Opinion ID: 2225166
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: temporal proximity weighed in favor of suppression

Text: In the court's suppression order, it found that no more than 10 minutes had elapsed from the time of the illegal entry until Gorup consented to a search of his apartment. It concluded that this factor favored exclusion. The State argues that even this short of a period does not compel the conclusion that the attenuation was insufficient if other circumstances show that the consent was sufficiently an act of free will. Relying on U.S. v. Herrera-Gonzalez , [24] it argues that two relevant circumstances mitigated the short time between the illegal search and Gorup's consent to search: (1) Gorup did not know that the detectives had searched the black bag and found drugs; and (2) Simones informed Gorup of his right to refuse consent to search. In Herrera-Gonzalez, a case involving an illegal traffic stop, the Eighth Circuit stated that it had found consent given a short time after the [traffic] stop sufficient to purge the taint if other circumstances indicate the consent was sufficiently an act of free will. [25] There, the other circumstance was the officer's inability to verify the defendant's license plates or driver's license during the stop. This fact was a sufficient intervening circumstance that justified the officer's request to search and thus separated the defendant's consent from the delayed traffic stop, even if illegal. In other words, in some cases, the intervening circumstances factor may outweigh the temporal proximity factor. Whether there were intervening circumstances, however, is a separate issue from whether a suspect gave consent shortly after an illegal act. Assuming that there were valid intervening circumstances, permitting the State to play the same card twice  by considering the same facts as intervening circumstances and as mitigating circumstances under the temporal proximity factor  would always tip the weighing of the attenuation factors in its favor. Rather, each attenuation factor should be determined separately and then weighed together. [C]onsent [to search] given in very close temporal proximity to the official illegality is often a mere submission or resignation to police authority and not necessarily an act of free will. [26] Dissipation of the taint resulting from an illegal entry, `ordinarily involves showing that there was some significant intervening time, space, or event.' [27] So, `[i]f only a short period of time has passed, a court is more likely to consider the consent [to search] as a poisonous fruit of the illegal act.' [28] We conclude that the court correctly determined that this factor weighed in favor of exclusion.