Opinion ID: 1797529
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Statements as Fruit of an Illegal Arrest

Text: The final inquiry is whether the statements must be suppressed as being the fruit of the unlawful arrest. Taylor v. Alabama, 457 U.S. 687, 102 S.Ct. 2664, 73 L.Ed.2d 314 (1982); Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 486, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963). Statements given during a period of illegal detention are inadmissible, even though voluntarily given, if they are the product of illegal detention and not the result of an independent act of free will. Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 501, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983); Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 45 L.Ed.2d 416 (1975). The fact that the accused would not have made a statement but for the illegal arrest does not alone establish a causal link sufficient to require exclusion of the statement. Brown, 422 U.S. at 602-03, 95 S.Ct. 2254. On the other hand, the fact that an accused may have been properly informed of his constitutional rights and waived them, while relevant, does not alone break the causal link. Taylor, 457 U.S. at 690, 102 S.Ct. 2664; Brown, 422 U.S. at 601, 603, 95 S.Ct. 2254 (holding Miranda warnings are not a talisman). Other factors in assessing the link between the illegal arrest and the statements are the existence of intervening circumstances, the temporal proximity of the arrest and the statements, and the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct. Brown, 422 U.S. at 604, 95 S.Ct. 2254. See also Taylor, 457 U.S. at 690-91,102 S.Ct. 2664; Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 218-19, 99 S.Ct. 2248, 60 L.Ed.2d 824 (1979). In the present case, there was no significant time lapse between the unlawful arrest and the statements in the back of the police car and at the police station, which were made shortly after the arrest. Moreover, there were no significant intervening circumstances. Finally, the improper actions of the police can fairly be characterized as flagrant because Officer Taylor admittedly seized defendant without a warrant for the sole purpose of questioning him about a murder based on information received more than five months earlier, without ever communicating the information to homicide authorities or attempting to contact defendant or to develop further information from other sources. Under these circumstances, which are similar to those of the Taylor, Brown and Dunaway cases, one cannot reasonably conclude that defendant's statements were sufficiently an act of free will to purge the primary taint of the unlawful invasion. Wong Sun, 371 U.S. at 486, 83 S.Ct. 407. Defendant's alleged statements were inseparable from his unlawful arrest and should not have been admitted. [6]