whether Defendant's A-file [was] come at by exploitation of illegal conduct necessarily depends on whether Defendant's fingerprints were obtained for an investigatory purpose exploiting the unconstitutional arrest or whether they were obtained as part of a routine booking procedure not linked to the purpose of the illegal arrest. Because the officers used Defendant's fingerprints to obtain his A-file, if those fingerprints are determined to be suppressible as fruits of the poisonous tree, then it follows that the A-file should also be suppressed. Accordingly, whether Defendant's A-file should be suppressed will need to be decided on remand in conjunction with the evidentiary hearing regarding Defendant's fingerprints.