Opinion ID: 474302
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Alleged Egregious Conduct.

Text: 24 Petitioner asserts that an egregious violation of the Brignoni standards has occurred in that no specific articulable facts have been proven to justify petitioner's detention. Petitioner offers no authority for the novel proposition that the mere failure to articulate specific facts to justify a detention is egregious conduct requiring suppression of evidence in a civil deportation proceeding. It is quite true that the Supreme Court left open the question whether the exclusionary rule would apply to egregious violations of Fourth Amendment or other liberties that might transgress notions of fundamental fairness and undermine the probative value of the evidence obtained. Lopez-Mendoza, 104 S.Ct. at 3490 (emphasis added). Petitioner has neither argued nor attempted to demonstrate that the conduct of the Border Patrol agents in this matter in any way undermined the probative value of petitioner's statements. No evidence was offered that the statements were made involuntarily, or were the product of duress or coercion. In Lopez-Mendoza, the Supreme Court held that the exclusionary rule does not apply in civil deportation proceedings to evidence gathered in connection with a peaceful arrest which violated the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 3490-91. 25 In the absence of some proof casting doubt on the probative value of voluntary statements following an illegal detention, evidence that the arrest was unlawful does not affect the admissibility of an undocumented alien's statements.