Opinion ID: 1105577
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 15

Heading: Gun-Related Testimony

Text: The defendant argues the trial judge erred in admitting testimony about the gun used in the robbery when the trial judge ruled the gun itself inadmissible. This Court has already determined that issue in a similar case. In State v. Johnson, 371 So.2d 1155 (La.1979), the defendant was charged with armed robbery. A pistol, seized from the defendant's automobile, was excluded from evidence at a suppression hearing. At trial, bank employees both testified they saw the bank robber armed with a gun. Relying on State v. Marshall, 359 So.2d 78 (La.1978), this Court held that the policies underlying the exclusionary rule and the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine were not advanced by forbidding the armed robbery victims to testify that they saw a pistol in the defendant's hand before the unconstitutional search and seizure. Johnson, 371 So.2d at 1158. The same reasoning applies in this case. Atkins testified she stole the gun from her brother and gave it to Strickland and Boyd. She related how the men practiced firing the gun. Atkins, McCormic, and Dempsey testified the men constantly handled the gun inside the trailer and took it with them. Atkins testified the men had the gun with them when she dropped them off on the night the crime was committed. Thus, this admitted testimony had no connection to the (arguably) illegal seizure of the gun; no testimony referred to the gun's discovery at the mobile home. In a related argument, the defendant urges that the three women's testimony should have been suppressed as tainted by the illegal seizure of the gun. The issue is whether the connection between the illegal conduct of the police and the challenged evidence has become so attenuated as to dissipate the taint. United States v. Ceccolini, 435 U.S. 268, 273-274, 98 S.Ct. 1054, 1059, 55 L.Ed.2d 268 (1978). In making this determination, courts must consider 1) the proximity in time between the illegal seizure, the decision to cooperate and the testimony at trial; 2) the role of the illegally seized evidence in gaining the witness's cooperation; 3) whether the witness's decision to testify is an act of free will; and 4) the police's motivation in engaging in the illegal conduct. Id., 435 U.S. at 279-280; 98 S.Ct. at 1062; see State v. Kent, 391 So.2d 429, 432 (La.1980). The record shows the women were taken to the station for questioning as to their involvement and knowledge of Strickland's and Boyd's escape, not because a gun had been found. The women's statements to the police were the product of their own free will; they were not under arrest, coerced or threatened in any manner. As previously discussed, the officers' actions in entering the trailer may have had a proper basis. In any event, they did not enter the trailer solely to seize this weapon. The women's testimony was attenuated from and not the product of the (arguably) illegal seizure. Government illegality ... very often will not play any meaningful part in the witness' willingness to testify, because [w]itnesses can, and often do, come forward and offer evidence entirely of their own volition. Ceccolini, 435 U.S. at 276-277, 98 S.Ct. at 1060.